Cross (you said WHAT?) Cultural

I have been sponsoring Noorealam’s education since 2003.  He has grown up a lot in the last year or so: become more confident, perhaps even a bit more aggressive.  I don’t always agree with him, but I know that he is still a good kid.  That’s why I was particularly stunned when, during a conversation on World War II, he confidently told T and I that Hitler was a “great leader” who was fighting for his country’s sovereignty.  At first I thought that perhaps he had read the material a certain way, without understanding the full picture.  Once he told us that Hitler had ‘won’ the war, however, I knew that the problem was actually in how much he knew about WWII and Hitler himself.  He was very confused by the looks of horror on our faces and our adamant response that, no, in fact, Hitler did NOT win the war.

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I do not know how to explain deodorant to the orphanage children.  They are also quite enamoured with the matches I bought at the Dhaka Commissary–the long, kitchen matches.   The ones in Bangladesh, they point out, are much shorter.

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In the rural area, I am often asked about ‘the way things are’ in the U.S.  As in, what do people eat the most of? Don’t Bangladeshis eat more than Americans? This second question is always difficult for me, because the reality is that the calorie count of most Americans is far far beyond that of most Bangladeshis.  But rural Bangladeshis DO eat a lot of rice, way more than I could possibly imagine eating in one sitting.  It’s just that, for many people, rice is by far their primary source of food.  So yes, I eat less rice, and generally I eat less in Bangladesh than I do in the U.S. . . . but give me a Papa John’s pizza, and we might have a contest on our hands . . .

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People know where ‘things come from’ in Bangladesh.  They know what their daily products are made of, and they know where such products are made in their rural area.  I was particularly stumped by the question of what mattresses are made of in the U.S.  This might be my own personal ignorance, but I think in general we in the U.S. know far too little about the makeup of the products we use.

Archer K. Blood

I have declared today my own personal “Archer K. Blood” day.  I did not know much about the US Consul-General in Dhaka (Dacca) during 1971; it was T who pointed out to me that the American Center Library is named after him.  After a bit of research, I found that he was quite a courageous diplomat who was willing to stand up to Nixon and say that the atrocities perpetrated by the Pakistani army against the Bengalis in the late days of March 1971 should not go without some kind of condemnation.  The US government, however, chose to stand by as people were massacred in Dhaka, even after Blood sent, not one, but three telegrams urging the USG to change its stance.  Blood was quickly removed from his post and told to return to the US.  I’m including here his first telegram to the USG, on 28 March 1971, three days after the Pakistani army moved into the city.

28 March 1971

A Morning at the Embassy

Although I’ve been to Bangladesh four times before, I’ve never been to the American embassy.  I had no reason to go.  As I stepped inside the building for the first time yesterday, I realized how very different my life is from those who live in the Embassy enclave.  It’s a red brick building, surrounded by guarded gates.  It takes, of course, several minutes of maze walking and gate checking before one actually reaches the inside of the building.  I felt like I was the foreigner in my own embassy.  We were then rushed up to the second floor, which is book-ended by two heavy doors.  I have no idea what the rest of the embassy actually looks like.

The RSO (Regional Security Officer) is a nice guy, someone who seemed to have a realistic but sympathetic take on life in Bangladesh.  He says that his job is to “be paranoid for those who are not paranoid enough.” I was certainly a bit unnerved when he described the tactics used by armed gangs at night: apparently some use a particular paste that, when put in your eyes, will make you go blind.  Now, of course, I don’t want to do anything that would make me more prone to blindness, especially forced blindness.  But I also don’t have the luxury (or the narrow life) of an embassy person.  I have to take CNGs, rickshaws, and buses.  I don’t have a car to drive me everywhere, nor do I live in the Embassy enclave.  And I wouldn’t want that.  The life I am living–and plan to live–in Bangladesh is one that enables me to take in all of Bangladesh, and not just the shishi world of the diplomats and international aid workers.  I will obviously be careful, and I will not do things that would put me in a dangerous situation.  But I will not hide away with the rest of the foreigners, pretending as if Bonani or Baridhara is actually the whole of Bangladesh.

I should say one more thing about the embassy.  Apparently, because of the amount of aid that we give Bangladesh, the U.S. has quite a large interest in the domestic security situation in Bangladesh.  Obviously the RSO couldn’t tell us anything more than is really publicly known about domestic terrorism and Islamist groups, but it was interesting to hear him talk about Bangladesh as a ‘possible’ place for terrorists to plan their activities.  Of course, India has long accused Bangladesh of harboring terrorists who cross the borders to carry out attacks in India.  But there is still no evidence that training camps actually exist on Bangladeshi soil, especially now that the leaders of the JMB have been caught and executed.