Government Against the People

In the shadow of 9/11, the Bush administration developed domestic security and foreign policy that crystallized every racist and paranoid sentiment of White America. This doesn't mean that every white American is racist or paranoid. It means that the paranoid and racist beliefs inherited by White Americans, whether they subscribe to those beliefs or not, was at the forefront of policies and programs such as the no-fly list and the INS Special Registration ofAliens. The Bush Doctrine was the mea culpa since it had the international community and human rights organizations crying foul.

The election of President Obama signaled the expectation that such inherently oppressive policies would be chucked. This had less to do with Obama's party affiliation than his pedigree which is a reflection of the 1960s instead of the 1860s. In the 1860s, Americans fought over whether a person was fit to be enslaved by the virtue of skin color. In the 1960s Americans witnessed the Civil Rights Era, the British Invasion, the dawn of the hippies and a radical shift in American social norms. African-Americans moved from being an after-thought to being in the forefront of the American psyche in politics and media. 1961 is the year Barack Hussein Obama was born to a white mother and a Kenyan father. He was raised by his single mother and later by his maternal grandmother. Obama has publicly discussed his struggle in establishing his identity and core values to align with his bi-racial lineage.

In the 1960s, his bi-racial lineage was an anomaly. Today a bi-racial or mixed lineage is the norm for a majority of Americans. There is still a White America but it is blending with a America whose citizens don't trace their roots back to the Puritans. The probability of meeting a blonde, blue-eyed American today is as much, if not lower in some areas, as of meeting an American who isn't. However, the probability of seeing a blonde, blue-eyed terrorist is as low as seeing Duchess Kate take the subway in rush hour.

The Obama administration followed the previous administration's precedent by reauthorizing NSA surveillance. By extending its scope to encompass all telephonic and web activities of all Americans including press organizations, the Obama administration established a new precedent of pitting the government against the people. The unspoken acknowledgment is that America is not comprised of only blonde, blue-eyed people. There are darker colored Americans of varying lineages. The underlying message is that since blonde, blue-eyed terrorists are rare and darker colored Americans aren't, the government can expect an attack by its citizens. Therefore, instead of protecting the rights of and serving all Americans, the government must arm itself against them by searching for and finding fault with them.

Americans will start to minimize their perceived faults. If the government is looking for terrorists, then Americans will diminish any characteristic or censor any idea that smacks of terrorism. The question is what activity smacks of terrorism? Is it praying in a mosque, is it wearing a turban, is it questioning why we quietly support Saudi Arabia while refuting the legitimacy of the Iranian government, is it stating, “I don't like how America is doing as a country”? Many Americans will think they are safe from scrutiny or prosecution because of their skin color, their creed and their heritage. Many others will subscribe to ideas that are not their own but belong to a “pre-approved” set. That is an unfortunate path to follow. The tragedy is that our elected officials are the ones to direct us to it. The irony is that the first bi-racial President did nothing to stop them.

Blame the Country not the Retailer

The collapse of a garment factory in Savar, Bangladesh on April 24 has major US and European retailers and their consumers asking "what have we done to contribute to this senseless tragedy?" My answer is nothing. If a country refuses to treat its citizens like humans, it is not the responsibility of foreign investors or multinational companies to force them. Corporate responsibility has its limits and these are the reasons why:

The building that collapsed is called Rana Plaza and its owner, Sohel Rana heads the youth group supporting the current ruling party in Bangladesh that is Awami League. He does not make his living as the owner of one factory but of multiple businesses that were established under the patronage of politicians. He is alleged to be the area muscleman extorting money from area businesses. Despite seeing cracks appear in multiple areas of the building, Sohel Rana and the factory managers demanded that employees report to work or their pay would be docked. Sohel Rana was arrested four days after the collapse while trying to flee to India through the border.

Rana Plaza was built to support 5 floors. But the building had three more floors added in violation of building and safety codes. Moreover, the building was designed to be a shopping mall not a factory housing massive machines. Throughout the country, engineers and safety inspectors are routinely bribed and/or threatened to certify buildings as safe to fulfill the ever changing "vision" of building owners. In this case, two engineers have been arrested for certifying the building to be safe to enter even after the cracks appeared.

Garment factory owners routinely funnel money away from employee wages and insurance policies to pad their personal slush funds. Foreign companies are not paying the bare minimum to have their products made. Retailers negotiate in good faith with agencies rife with corruption and greed to cover wages and insurance, but if these funds are not being distributed to the employees then we will continue to see a swelling class of the working poor instead of a rising middle class.

Foreign investors and companies cannot possibly fathom how inhumanely blue-collar workers are treated in Bangladesh. There have been multiple cases where employees were denied pay, physically and sexually assaulted, locked in factories to prevent them from leaving and fired without due cause. Factory managers and owners will always rely on the foreign companies lack of language skills and lack of familiarity of the "way things work" in the country to hide employee abuse and corruption at the management level. If and when foreign companies do demand accountability, management will always demand more money to "incorporate" reforms which inevitably causes companies to back off.  

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blithely explained the tragedy as "accidents happen" when she sat down for an interview with Christiana Amanpour. The collapse of Rana Plaza is not an isolated event, but the deadliest one so far in a string of disasters at garment factories. The second deadliest one occurred on November 2012 when a fire at Tazreen Fashion Factory killed 112 employees. Reports indicate that employees were locked in the building preventing their escape. When the nation's leader understands these negligent practices as "accidents" I cannot hold foreign corporations as the only group responsible for  these massacres.

Multinational companies cannot possibly navigate the corruption and dysfunction in Bangladesh. Even if retailers sign onto employee safety protocols, the assurance that the protocol will be followed is non-existent. Retailers would have to open their own HR department in Bangladesh and have employees from their own countries oversee the day-to-day operations at the supplier factories. As of now, these companies cannot be held responsible unless there is proof that they willingly ignored labor laws or are complicit in the negligent and abusive practices of the suppliers and manufacturers.

Bangladeshi officials couldn't care less about enforcing labor laws because doing so would mean prosecuting  politicians and corrupted officials who "spread the wealth" amongst friends and patrons. The tragedy in Savar is not that Big Bad Foreigners are enslaving poor citizens, it's that the country's elite are willing to slaughter the poor for a Benz and a vacation.

Hypocrisy Before Fundamentalism

In Dhaka, the recent spate of bloggers questioning the existence of God and criticizing religion have touched a nerve among Bangladeshis who are predominantly Muslim and identify Islam as their creed. But before I cry 'intolerance' I cry 'hypocrisy' that is summed up in two words: Rohingya Muslims.

Rohingya Muslims are an ethnic minority group in Myanmar. And according to Amnesty International the Rohingya Muslims are the most persecuted ethnic and religious group in the world. Even before Myanmar gained statehood after WWII, there was and still is an active campaign to decimate the Rohingya Muslims and this group is fleeing to the country where they originally migrated from.

Before India gained its independence in 1947, the British Raj encouraged the exploration and settlement of current day Myanmar. The majority of the settlers migrated from the Bengal region of which Bangladesh is a part. So, apart from being Muslims, Rohingyas share ethnic and lingual roots with Bangladeshis. Rohingya Muslims also live in and around the border towns of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It's understandable that many Rohingyans would flee to Bangladesh. What's baffling is that they would face an unwelcome and hostile environment there.

Bangladeshis do not want anything to do with the Rohingya Muslims. In 2009 the government started a program to repatriate Rohingya Muslim refugees to Myanmar, effectively sending these people to their deaths. To ensure the certainty of death, Bangladesh ordered three international aid groups to stop working in the two refugee camps on the border. What are the three aid groups? Doctors Without Borders, Action Against Hunger and Muslim Aid. To flee death in Myanmar and Bangladesh, Rohingyans sail on dinghy boats to Indonesia where there is a growing settlement of Rohingya Muslims.  

In case the irony is lost, here is a bit of trivia. Bangladeshis actively seek to ensure that their children become doctors and/or marry doctors. Hunger is rampant in the metropolises across the country. If anyone knows what it is like to be hungry, it is a Bangladeshi. The last but not least, the country is densely populated with 97% of Bangladeshi's being Muslim. This is the country that is telling a group of people that is closely related to them in religion, language and ethnic background to literally die. This is the country that cannot stand disbelief of Islam and can condone the murder of people who think differently, but they have no problem in not supporting fellow Muslims.

Bangladesh's socio-econmic reasons to not adopt Rohingyans fall flat. Bangladesh's economy is supported by foreign aid, and  the political system is the most corrupt ones in the world. Adopting Rohingyans isn't going to drain the country's economy, infrastructure or resources. Whatever of these Bangladesh has, the government is squandering it anyway.

Indonesia on the other hand is a densely populated archipelago that lost out to a deadly tsunami in 2004. Indonesia has a stronger basis to deny the migration of Rohingya Muslims but the government has welcomed these refugees. 

So while Bangladeshis may quake with rage at the mere thought of the possibility of God not existing, they have yet to look at their practice of Islam in their political lives, if not their personal lives.

Square One

With the increased visibility of women in TV and movie land, I was under the impression that there are women who direct, write and act about the identity and goals of an American woman. So far, Lena Dunham of Girls, Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey's Anatomy, and Kathryn Bigelow,  the director of The Hurt Locker have all shown that American women face an arduous struggle to achieve their only goal of having a baby.

What is wrong with wanting to have a baby? Nothing, except that evolution, biology and history show that a physically healthy woman, regardless of her financial and social standing, her mental health and at times, tragically, without her consent, can have a baby at any time during her child-bearing years which on average span about 25-30 years. Yes, women have almost three decades , that is a baby being born and growing up to hit 30, to have a child.

The factors to consider before having a child such as being able to afford it, educating it and securing its future are salient points only if we are talking about having a child in America. Can anyone explain to rural Indian and Chinese women why they shouldn't have children. What about the women in Sub-Saharan African nations? What about the millions of women refugees living in squalid conditions across the world? 

Point being, women will bear children and be mothers regardless of what is going on in both their world and the world. So, why do we American women insist on making this de-facto human experience an extended journey into melodrama that only stunts our growth as human beings and indulges our selfish, impulsive and nonsensical whims?

Lena Dunham's “Girls” shows how a group of women in their early twenties establish their identity by throwing themselves at every man they come across. Date me, sleep with me, f**k me, treat me like s**t so that when I can better define the makings of a "good" man I will deem myself to be a "successful" woman with a solid worldview. When the tag line for the second season is "I resolve not to let guys treat my heart like monkey meat", I know not to expect lessons on managing upper management, securing a raise, establishing a professional network and identifying professional and personal goals.

Shonda Rimes and her "baby" Meredith Grey played by Ellen Pompeo is a perfect example for women wanting their babies to have babies. Grey's mom, Ellis,is a renowned surgeon who tells Grey to stop reveling in her daydreams of a married guy and start trying to be extraordinary. Of course such "heartless" advice can only come from a woman who fought against rampant sexism to achieve professional goals while struggling to care for a child that societal norms dictated she have with an ineffectual bumbling buffoon of a husband who wasn't intelligent enough to keep up with her. See? Even a dedicated surgeon can't escape being married and having a child, but Meredith Grey spends seven seasons struggling to gain foothold in the elusive department of Relationship Management, Marriage & Children.

Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win Best Director for her movie The Hurt Locker, which follows and an American bomb squad diffusing IEDs in Iraq. With every bomb these soldiers have to diffuse they face an existential crisis as they literally hold their lives in their own hands.  Great movie, but here is the kicker. The only woman in the movie is Jeremy Renner's girlfriend who has a child with him despite their shaky relationship. This girlfriend doesn't know how Renner's character is doing and if he will stay put once he returns but she bears and cares for their child. So, what do women viewers walk away with? "I understand how terrible it is for the soldiers out there. The least a woman can do is have his baby."

The fact that I cannot recall the name of the actress for her Emmy winning work in ABC's acclaimed series Lost but I remember the name of a guy who is only three blockbusters old shows how memorable women characters are in Oscar movies, but hey, they get to have babies.

So, where does this leave me? It leaves me with a higher disregard for movies, TV shows and performance pieces created, directed or made by women. When acclaimed works by women only focus on the "struggle" to have a baby, it puts women of all ages and backgrounds in a box where their roles are specific to the functioning of their reproductive systems. It discredits the struggle of a working mom demanding a promotion and higher pay, it irreparably influences a teen girl's expectations of herself, it puts a hollow ring to a college grad's ambition to achieve professional milestones and it makes older women literally "useless" in their professional and personal lives.

Women are making big strides, but TV and movies still have us slogging at square one.