SACW - 11 June 2013 / Sri Lanka: What are ‘anti-national’ criticisms? / Bangladesh: Bomb Blasts / Not Talking About Pakistan / Japan-India ties / Afghanistan: Buddhist treasures face destruction / India: workers rights ; Bloodstained cycle in Chattissgarh / Turkeys respectable Islamists vs the battle for a park

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - 11 June 2013 - No. 2785
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Contents:

1. Sri Lanka: What are ‘anti-national’ criticisms exactly? (Kishali Pinto Jayawardene)
2. Media Freedom in Sri Lanka Curtailed Via Proposed Code of Ethics by GoSL
3. Bangladesh: Bomb Blasts outside International Crimes Tribunal and at Shahbag Square in Dhaka
4. Bangladesh: Keeping religion out of local government
5. The Emerging Japan-India Relationship: Nuclear Anachronism, Militarism and Growth Fetish (P K Sundaram)
6. The risks to worker safety in India are serious: Scott Nova, Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
7. Bangladesh’s exploitation economy
8. Press Release Founding Conference of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples
9. Anti-Areva Protest: Letter to French and European Bankers from Fishermen and Farmers of Jaitapur
10. India: Kudankulam - the unsettled queries (M. V. Ramana)
11. India: A Strategy To Cripple A Seat of Learning (Mukul Mangalik)
12. Taymiya R. Zaman: Not Talking About Pakistan
13. Self-Reflection Fast: How should India Behave With Its Tribal Population (Himanshu Kumar)
14. India: The Bloodstained Karmic Cycle (Nandini Sundar)
15. Mes Aynak: Afghanistan’s Buddhist buried treasure faces destruction
16. Afghanistan: Attacks on humanitarian workers must end - Statement by Amnesty International
17. Press Release by International Team of Lawyers and Trade unionists on Workers Rights in Maruti Suzuki Manesar plant, India
18. Selected Posts on Communalism Watch:
  - India: Madhu Kishwar's Tweet saluts the courage of Gandhi's Assasin Nathuram Godse
  - India: Politics of a memorial to Bhindranwale and Sikh fundamentalists in Punjab
  - India: Why a private memorial for victims 1984 anti sikh riots at a sikh religious temple , Why not a public memorial with tax payers money ? 
  - Drama and Crisis in BJP, Top leader Advani resigns
  - India: Screening of film on MF Husain by French filmmaker cancelled after VHP protests 
  - Youtube video: Narendra Modi at the Kumbh Mela 2013 and his tie up with the Hindu religious figures 
  - Narendra Modi bulldozes his way on the road to official nomination as BJP's PM candidate 2014 Polls in India: Cartoons, reports and video 
  - Ignore those who love to Hate - Hate Speech and Communal Politics (Ram Puniyani) 
  - India - Assam: Politics of Space and Violence in Bodoland
  - India's 2014 Elections: Possible constituencies of BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh state 
  - India: Modinama 8 - Latest from Ms Kishwar, the top Modi Publicist cum CSDS professor in Delhi
  - India: Interview with trade unionist Michael B Fernandes, Bangalore now with KJP
  - India: Far Right Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena Rock concert chants NaMo for PM 
  - Myanmar: Intimidation and Violence by Armed Buddhist mob on moterbikes in Lashio
19. India: A letter from Faculty members in the History Department of Delhi University
20. The Turkish government do not wish to demolish a park, but rather a democracy (Chimene Suleyman)
21. Turkey: What Would Ataturk Think? (Octavia Nasr)
22. Turkey: For a park and a few trees (Ilker Ayturk)
23. Bangladesh’s internal migrations: Ebb and flow (T.J.)


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1. Sri Lanka: What are ‘anti-national’ criticisms exactly? (Kishali Pinto Jayawardene)
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In what precise manner can a fantastically unethical Government prescribe a Code of Ethics for the media? This is a highly relevant question given recent bombastic claims by the Government Spokesman that a draft Bill on Media Ethics is being circulated prior to implementation.

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2. Media Freedom in Sri Lanka Curtailed Via Proposed Code of Ethics by GoSL
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The proposed set of media ethics by the Government of Sri Lanka bans reporting on many a important issues, and leaves room for wide interpretations on such prohibitions. The full text of the code of ethics proposed by the media ministry is as follows
http://www.sacw.net/article4673.html

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3. Bangladesh: Bomb Blasts outside International Crimes Tribunal and at Shahbag Square in Dhaka
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Security was tightened around the International Crimes Tribunal premises in the city following Sunday night’s bombs blast in front of the tribunal gate.
The tribunals are housed in an old High Court building under Shahbagh police station.
http://www.sacw.net/article4697.html

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4. Bangladesh: Keeping religion out of local government
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We have to come to the realisation that if we want to make country politically and economically healthy in the future, we must ensure secularism in politics and very strong local government. Our constitution also upholds this idea. Hence, if we allow this abuse of religion in local government elections, it will ultimately destroy our society and the spirit of the constitution.
http://www.sacw.net/article4696.html

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5. The Emerging Japan-India Relationship: Nuclear Anachronism, Militarism and Growth Fetish (P K Sundaram)
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The emerging India-Japan relationship has been met with extreme reactions – from enthusiasm and protests in India and Japan, to concern in China. This new “strategic partnership,” and particularly the nuclear cooperation under negotiation, does not portend well for Asia. P K Sundaram, a strong advocate of better relations between the people of India and Japan, tells us why.

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6. The risks to worker safety in India are serious: Scott Nova, Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
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The risks to worker safety in India are serious, but the situation is not as grave as in Bangladesh. In the case of freedom of association (the right to join or leave groups of a person’s own choice), India has not ratified the ILO convention. Moreover, the Trade Union Act got amended in 2002, making trade union registration more difficult. The sector in India has very little union presence; hence workers’ monitoring of implementation of laws is negligible.

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7. Bangladesh’s exploitation economy
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Before the collapse of Rana Plaza, which killed over a thousand people, most of them textile workers, there was the fire that killed a hundred at the Tazreen factory.

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8. Press Release Founding Conference of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples
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In a historic move, 300 people from traditional forest communities from different states across India united in Puri to declare the formation of a union for traditional forest workers. The All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) is the first national union of adivasi and dalit communities representing the traditional workforce in India. The three-day founding conference of the union concluded on 05 June 2013 in Puri, Odisha.

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9. Anti-Areva Protest: Letter to French and European Bankers from Fishermen and Farmers of Jaitapur
via DiaNuke.org
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We the people of Jaitapur, Madban, Sakhari Nate, Mithgavane, Niveli, Karel and all the surrounding villages situated near proposed JAITAPUR Nuclear Power Project, are writing to you with a deep sense of anguish and disgust about the scheduled development taking place in the city of Paris on 5 th and 6 th June between Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) acting through Government of India, French Company AREVA and various French as well as European Bankers.
http://www.sacw.net/article4660.html

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10. India: Kudankulam - the unsettled queries
by M. V. Ramana
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On 6 May, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking to halt the commissioning of the Kudankulam nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu till the implementation of key additional safety measures recommended after the catastrophic Fukushima accident of 2011. The court’s argument was that the project is “part of the national policy” and it “is not for courts to determine whether a particular policy or a particular decision taken in fulfilment of a policy, is fair”. Regardless of one’s opinion about that assertion, what is disturbing about the judgement is that it ventured well beyond its brief and commented on areas that were outside its provenance. . . . the court’s decision cannot settle the contentious dispute over Kudankulam, or the larger questions about the expansion of nuclear energy in the country. That is still a matter for democratic debate. And all the familiar problems with nuclear energy—including high costs, susceptibility to catastrophic accidents, and the unsolved problem of dealing with radioactive waste—should play a role in that debate.
http://www.sacw.net/article4672.html

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11. India: A Strategy To Cripple A Seat of Learning
by Mukul Mangalik
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The four-year undergraduate programme, meant to be in place from July, is being thrust upon Delhi University in an undemocratic manner
http://www.sacw.net/article4662.html

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12. Taymiya R. Zaman: Not Talking About Pakistan
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Landing in Karachi is like running into the arms of a lover you’ve been forbidden to see for years. My sabbatical leave has been granted and I’m home. No one searches me in this country. Here is the place I finally feel safe. There’s nothing menacing about the immigration officers. I laugh and joke with them, produce both my passports, the blue American one and the green Pakistani one, and eventually saunter off, grinning. I’m home. And I’m going to be home for a year, the longest time I’ve spent in Pakistan since I left for college thirteen years ago. When I was in college and the country hadn’t yet come under siege, I took it for granted and didn’t miss it much. But after I began graduate school in September 2001, it became increasingly difficult to leave and go back to the U.S. after my visits home. I would dread the interrogations of Homeland Security, the cold, long winters in Ann Arbor, and the constant feeling of alienation that comes from being asked where you are from originally and then hearing people talk about where-you-are-from-originally as a dangerous place.
http://www.sacw.net/article4661.html

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13. Self-Reflection Fast: How should India Behave With Its Tribal Population
by Himanshu Kumar
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    A large number of army troops are being sent to the tribal areas to establish peace. Whereas past experience tells us that the entry of the army troops in tribal territory has never decreased unrest but escalated it instead. For a long time now, the tribal people have faced oppression from the government. And if any one of them asks for justice against this oppression, they are branded as Naxalites and tortured again. The government has thus closed all doors of Justice for them.
http://www.sacw.net/article4650.html

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14. India: The Bloodstained Karmic Cycle
by Nandini Sundar
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Any keen observer of Chhattisgarh could have foreseen Saturday’s deadly Maoist attack at Jeeram Ghat in Bastar, though not perhaps its magnitude. Mahendra Karma’s death was long expected, though politicians like him who flirt with the dark side usually have enough security to keep them safe. With a string of killings of Maoist leaders under its belt, the security establishment thought the Maoists could be written off. However, like insurgents elsewhere, the Maoists scaled back only to strike hard.
http://www.sacw.net/article4649.html

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15. Mes Aynak: Afghanistan’s Buddhist buried treasure faces destruction
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Mes Aynak, a magnificent Buddhist city, is the most important archaeological discovery in a generation. But it is sitting on a vast copper deposit and is about to be destroyed
http://www.sacw.net/article4648.html

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16. Afghanistan: Attacks on humanitarian workers must end - Statement by Amnesty International
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Attacks by armed groups on humanitarian organizations amount to war crimes and must end immediately, Amnesty International said following the brutal assault by unidentified armed men on an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in eastern Afghanistan.
http://www.sacw.net/article4647.html

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17. Press Release by International Team of Lawyers and Trade unionists on Workers Rights in Maruti Suzuki Manesar plant, India
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The International Commission for Labor Rights (ICLR) constituted a team of lawyers and trade unionists from France, Japan, South Africa, the USA and India to investigate the incidents that led to the summary dismissal of over 500 permanent workers and over 1800 contract workers at the Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) in August 2012. The team was constituted to bring international law and policy perspectives to bear on a situation that has festered for almost a year, with – at a minimum – 147 workers in jail over that period. The Commission reminds the Government of India that, under well-recognised international and domestic principles, “justice delayed is justice denied.”
http://www.sacw.net/article4646.html

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18. Selected posts from Communalism Watch
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- India: Madhu Kishwar's Tweet saluts the courage of Gandhi's Assasin Nathuram Godse
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-madhu-kishwars-tweet-saluts.html
- India: Politics of a memorial to Bhindranwale and Sikh fundamentalists in Punjab
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-politics-of-memorial-to.html
- India: Why a private memorial for victims 1984 anti sikh riots at a sikh religious temple , Why not a public memorial with tax payers money ? 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-why-private-memorial-for-victims.html
- Drama and Crisis in BJP, Top leader Advani resigns
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/drama-and-crisis-in-bjp-top-leader.html
- India: Screening of film on MF Husain by French filmmaker cancelled after VHP protests 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-screening-of-film-on-mf-husain-by.html
- Youtube video: Narendra Modi at the Kumbh Mela 2013 and his tie up with the Hindu religious figures 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/youtube-video-narendra-modi-at-kumbh.html
- Narendra Modi bulldozes his way on the road to official nomination as BJP's PM candidate 2014 Polls in India: Cartoons, reports and video 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/narendra-modi-bulldozes-his-way-on-road.html
- Ignore those who love to Hate - Hate Speech and Communal Politics (Ram Puniyani) 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/ignore-those-who-love-to-hate-ram.html
- India - Assam: Politics of Space and Violence in Bodoland
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-assam-politics-of-space-and.html
- India's 2014 Elections: Possible constituencies of BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh state 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/indias-2014-elections-possible.html
- India: Modinama 8 - Latest from Ms Kishwar, the top Modi Publicist cum CSDS professor in Delhi
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-modinama-8-latest-from-ms-kishwar.html
- India: Interview with trade unionist Michael B Fernandes, Bangalore now with KJP
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-interview-with-trade-unionist.html
- India: Far Right Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena Rock concert chants NaMo for PM 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/india-far-right-bhagat-singh-kranti.html
- Myanmar: Intimidation and Violence by Armed Buddhist mob on moterbikes in Lashio
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/06/myanmar-intimidation-and-violence-by.html


FULL TEXT:
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19. India: A letter from Faculty members in the History Department of Delhi University
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http://tinyurl.com/ob8qky6
The Hindu - New Delhi, June 7, 2013
DEBATE at THE HINDU

A letter from Faculty members in the History Department of DU

This is what some members of the Delhi University History Department have said in an Open Letter on FYUP.

“We are in the midst of strong protests by teachers and students against the imposition of the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) in Delhi University by the University administration. Since forums for academic discussion and debate in the University are no longer functioning, this letter from Faculty members in the History Department at Delhi University seeks to set the record straight on many details related to this issue.

1) The public needs to know that discussions regarding the new FYUP were managed by the University authorities, not in a democratic academic environment framed by University regulations, but in committees carefully screened by the University administration. The Department of History, indeed no department in the university, was involved in its formulation. We were eventually given a framework within which we were compelled to produce a syllabus for undergraduate instruction (about 35 courses to be taught in the third and fourth years of the programme) in the ridiculously short time of a fortnight, eventually changed to a month. University authorities clearly have no conception that a task of this kind requires time for serious deliberation and discussion about academic content of the courses and the pedagogic principles underlining them.

2) If the History Department was distanced from the framing of the course structure of the FYUP, it was kept entirely in the dark in the making of the compulsory ‘Foundation Courses’ to be taught to every single student in the first two years. Until recently we were actually not privy to their contents – such is the level to which the University has distanced its Faculties from itself today. All new courses in the University are supposed to be first debated in the respective Department Councils, and then passed by their Committee of Courses and finally the respective Faculties. These basic University regulations that ensure the quality and academic integrity of its courses were systematically flouted to enable the passing of the Foundation Courses. The Faculty of the History Department was not informed, nor did we participate in the recently conducted orientation programme for the History Foundation Course which was held for the first batch of specially selected college teachers.

3) Serious questions can be asked about the intellectual and pedagogical quality of the Foundation Courses prepared by the University. The Indian History and Culture Course, for instance, lacks academic rigour, refers to subjects from history while providing no context, and does not introduce students to historical methodology or serious scholarship. Some of the signatories to this letter have drawn attention elsewhere – that the course suffers from a naive and flat presentism, and fails even so much as to mention caste, class or community formation. The casualness in the preparation of this course is underlined by the fact that some of its parts are plagiarized from a Class XI CBSE textbook. Leaving the ethics of the case aside for the moment, the education of first year students in Delhi University is pegged at the same standard as the CBSE! The course has a sophisticated bibliography, but it is clear that these readings were not the inspiration for its contents or the philosophy that guided its pedagogy. A more likely hint of its sources of inspiration lie in the online materials – links to Wikipedia – to which students are also guided. This is shocking considering that teachers all over the world strongly dissuade their students from using their variable and unverifiable quality of information.

4) It is essential to keep in mind that University Education is a moment for both intellectual exploration and training in the complexities of different disciplines. Instead we have courses like the compulsory Integrating Mind, Body and Heart, which consist entirely of a foray into selective episodes in the life of Mahatma Gandhi plucked out of context and require that students model themselves on him (and him alone) in their life. Surely the goal of a modern University is to promote independent and wide-ranging thinking rather than this kind of uncritical and most un-Gandhian worship / adulation of a single individual, no matter how great s/he may be.

The protest and anxiety voiced by the signatories to this letter cuts through the differing intellectual persuasions of the members of the History Department. While the University administrators blame the University Faculties for stymieing progress and course revision, this is far from the truth. We are protesting draconian changes that are conceptually weak, irregularly framed and arbitrarily enforced.”

Signatories: Seema Alavi, Shahid Amin, Yasser Arafath, Aparna Balachandran, Arup Banerji, Parul Pandya Dhar, Rahul Govind, Charu Gupta, Vikas Gupta, Amar Farooqui, Farhat Hasan, Sunil Kumar, Nayanjot Lahiri, Prabhu Mahapatra, Anshu Malhotra, Sanghamitra Misra, Biswamoy Pati, Bhairabi Prasad Sahu, Upinder Singh and Kesavan Veluthat. 

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20. THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT DO NOT WISH TO DEMOLISH A PARK, BUT RATHER A DEMOCRACY
by Chimene Suleyman (poejazzi.com - June 5th, 2013 - http://tinyurl.com/od8nn9s)
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Protesting against the redevelopment of a park to build yet another shopping centre is pretty noble. But the issue with reporting this – and largely only this – as the cause for what now has the potential to become Turkey’s own Arab Spring, is a decade of high-handed and harmful politics are being overlooked.

Turkey have traditionally maintained a socio-political balance between the Middle East and Europe with – what has been for the most part – progressive policies and a behaviour determined by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s secular founding father. Education was paramount and open to all. Religion was asked to take a public backseat; your relationship with it was between you, and your God (headscarves, uber-beards and promotional packs away please, because no one likes a show-off). When “the established religion of Turkey is Islam” was removed from the constitution in 1937, it worked to ensure a state that neither praised, nor condemned, individuals for their religious beliefs, and so Turkey became both politically and socially a religiously neutral state. Though controversial, women were banned from wearing headscarves in public – certainly not universities – in what was nothing short of a powerful feminist movement that freed the women who did not choose to cover up, but were bound to by their husbands.  Women were offered opportunities and equality in 1930s Turkey that, quite frankly, puts some of a modern-day West to shame. Little known fact: Sabiha Gokcen became in 1936 the world’s first female fighter pilot at the age of 23. She was also the daughter of Kemal Ataturk, one of his eight adopted children.

What has been key to the preservation of a Kemalist society has been, perhaps oddly, the army. It is fair to say that Turkey are not unfamiliar with the odd military-coup, or five. Whilst generally the involvement of an army in government matters may be detrimental to maintaining autonomy, in Turkey it has been central to the expulsion of leaders that have lingered too close to dictatorship, flirted a little too hard with theocracy. So in they come, government overthrown, and the vote is handed back to the people; the happy democracy dance may resume. It is safe to say, as a Turk, if you’re not a Kemalist, then you’re doing it wrong.

And so we meet Turkey’s Prime Minister since 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in what is drafting itself to be a sequel to Iran’s bestseller: How To Ruin Your Country And Alienate People. He’s like the smarter, older brother to Ahmadinejad’s awkward uncle-at-a-wedding-arriving-on-a-donkey bit that he plays so well.

Let’s call it as it is; Erdogan has been pushing for a theocratic state since he was elected to power.

Some time in 2005, when in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (yes, guess what, it does exist), I remember watching then President, Mehmet Ali Talat and his wife meet with Erdogan at a national parade. The Generals did not shake hands with Erdogan or his wife who, as always, was present in her religious clothing. Talat and his wife, in fact, sat with their backs to the visiting and more powerful leader of their sister nation. The hostility was glaringly apparent, but this was not some form of religious prejudice or discrimination – North Cyprus is traditionally (albeit casually) an Islamic country. (My grandmother covered her hair for most, if not all, of her life. Women in bottom-skimming shorts and heels will visit graveyards in headscarves, or mosques on religious days.) But Erdogan’s wife, head covered tightly and in plain, long clothing, was not being rejected for choosing to dress in such a way, but rather for her discrimination against those who did not.  I called an uprising in Turkey then, and quite frankly I’m a little surprised it has taken so long.  “It’s been brewing, brother,” an Istanbul cab driver told my father in 2007, “We’re meeting underground and planning how we’ll get rid of this bastard. It will happen.”

For a decade Erdogan’s government has put in place laws that are moving Turkey away from secularism, and into a dictatorship governed by outdated and oppressive beliefs. Turkish TV started to censor images of alcohol. A simple pixelated blur amusingly moved up, and down, and around the screen whenever a character lit a cigarette. Smoking, in fact, has been banned in public altogether in most places since 2008. Even more worryingly, Erdogan is openly against abortion, as women are being pushed towards dressing and behaving in a “modest” manner; the colour of air-stewardess’ lipstick has been a recent government interest. A couple recently seen by security footage kissing on a train were reprimanded, as passengers were asked to restrain from public displays of affection and to “act in accordance with moral rules.” There has even been an attempt to make alcohol illegal altogether (ha ha ha. Sure). Failing this, a restriction on drinking in public was put into place.

In a clever but similarly worrying tactic, Erdogan has pushed to ban celebrations of national holidays. He has prevented public marches, and limited celebratory activity. Buildings or bridges named after Ataturk, or figures representing secularism, are being renamed or demolished in a symbolic assault on a democratic landscape. In essence he has slowly been trying to eradicate a Turkish national identity, overwriting history and denouncing anything that may remind the public of their rights.

And so we arrive at Taksim Gezi Park. A national landmark, it was once a military barrack and has survived as a space for the people since the 1940s. It is not a shopping centre Erdogan wants to build here, but a big “fuck you” to Kemalism, or secularism, which he is removing quite literally from history. And so it is important to know that this is not just a protest about wanting to protect a park against the corporate-machine: There is a “street-party” tone to the reporting of it, comedic details of pop-up Kebab stalls, and conga lines trough Taksim Square. We are, perhaps, keen in the West to disassociate Turkey from “Middle East” and “Islamist” and preserve it as our one modern counterpart from “over there”. Yet this is not just a protest defending a park, but rather a rebellion against what is a worryingly close abolishment of democracy.  In a pre-emptive move, Erdogan for many years has been imprisoning Generals in the army. Some have even been locked away for decades on matters of “tax-evasion”. Alongside them are writers, poets and journalists who have spoken against Erdogan’s government.

“If you bring 20,000, I will bring 200,000,” he has publicly warned the protesters, alongside a series of heavy-handed and violent government-driven police tactics. We have been made aware of the media blackout, and thankfully a few blogs have made it into the public domain recounting details of tanks that have driven over people killing them and, more heartwarmingly, of a public that have been offering food to the tyrannical police.

“If you bring 100,000, I will bring a million,” he says, as though he is unfamiliar with his own people. This was probably most clear when he thought he might stop Turks from drinking. And there is only the smallest reminder needed of the London riots and how the Turkish community will react to maltreatment; or that Green Lanes was one of a few London areas that remained open to business during those three days of unrest: Turkish arms pushed out of vest tops outside greengrocers, cigarettes still lit, eating, one eye on the street.“Just try it,” they were saying, “and see what happens.”

And so, it is clear that Erdogan does not know the Turkish people; as though if he brought his million, they would not fight ten times harder; that an Islamic state is not in their nature, alongside oppression, no whiskey, or taking someone’s autocratic shit. What is Turkish is to be sprayed with tear-gas by police and to offer them food because, afterall, they are tired and hungry too. And if you are Turkish, you must always offer food.

Good luck.

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21. WHAT WOULD ATATURK THINK?
by Octavia Nasr (June 3, 2013)
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http://tinyurl.com/o9zl9no
The father of all Turks and founder of the modern secular Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, must be turning in his grave from the turn of events throughout Turkey and the political implications they usher in.

It all started when a few thousands of Ataturk's unarmed and peaceful sons and daughters took to Istanbul's Taksim Square to protest their government's greed and disregard for the environment as reflected in a lucrative plan to turn Gezi Park (one of Istanbul's last green spaces) into a shopping mall and commercial center.

That the ambitious project is contracted by Prime Minister's Recep Tayyeb Erdogan's AK Party might be the only reason why the Turkish Police responded in a shocking and unwarranted heavy-handedness against the peaceful tree-huggers. That, coupled with a local media blackout on the peaceful protest and the ensuing violent police response, drove the situation to an all-out protest across the country with people demanding the resignation of Erdogan and his government and even calling him a “dictator.”

The Prime Minister and his party have been acting as the masters of Turkey and its only rulers for quite some time. Riding their unquestioned popularity at the polls and pulling the numbers game any time they feel squeezed or pressured. Erdogan's famous quote about protests which he alluded to again over the weekend as he spoke about the latest protests, “you bring one hundred thousand, we bring one million!” This sounds very familiar to those at the receiving end of other Islamists that came to power thanks to the democratic process. Think Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, and Hamas in Gaza.

What Mr. Erdogan did not count on, is that a small environmental protest, which he believed he could totally ignore and intimidate the media into ignoring as well, would end up being the one to expose his dictatorship-style democracy where his own opinions and beliefs are above reproach and where opposition is reduced to nothing and never given the chance to play its natural role. Mr. Erdogan never thought that a simple protest over a green patch would expose his party's inability and unwillingness to listen or negotiate. He never thought the word will get out of Istanbul, let alone to some twenty six cities in Turkey and through social media to the entire world.

A simple march on Taksim Square, which on a regular day would have been insignificant and ineffective, brought out the worst of Turkish Police and brought in the world's attention. When the protests widened and got violent naturally, Mr. Erdogan spoke not once but three times on Sunday, trying to appear in control and dismissive of the reach of the loud critical voices. He called Twitter a “bunch of lies-carrying vehicle” and to people calling him a “dictator,” he had “nothing to say.” In essence doing the same thing his government and his party have done every time they were met with criticism: Playing down the charges, dismissing and discrediting the critics, blaming dissent on the opposition, and moving on with their plans as usual.

Many things should concern anyone looking at Erdogan, his AKP and the future of Turkey as a key player in the Middle East, Europe and on the international scene. Let's mention only some obvious red lights although there are many others: The very charismatic Mr. Erdogan, with a large Islamist voter base, has been rallying to alter the constitution to allow him to become Turkey's first newly empowered president. His plans did not go through at the end of 2012 and earlier this year he seemed to put them on hold for a while. For someone who campaigned hard in 2007 to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves at state universities and made it a priority of his premiership until the ban was lifted, it is very obvious that his Islamist agenda is wrapped nicely into a moderate conservative one. Then the ban on alcohol sale earlier this year, which was introduced, written and approved in two short weeks despite a ferocious opposition and his comment, “those who want to drink can drink at home.”

On the same subject, Erdogan has said that the original alcohol law which he overturned was, “written by a couple of alcoholics!” One has to wonder if he was referring to Ataturk as an “alcoholic.” If so, wouldn't this be considered an “insult” to the father of modern secular Turkey? Because if he meant Ataturk, that would be an offense punishable by law! With an unapologetic statement like this, which went unnoticed, Erdogan's one party rule is well on its way to rolling back Turkey's secularism right under everybody's nose.

For anyone in the free world who applauds Erdogan's Turkey and uses it as a “model” for Arab Spring countries and the Islamic rule within a democracy, let the latest events serve as lessons on how important it is to keep religion and state separate in secular societies and always beware of Islamist agendas disguised as democracies.

I really don't know what Ataturk would think of all this, but if he is rolling in his grave, it is certainly not the first time and, from the way things are going in Turkey, it certainly won't be the last.

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22. FOR A PARK AND A FEW TREES
by Ilker Ayturk 
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(June 10 2013, The Indian Express)
The urban riots have exposed the unpleasant face of the 'Turkish model'

In J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth, Ents are tree-like creatures, known for their patience. However, when their leader Treebeard finds out that the wicked wizard Saruman felled thousands of trees, he leads a horde of his race to destroy the wizard's stronghold in the "Last March of the Ents".

In a replay of Tolkien's story, thousands of members of Istanbul's urban middle class descended on Taksim Square on June 1 and occupied the European centre of this humongous city. What took elderly women, white-collar workers, teachers, lawyers, engineers, gay people and students to the streets was a common desire to stop government plans to demolish the Gezi Park next to Taksim Square. For months, the Turkish prime minister and former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had been repeating his determination to rebuild a replica of the Ottoman army barracks, torn down in 1940 to create space for the park. On May 28, a handful of protesters organised a sit-in at Gezi Park to prevent further felling of trees. Police violence against peaceful protesters triggered clashes in the downtown area and spiralled out of control.

Demonstrations after June 1 were not just about the park and trees any more. Protesters now turned against Erdogan's heavy-handed rule, and his attitude certainly didn't help. During that weekend, the PM appeared live on TV to address the crowds: gone was the brash and self-assured leader; Erdogan looked angry but visibly shaken. Unfortunately, he further fanned the flames by calling protesters "looters" and threatening to dispatch a million of his supporters.

Urban riots of such intensity and scope are a first in modern Turkish history. Although the protesters do not want to change the system, they are fed up with Erdogan's top-down style of decision-making and his monopolisation of power. Protests are not led by a single leader. There are many environmentalist, women's, LGBT and political platforms speaking for a variety of groups. The truly striking phenomenon is the predominance of the youth — the so-called "1990s Generation" — who are politically non-affiliated. The typical faultlines of Turkish politics, which have pitted Kemalists against conservatives, secularists against Islamists, nationalists against Kurds, left-wingers against right-wingers, do not seem to capture the essence of the riots.

Ever since the beginning of multi-party democratic politics in Turkey in 1950, Islamic-leaning, conservative masses, who dominated the ballot box and wrangled with the secularists, enjoyed the support of the Turkish military and judiciary. If Turkish democracy survived many interruptions, it was because there was no winner. That is, until 2002, when Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, with Islamist roots, came to power and slowly but methodically neutralised the military and the justices. The result was not a victory of democracy but a big power vacuum filled by Erdogan alone. With no checks on his leadership, the PM was emboldened to pass legislation that would make abortion nearly impossible, to call social drinkers "alcoholics and drunkards", to promote imam schools at the expense of Turkey's secular education system, to impose censorship on the press and to express his desire "to raise pious generations".

The Gezi Park riots, however, have shown the limits to Erdogan's power. Rioters have dented his image as a "doer", driving a wedge between him and the moderates in his government and party. He is no longer able to denounce his opponents as militarist, undemocratic plotters. Muslims in the Middle East are now exposed to a different, unpleasant face of the so-called "Turkish model". These are all terrible setbacks for Erdogan and his party. And if the whip of the volatile Turkish economy has not yet beaten Erdogan into submission, mounting losses at the Istanbul stock exchange could. And all this because of a park and a couple of trees.

The writer is assistant professor of political science, Bilkent University, Ankara 

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23. BANGLADESH’S INTERNAL MIGRATIONS: EBB AND FLOW
 by T.J. | DHAKA
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(The Economist / Banyan, May 16th 2013)
THE world’s most densely populated country of any size also happens to be home to the world’s fastest-growing city. By the middle of the 21st century, Bangladesh, whose landmass could be fit 58 times into Brazil’s, will be home to 195m people—that is, Brazil’s population today. In short, this is not the sort of country where anyone would look to find a declining population.

Yet one needn’t look far. Barisal, an administrative division to the south of Dhaka, is home to a population that is just starting to shrink. The city of Barisal lies in the river delta of the Padma, as the main branch of the Ganges is called as it flows through lower Bangladesh and into the Bay of Bengal. Famous for its fertile soil, Barisal division, which had been a Hindu kingdom till the Mughals invaded Bengal, was once known as the “The crop-house of Bengal”.

According to the Census of India, 1901

“In Backergunge [Backerganj] all the towns are progressive and Barisal, with nearly 19,000 inhabitants, has grown by 22% in the course of the last decade. Its most flourishing town, however, is Jhalakati which is one of the largest marts in East Bengal. It is still small but shows a very rapid rate of expansion, and its population has considerably more than doubled itself during the last ten years”.

A good 100 years later, the 2001 census showed that 8.2m people lived in the six districts that make up Barisal division. But when census-takers returned in 2011, they found that the rate of growth had turned negative: 26,718 fewer people lived there than ten years before.

Barisal is the poorest of Bangladesh’s seven divisions. It is also the only one with a declining population. This is remarkable because, despite rapid migration into the cities, the country’s rural population is still growing. The day when more people will live in the cities than in the countryside is expected to be more than two decades away.

During 2001-11, the overall rate of population growth would have implied the addition of 1.8m people to the population of Barisal division. But instead it fell—not for want of reproduction, but because people were leaving it in droves. The division is the source of a massive migration that nobody is monitoring or even much noticing, says Peter Kim Streatfield, the director of the Centre for Population, Urbanisation and Climate Change at the ICDDR, an international, Dhaka-based health-research organisation. 

So where do all the people go?

The answer brings us back to Dhaka, only a few dollars and seven hours’ journey by boat, where 80% of the residents are migrants. And so, rather mind-bogglingly, though Barisal district (a component of Barisal division) accounts for only 1.6% of the national population, according to the Bangladesh Health Survey, some 7% of women and 8% of men living in Dhaka’s slums come from this one district. A census and mapping of Bangladesh’s slums (see p. 48) would put Barisal district’s share even higher, though demographers tend to regard the former source as being the more reliable. Both agree that more of Dhaka’s slum-dwellers hail from Barisal than from any other of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.

So why are the people of Barisal pouring out? The square answer is nobody has a clue (though to judge by the variety of donor-project proposals that cite the phenomenon there would seem to be an overabundance of plausible answers). But there has been little serious analysis to disentangle the many economic and environmental causes of what looks like the busiest route of internal migration anywhere in Bangladesh.

One of the prime suspects behind Barisal division’s outpouring is the increase in its soil salinity. The government’s own maps show that 29% of Barisal division’s arable land was classified as “salt-affected” in 2010, up from 20% in 1973. The salinisation has been quicker and more land is affected than in any of Bangladesh’s other coastal areas. Rising sea levels are believed to have contributed to the trend, aggravating the effects of intensive agriculture.

Two devastating cyclones have also played a big part, according to Nazrul Islam of the Centre for Urban Studies in Dhaka. The storm surge of both cyclones, Sidr (2007) and Aila (2009), destroyed embankments, left coastal areas submerged under salt water for months and paved the way for an expansion of lucrative shrimp farming. Engineers who are building cyclone shelters in Barisal division say that in some places they can bore a tube-well 400 metres deep without reaching the freshwater they need to supply the makeshift encampments.

The possible impact of saline intrusion from the Bay of Bengal on people’s health was first suggested at in a study published in the Lancet, a British medical journal. Researchers looked at the hospital admissions of pregnant women in one of the port cities of south-western Bangladesh who suffered from eclampsia, an acute and often deadly complication. They found that the number of admissions of women diagnosed with eclampsia and hypertension peaked during the dry season, when the water’s salinity peaks. That’s not quite enough to establish their eclampsia’s cause. There can be no doubting however that, whatever the science reveals, people are leaving the former kingdom at a furious rate.

At times the vicious feud between Bangladesh’s two political dynasties distracts the world’s attention from the country’s biggest challenges: its unique vulnerability to natural disasters, environmental degradation and the mass migration that they cause. For the still very many Bangladeshis who live outside the capital, these are the more pressing issues.


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South Asia Citizens Wire
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