HEADLINES OF THE DAY: ANOTHER 15,000 PEOPLE DIED YESTERDAY BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO POOR TO LIVE. THE RICH INCREASED THEIR WEALTH YESTERDAY BY $0.3 BILLION. THE 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IS ONE DAY NEARER.
A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis at willisdavid167@gmail.com. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE TO POVERTY (Part 67). This blog is a continuation of the review of FREEDOM FROM WANT: THE REMARKABLE SUCCESS STORY OF BRAC, THE GLOBAL GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION THAT’S WINNING THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY by Ian Smillie published 2009.
The creation of Bangladesh in 1970
The British unwittingly laid the foundations of modern-day Bangladesh in 1905. The partition of Bengal brought major advantages to East Bengal as the Port of Chittagong was expanded, railway lines were laid, bridges were built, schools and colleges were opened, waterways were dredged, and Dhaka obtained a new lease of life. However, the division of Bengal became a rallying cry for Indian nationalists, pitting Hindu against Muslim. In 1911 the capital of India was moved to Delhi, sowing even greater seeds of discord between Hindu and Muslim as Dhaka was once again reduced to a district town. For the next 60 years, the treatment of East Bengal as apolitical, economic, and social backwater, first of British India and then of Pakistan, was flint for the spark that would lead to the creation of Bangladesh in 1970.
One of the greatest natural calamities of the century
On November 12, 1970 there was one of the greatest natural calamities of the century when a cyclone of unparalleled intensity roared northward out of the Bay of Bengal, pushing a massive wall of water ahead of it. 500,000 people died. A newspaper headline read, “Do Not Send Children’s Clothing to Cyclone Affected Area. No Children Remain.” In the aftermath of the disaster Pakistan was accused of criminal neglect, the ill-timed national elections became a plebiscite on greater provincial autonomy after a decade-and-a-half of military rule, strikes crippled the country, student leaders called for independence, the Pakistan army initiated one of the most brutal acts of political repression ever unleashed on a civilian population, the number of people killed may have been as high as 3 million, 10 million refugees flooded into refugee camps, turning the situation into the worst humanitarian crisis of all time. In the end, the brutality of the crackdown accomplished the precise opposite of what was intended. It made the independence of Bangladesh a certainty. Bangla Desh (land of Bengalis) had finally become an independent nation.
Chapter 2: Arms and the Man
In January 1969 he landed a job with Shell Oil
Fazle Hasan Abed, on the evening of November 12 in 1970, made his way to the Chittagong Club for a drink, not suspecting that the life he had led until then was coming to an end and that, from the next morning on, everything would be changed for ever. In 1952, he was admitted to a two-year intermediate science course at Dhaka University, went to Glasgow for a four-year program in naval architecture, took out British citizenship in 1962, transferred to McMaster University in Canada to do a diploma course for financial executives on the IBM 360 computer, returned home, in January 1969 landed a job with Shell Oil and was posted to Chittagong.
The most deadly tropical cyclone in history
On November 5, as Tropical Storm Nora abated, it moved west from the South China Sea across the Malay peninsula and into the Bay of Bengal. There it gathered into a tropical depression with all the ingredients for a great storm. On the night of November 12, it made landfall 95 kilometers west of Chittagong, coinciding with a full moon and a high tide, causing a tsunami-like surge 10 meters (33 feet) high to wash over the farms, villages, and towns that stood in its way. It was the most deadly tropical cyclone in history. The death toll is estimated to range between 300,000 to 500,000, half of them children and 3.6 million people were affected.
Bloated bodies unburied after days in the sun
Drinking water was in short supply because wells had been inundated with saltwater. Father Timm, an accomplished biologist, put together a small group of vacationing students and would soon discover what havoc intestinal parasites could create among a traumatized population without access to clean water. Abed, shocked by the magnitude of what had happened, opened his house on the Shell Oil compound and gave Father Timm two speedboats so he was the first to reach the ruined islands, arriving on November 25. Dead and bloated bodies of people, goats and cattle were washed up on the shore, unburied after days in the sun.