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 March 23, 2006 from TBKNews Website 
 An article in National Geographic from September 1972 regarding the then newly-formed nation of Bangladesh illustrates how little the world's situation has changed over the past 30+ years. 
 The story of Bangladesh is simply appalling. 
 It begins centuries ago, with the Bengali people being murderously ping-ponged back and forth by whatever forces trudged across their path. While at one point Bangladesh - an area roughly the size of the American state of Wisconsin and surrounded by India, with Pakistan on the west, Nepal and Bhutan to the north, and Burma/Myanmar on the east - was largely composed of Hindus and Buddhists, in 1202 it was invaded and bent under the sword of Islam by the Turkomans. 
 
	After the horrendous disaster in November 1970 
	of a cyclone and tsunami wiped out an estimated 600,000 people, in 1972 
	civil war erupted after minority Urdu-speaking Pakistanis attempted 
	officially to impose their rule over the far more populous Bengalis. The 
	atrocities that followed included not only an estimated 3 million deaths but 
	also approximately 200,000 rapes, vicious acts that created thousands of 
	unwanted pregnancies and tremendous disgrace for the women involved. 
 By 2005, there were some 144 million inhabitants of Bangladesh. 
 At the nation's formation, the per capita income was under $80 per year. Despite fervent hopes and strides made through countless donations comprising hundreds of millions of dollars, Bangladesh remains one of the poorest nations in the world. Its people work themselves to the bone at everything from farming to bike-cab driving to milling and jute-working. 
 
	Its factories are jam-packed with exhausted and 
	thin workers. And laboring children can never be exempt in the quest to keep 
	their families fed. Also, the Bengali economy depends largely on floods that 
	take a certain amount of casualties so the land can be replenished and the 
	majority may live at least a bit longer. 
 This section in the Geographic states: 
 Before its blood-soaked independence - what independence has not been blood-soaked? 
 Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, a nation created on two sides of India, one West and one East. The West Pakistanis would not give up East Pakistan, even though the Urdu-speaking West Pakistanis constituted only 5% of the population of Bangladesh. West Pakistan subsequently unleashed another wave of violence against a people whose pre-Muslim Hindu roots remained, exemplified by their normally pacifistic behavior. 
 
	It is clear that had not these people been 
	decimated in the 13th century under the hue and cry of "convert or die!" by 
	members of the "Religion of Peace," they would have remained Hindu or 
	Buddhist. 
 
	 
 
	The pathetic irony of the situation should be as 
	obvious as that of the 
	Christian Crusades, which employed both professionals 
	and amateurs to massacre entire towns of equally Christian people in their 
	ill-founded quest to conquer the "Holy Land" and secure it from the 
	"infidels." 
 Says the Geographic: 
 It is important to note that it is considered "good reporting" to mention the exaggeration of the numbers involved in the Bengali "Holocaust" - to use National Geographic's term - of poor people in the East, while such a doubtful remark regarding the sacrosanct Western "Holocaust" can land a person in prison in several "civilized" countries. 
 
	The Bengalis apparently do not share the 
	irrational view forced upon the West that the attempted genocide of only one 
	particular group, to the exclusion of the rest, may be termed "Holocaust," 
	as the Bengalis themselves possess their own "Holocaust Museum." 
 As concerns the Moorangs, Geographic states: 
 Thus, a simple cow has prevented these decidedly docile and peace-loving people from following the way of fiery zealots who believe in set "scriptures" as the very words or Word of God, such that their beliefs drive them to slaughter, rape and pillage other living, breathing beings in the name of their religion and God. 
 
	The relaxed and happy Moorangs seem to have the 
	right idea, thanks to the cow, who showed them that life itself was more 
	valuable than banana-leaf "God-given" scriptures. 
 
	Alas, it may never be the case, as "religious" 
	derangement continues to infect the human brain and cause its fervent 
	believers to wantonly murder living, feeling human beings in order to 
	protect "scriptures" better left to the cows.  
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