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To the Editor...
Letters will only be considered if they carry the writer's full name, address and telephone number (if any). The identity of the writers will be protected. Letters must be limited to 300 words. All letters will be subject to editing.
Extremists
Give Jihadis the power and they will be the first ones to violate the sanctity of Islamic laws, for they are trying to ascend to power using unlawful means. I can see that they don't recognise the laws of the land, neither do I think that the law plagued by corruption and incompetence is of any good at the moment. Still we have to abide by the law.
Desher Manush
On e-mail
Asian Highway Bill
The government of Bangladesh is unnecessarily dragging its feet to sign and ratify the Asian Highway Treaty and have now put itself on the verge of excluding itself from this network. The highway will connect over 53 countries of Asia from the Mediterranean to the
Korean peninsula and will possibly be the backbone of future trade and transportation in the entire continent and with Europe. But since the beginning, there have been reports of Bangladesh disagreeing with the network route and tried many times to change its alignment without success.
As it presently stands, the highway enters into Bangladesh from India and goes back into India. Bangladesh wanted to initiate a route that connects it with Southeast Asia as well going through Chittagong and Myanmar. But as it appears, none of our partners in that region, be it Myanmar or China, are interested. Bangladesh even offer to construct a section of the route in Myanmar that is in poor shape with its own funds. Myanmar is not even interested to renew the
existing border trade deals with Bangladesh anymore. So what is our incentive of the new road if there is no use? But we seem to be following the 'Go East' policy like a holy citation though the 'East' is not interested. If Thailand and the Malay peninsula is our preferred destination, we have to realise that without the cooperation of Myanmar it is not possible.
The route that goes through Northeastern India can be used to transport goods to and from East Asia and we should be prepared to do just that. Leaving ourselves out of this network will only cause more damage to us. The policy makers in Bangladesh may be afraid of trusting India on this, but as our geography dictates, sooner or later the cross-border movement of goods and trade will be a reality and it would only harm us if we are not prepared for it. If
we are reluctant to give India the transshipment facilities through our land - naturally they would be reluctant too to facilitate our trade with other countries through Indian territory. We have to reach some sort of balanced agreement on this at some point.
If we can persuade Myanmar in the future, and invest in the roadlink wisely, countries like India, China, Thailand will be interested in using it for their own sake. That road may serve as a vital link between the ballooning giant economy of India and the East. So I urge the government to agree to the Asian Highway Bill immediately and start working for the Myanmar-Thailand link as a side project. In addition, we should prepare ourselves for increased land trade in the future with Nepal, India, Bhutan and countries in Asia. We will have to
use Indian territory in most cases and we should be prepared to let our land be used by India for the same reason. We cannot escape geography - thus we should make the best use of it.
Shafqat
Seattle, USA
HIV/AIDS
Thank you for your good coverage of the HIV/AIDS issue but whatever is said by the representatives of (is it?) 400 organisations trying to help Bangladesh with this issue in one way or another, the picture is very depressing. The uncomfortable fact is that there are just too many people who are apparently determined that young people (or at least their young people!) should NOT be informed about anything to do with Adolescent
Reproductive Health and until young people know the basics, they do not have the language, the confidence or the opportunities to be able to discuss the issues at all. Ignorance thus makes them highly vulnerable. The demand that somebody, somewhere, should be informing people about HIV/AIDS is like hearing demands for the occupation of a flat on the 3rd floor of a house whose foundations have not been built!
An excellent NGO, funded from overseas (where else?) has produced some really excellent resources on Adolescent Reproductive Health DVDs, videos, booklets, teachers' books, cartoon books - the lot - and in both Bengali and English. They are so Bangladesh-appropriate that one shakes one's head at the effort to imagine anyone who
might protest. Teachers who have seen the material consider it excellent and most laugh and say they wish they had seen it when they were young! The resources have been produced, with great professionalism, dedication and respect for the culture - and they are available. I was shown a huge list of schools that said they would use them. The government ordered hundreds of thousands of copies for use in schools.
However, when, after a lot of work in my school by a small group of enthusiasts, we requested Management for the go-ahead, we did not receive it -for the simple reason that our contacts in high places had announced, privately but confidently, that these resources would never be actually used, they would just gather dust on the shelves, and that they had only
been ordered to keep on the right side of the prestigious donors and, besides, it was "Foreigners telling us what to do!"
Are we surprised that donors get fed up with us? Who actually cares about the need of our children to know so that they can look after themselves and one another when parents and teachers are no longer around? We need more and not less authority in the Ministry of Education to demand that the prejudices of some (but not all) are gently but firmly stopped from keeping children in ignorance, fear and danger.
Angela Robinson
The British School in Dhaka, Dhanmondi