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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