মুক্তাঙ্গন-এ উপরোক্ত শিরোনামের নিয়মিত এই সিরিজটিতে থাকছে দেশী বিদেশী পত্রপত্রিকা, ব্লগ ও গবেষণাপত্র থেকে পাঠক সুপারিশকৃত ওয়েবলিন্কের তালিকা। কী ধরণের বিষয়বস্তুর উপর লিন্ক সুপারিশ করা যাবে তার কোনো নির্দিষ্ট নিয়ম, মানদণ্ড বা সময়কাল নেই। পুরো ইন্টারনেট থেকে যা কিছু গুরত্বপূর্ণ, জরুরি, মজার বা আগ্রহোদ্দীপক মনে করবেন পাঠকরা, তা-ই তাঁরা মন্তব্য আকারে উল্লেখ করতে পারেন এখানে। ধন্যবাদ।
আজকের লিন্ক
এখানে থাকছে দেশী বিদেশী পত্রপত্রিকা, ব্লগ ও গবেষণাপত্র থেকে পাঠক সুপারিশকৃত ওয়েবলিন্কের তালিকা। পুরো ইন্টারনেট থেকে যা কিছু গুরত্বপূর্ণ, জরুরি, মজার বা আগ্রহোদ্দীপক মনে করবেন পাঠকরা, তা-ই সুপারিশ করুন এখানে। ধন্যবাদ।
৯ comments
মাসুদ করিম - ৪ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৭:১৯ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
চীনের ইউনানে ‘এক টুকরো বাংলাদেশ’
https://bangla.bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2rstvurnxx
ইউনান ইউনিভার্সিটিতে বাংলা বিভাগে পড়ছে ২৫ চীনা তরুণ। শিক্ষকদের একজন বাংলাদেশি সুবর্ণা আক্তার। ভিনদেশে বাংলা চর্চা দেখে তার কাছে বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়টিকে মনে হয় ‘এক টুকরো বাংলাদেশ’।
চীনের ইউনান ইউনিভার্সিটিতে বাংলা শিক্ষা বিভাগে ভর্তি হওয়ার পর ইয়াং মেইফেং নিয়েছেন বাংলা নাম রোমানা। নিজের ভাষা মান্দারিনের পাশাপাশি বাংলায় বেশ সাবলীল তৃতীয় বর্ষের এই শিক্ষার্থী।
রোমানা বাংলা শেখার যে অভিজ্ঞতা বর্ণনা করলেন, তাতে মান্দারিন বা ইংরেজির কোনো শব্দ ছিল না।
রোমানার সহপাঠী জ্যাং ইউশিউ, তার বাংলা নাম সোনালি। বাংলা সাহিত্যের প্রতি ঝোঁক তৈরি হয়েছে তার।
এক প্রশ্নে সোনালি বলেন, “এখন আমি হুমায়ুন আহমেদের ‘নন্দিত নরকে’ পড়ছি।”
মিয়ানমার লাগোয়া চীনের এই প্রদেশটির সবচেয়ে বড় বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের আনাচে কানাচে বাংলা ভাষার চর্চা চলে নিত্যদিন। সেখানে বাংলাদেশি শিক্ষার্থীরা যেমন বৃত্তি নিয়ে পড়াশোনা করেন, তেমনি চীনের তরুণ-তরুণীরা আগ্রহ থেকে চর্চা করে বাংলা ভাষার।
চার বছরের স্নাতক সম্মান কোর্সে পড়াশোনা করে তারা। বাংলায় কথা বলার পাশাপাশি চলে সাহিত্য, সংগীত আর নাট্যচর্চা। ভিন দেশে বাংলার এমন ব্যবহার দেখে আপ্লুত হবেন যে কেউ।
রোমানা ও তার সহপাঠীদের বাংলা গান দারুণ পছন্দ। প্রতুল মুখোপাধ্যায়ের ‘আমি বাংলার গান গাই’ এর পাশাপাশি বাদ যায় না হাল আমলের ‘সাদা সাদা কালা কালা’-ও।
মিডিয়া ভিজিটে যাওয়া বাংলাদেশি গণমাধ্যম প্রতিনিধিদলের মুখোমুখি হয়ে রোমানা বললেন, “বাংলায় পড়তে ও বলতে আমার ভালো লাগে।”
সরকারের বৃত্তি পেয়ে ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় আধুনিক ভাষা ইনস্টিটিউটে এক বছর বাংলা ভাষা পড়েন তিনি। এরপর ফিরে যান নিজ দেশে। তার মত ২৫ জন ইউনান ইউনিভার্সিাটতে দক্ষিণ এশীয় ভাষা অনুষদের বাংলার ছাত্র। তাদের সবার আছে আলাদা বাংলা নাম।
এসব শিক্ষার্থী বাংলা ভাষা ও সংস্কৃতিকে ছড়িয়ে দিচ্ছেন ভিনদেশে। বাংলায় গান গাইতে পারায় ইউনানের কুনমিংয়ে বাংলাদেশ কনস্যুলেটের বিভিন্ন সাংস্কৃতিক আয়োজনেও ডাক পড়ে তাদের।
চীন ও বাংলাদেশের মধ্যে শিক্ষা সহায়তার অংশ হিসাবে ঢাকা ও ইউনান মিলিয়ে পড়াশোনা করেন এই শিক্ষার্থীরা।
শিক্ষক-শিক্ষার্থীরা জানান, বাংলা শিক্ষা বিভাগে মৌলিক বাংলা, বাংলা বলা, শোনা, পড়া ও লেখার পাশাপাশি বাংলাদেশ পরিচিতি ও বাংলা সাহিত্যের কোর্স পড়ানো হয়।
বাংলা বিভাগে ভর্তি হয়ে শিক্ষার্থীরা চাইলে বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের স্কুল অব ফরেন ল্যাংগুয়েজের অন্য কোনো ভাষায় প্রফেশনাল বা সার্টিফিকেট কোর্সে পড়তে পারেন।
ইউনান ইউনিভার্সিটির ভাইস প্রেসিডেন্ট হু জিনমিং জানান, চীনের পঞ্চম বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় হিসাবে ২০২০ সালে তারা বাংলা শিক্ষা বিভাগ চালু করেন। চার বছর মেয়াদি সম্মান কোর্সে এক বছর পরপর ছাত্র ভর্তি করা হচ্ছে।
বাংলা ভাষা জানা তিনজন চীনা শিক্ষকের পাশাপাশি বাংলাদেশি সুবর্ণা আক্তারও পড়াচ্ছেন এই শিক্ষার্থীদের। তিনি বাংলাদেশে পড়াশোনা করতেন জাহাঙ্গীরনগর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে। কর্মস্থলে গিয়ে শিখে নিয়েছেন চীনা ভাষা।
সুবর্ণা বলেন, “চীনা শিক্ষার্থীদের মধ্যে বাংলা এবং বাংলাদেশ সম্পর্কে জানার আগ্রহ প্রবল। তারা ভালো বাংলা গান জানে, বাংলা নাটকও করতে পারে।
“আগ্রহের জায়গা থেকে তারা বেশ পড়াশোনা করেছে, ভাষাটাকে রপ্ত করেছে। বাংলা সিনেমা দেখে, বই পড়ার পর আমাকে জানায়, এটা দেখেছে, ওটা করেছে। আমার কাছে মনে হয়, ছোট্ট এক টুকরো বাংলাদেশ এখানে।
“বাংলাদেশি হিসাবে এখানে বাংলা ভাষা শেখাতে পেরে একজন বাংলাদেশি হিসাবে আমি গর্বিত। এ সৌভাগ্যটা সবার হয় না।”
শিক্ষার্থীদের কর্মজীবনে যাওয়ার সুযোগের বিষয়ে সুবর্ণা বলেন, “বাংলাদেশ-চীনের মধ্যে চলমান ব্যাপক সহযোগিতা ও ব্যবসায়ের ক্ষেত্রেও তারা কাজে যুক্ত হতে পারবে।”
ইউনান ইউনিভার্সিটি প্রায় দুইশ বাংলাদেশি শিক্ষার্থী বৃত্তি নিয়ে পড়াশোনা করছেন বলে জানান বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ভাইস প্রেসিডেন্ট হু জিনমিং।
তিনি বলেন, “বাংলাদেশের শিক্ষার্থীরা এখানে অনেক ভালো করছে। আমরা বাংলাদেশ থেকে শিক্ষার্থীর সংখ্যা আরও বাড়াতে চাই। গত পাঁচ বছরে ইউনান বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে প্রায় এক হাজার শিক্ষার্থীকে শিক্ষা ও প্রশিক্ষণ দিয়েছে।”
কৃষি বিষয়ক শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানের সঙ্গে সম্পৃক্ততা আরও বাড়ানোর চেষ্টা চালানো হচ্ছে বলেও জানান ইউনান বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের এই প্রশাসক।
https://twitter.com/urumurum/status/1676113298637606913
মাসুদ করিম - ৮ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৫:১৩ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
Indian commander who risked court martial to join Bangladesh freedom fighters dies
https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/indian-commander-who-risked-court-martial-join-bangladesh-freedom-fighters-dies-661538
Legendary and celebrated Indian BSF official Major Parimal Kumar Gosh, who reportedly was the first military officer to help freedom fighters in 1971, breathed his last on Thursday in New Delhi, India. He was 84.
Gosh has been suffering from cancer.
His daughter Agomoni Gosh said, “My father Parimal Kumar Ghosh is an unsung hero. His career in the army, BSF and R&AW is one of sheer professional brilliance but one that remained in shadows because of the sensitive nature of his job.”
“He died after some suffering that dented his health but not his spirit as he battled cancer with the same zeal as the enemies of the nation. He had a great soft corner for Bangladesh because he was the first Indian to have fought in the 1971 Liberation War” she added.
On the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistani army crackdown and the arrest of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, then Major PK Ghosh was commanding the F company of the 92nd BSF Battalion in Tripura’s Sabroom region, responsible for four border outposts of Amlighat, Samarendragunj, Nalua and Sreenagar, according to Sukharanjan Das Gupta, who covered liberation war from Anandabazar.
The war veteran divulged in detailhis story in the ‘Bordermen 2021’ article under the subheading ‘FIRST CROSSING OVER AND FORMATION OF FIRST MUKTI BAHINI BY BSF’.
“At about 1700 hrs formed the 1st Group of Mukti Bahini with 6 EPR boys under Hav Nooruddin, gave them motivational talk and oath on the spot. Deployed them in groups of 3 each, on either flank of Northern end of Subhapur bridge with clear instructions to deny entry of Pak soldiers to the villages and water point, also to fire only one round at a time to conserve own ammunition and draw fire from Pak troops”
“I returned to my Srinagar BOP at about 1900 hrs and initiated a special SITREP without mentioning my crossing over the international border.
Calling his death as a “legend passed away”, Suresh Dutta , former IG BSF “Ghosh dada was my predecessor in BSF G branch in Agartala, always a hotspot because of proximity to Bangladesh’s major nerve centres . He set high professional standards not easy to emulate. A legend has passed away”
https://twitter.com/urumurum/status/1677527934226292736
মাসুদ করিম - ১১ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৫:৩৯ অপরাহ্ণ)
The EU must not support a caretaker government in Bangladesh
Almost nine years ago, newly-appointed EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was being lauded for leading the world in standing up to the junta who usurped power away from the elected government in Thailand four months prior.
Alongside the accolades came a foreboding warning: once the military has its grip on power, it will not easily let it go. Specifically, it was suggested that the military will rewrite the constitution in such a way that its own grip on power will be built into the system in perpetuity.
As expected, Thailand’s new constitution was promulgated in 2017, cementing the military’s powers. Much delayed elections were finally held in 2019, seeing the junta leader shed his uniform for a suit and tie to transition into Thailand’s new ‘civilian’ PM.
Unfortunately, in the nine years which have transpired, the EU and much of the Western world have dropped sanctions and abandoned principle, returning to full cooperation with Thailand’s undemocratic government, choosing to take part in the charade rather than stand up for democracy.
In May of this year, a second election was held under the new constitution. This time, nine years after the coup d’etat which swept the military into power, a landslide victory for pro-democracy parties Move Forward and Pheu Thai and a complete sidelining of the plain-clothed military political parties.
Yet, as Nikkei Asia reports, three weeks after elections, the pro-democracy coalition’s nominated PM is still in limbo while the powers that be deliberate whether to allow him to assume his rightful office.
In contrast, earlier this year the EU adopted further restrictive measures against leaders of the junta which usurped power in Thailand’s immediate neighbour to the west, Myanmar, in February 2021.
One can only hope that the EU will not buckle in Myanmar as it has in Thailand and stay steadfast in its resolve to support the Burmese people in their aspiration for a fully democratic transition.
All eyes must now turn one more country to the west, with general elections scheduled in Bangladesh for January 2024.
Following a highly-criticised and disputed general election in 2018, Bangladesh’s main opposition party, Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami both demand the next elections be held under a caretaker government, at the threat of boycott.
Veteran Bangladeshi prime minister of 15 years Sheikh Hasina has vowed never again to hand over power to an unelected body and has rejected this demand outright.
The last caretaker government was taken over by the military, extended its 90-day term and postponed elections by over two years from 2006-2008. Ironically, in full role-reversal, it was then-opposition Awami League (today’s ruling party)’s boycott of the 2006 elections which triggered the declaration of the state of emergency and military intervention.
Political leaders of all parties from across the political spectrum were jailed and indicted on various trumped-up charges by the caretaker government — a common practice by juntas designed to exclude popular political leaders from ever contesting future elections.
In fact, both of BNP’s current co-leaders, Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman, are ineligible to run in the upcoming elections due to convictions which date back to the military-backed caretaker government of 2006-2008.
Incumbent Sheikh Hasina too had been jailed during this period — which may play a major factor in her outright rejection of the opposition’s demands.
The caretaker government was a unique arrangement which does not exist anywhere else in the world, and in 2011 Bangladesh’s Supreme Court ruled that the system of interim administrations was unconstitutional. The Awami League government has reasoned that in the previous elections, a caretaker government was needed because the Election Commission (EC) never had a legal basis in Bangladesh. But in January 2022, the country passed a new law promulgating the formation of the EC.
In response to pressure from the US secretary of state Anthony Blinken in June 2023, prime minister Sheikh Hasina has committed to hold free & fair elections and has welcomed international observers to monitor elections.
Recent local elections in the strategic city of Gazipur in June 2023 were held peacefully and without incident, despite an independent candidate defeating the ruling party’s candidate by a narrow margin. BNP did not contest these elections — a possible harbinger of things to come.
With both sides at an impasse and a likely boycott of elections by opposition, the stage is set for yet another military intervention in the region. The military seems to be chomping at the bit with anticipation. If they are to be deterred, the international community must make it clear to the generals that the consequences will be swift, harsh and personal.
https://twitter.com/rayhanrashid/status/1678741842819514368
মাসুদ করিম - ১২ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৪:৪৬ অপরাহ্ণ)
Milan Kundera, existential novelist, has died
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2023/07/12/milan-kundera-existential-novelist-has-died_6050427_15.html
A tireless champion of the novel and fiction’s rights, the Czech-born author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’, who became a naturalized French citizen in 1981, died on July 11, at the age of 94.
By Martine Boyer-Weinmann(professor of French literature, Lyon-II University)
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2023/07/12/milan-kundera-existential-novelist-has-died_6050427_15.html
The novelist Milan Kundera, born April 1, 1929, in Brno, Moravia (then part of the Czechoslovak Republic) died in Paris on July 11 at the age of 94, his publisher Gallimard confirmed to Le Monde. He was a “novelist,” not a “writer,” in the full meaning that he gave to the art of the novel, which he saw as a means of total knowledge – aesthetic rather than theoretical. He described this demanding program of poetic meditation on existence in his essay Testaments Betrayed (1993), as “an outlook, a wisdom, a position; a position that would rule out identification with any politics, any religion, any ideology, any moral doctrine, any group.”
Kundera never ceased to express his attachment to a whole tradition of “world literature,” from Cervantes to Carlos Fuentes, from Goethe to Diderot, from Kafka to Musil. His art of the novel acutely questioned the territories, stakes and temporality of a genre historically under tension, threatened at times by internal exhaustion and at others by external aggression.
Kundera’s prompt commitment to Salman Rushdie, in 1988, at the time of the Satanic Verses debacle, was an exemplary reminder of the ever-present urgency to defend fiction’s inalienable rights. He was a “French” novelist, by personal decree and by an elective affinity for a country that welcomed migrants, which in 1981, allowed him to get citizenship after he had been stripped of his Czech nationality in 1979. But above all, it was for his “second mother tongue” conquered in a hard struggle against the dictates of history. This was the tragically confused history of the 20th century, or of the “kidnapped West,” as he expressed it: A history against which he constantly pitted his personal life and work in multiple twists and turns, and often against a backdrop of violent controversy and calumny.
An artful joker
“I was born on April 1. This has a metaphysical significance,” Kundera told his friend and compatriot Antonin Liehm – the sign no doubt of an artful joker to which he dedicated his most famous title in The Joke, in 1967, as well as a nod to the popular hero of a satire, The Good Soldier Svejk (1923) by the novelist’s compatriot Hasek, and raised to the status of national emblem.
A contemporary of a nation newly reshaped by the interwar period, after and before other tectonic shifts, Kundera was born into a family of the educated elite of the independent republic, governed by its first president, Tomas Mazaryk. His father, a student of the composer Leos Janacek and piano teacher at the Brno Conservatory, gave his son a very high-level musical education, the influence of which can be found in both the principles of composition and in the central leitmotifs that permeate Kundera’s work. The reflection on rhythm and acceleration; the combination of tempi and polyphony, of legato and staccato articulations and the fugue and the coda demonstrate a perfectly assimilated lesson in musical modernity, of Arnold Schoenberg in particular.
As a teenager, he was an excellent musician (who also tried his hand at composition), he nevertheless followed a different path for his university studies, which led the Moravian country boy to the capital, Prague. Along with his work as a literature assistant, he also studied screenwriting and directing at the Prague film academy (FAMU), an experience that would be reflected in his later work and to which it would also be indebted for its thematic and editing effects, in a rich and turbulent dialogue of the arts.
A short cinematic idyll
Although, in his youth, Kundera zealously frequented representatives of the brilliant Czech New Wave, such as Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel and Juraj Herz; and although he collaborated in the film adaptation of The Joke (1968) and approved the one that Hynek Bocan proposed for a short story published in his collection Laughable Loves (1970), the cinematic idyll was short-lived. Kundera’s positions had been radicalized by his exile in France (1975) and literary recognition, and hardened his stance against what he called “rewriting.”
In 1988, he rejected Philippe Kaufman’s cinematic adaptation of his bestseller The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984). And his criticism of how visual art had been degraded into “imagology” and scenarios into “storytelling” was unleashed in his essays and in his novel Slowness (1995), with excoriating humor and sarcasm. To understand the sometimes gritty notes and the forced laughter that run through the refrains of this piece in two languages and two spaces, it is necessary to repeat da capo the meandering of a tortuous personal and intellectual path, braving some of the author’s own prohibitions, starting in posthumous immediacy with the most intimidating of all – virulent antibiographism. At the beginning of “The novelist (and his life)” entry in The Art of the Novel (1986), we read: “The novelist destroys the house of his life and uses its stones to build the house of his novel. From which it follows that a novelist’s biographers unmake what the novelist made, and remake what he unmade.”
This typically Kundera aphorism, a cult for some and a source of irritation for others, called for transgression, a pious infidelity, in order to put the enemy history in its own and only rightful place. For if the historical individual allows himself to be mystified in Kundera’s work, it is because it is sometimes in his interest to be fooled, the better to manipulate in his turn, when the time is right.
Kundera’s Czech period – abruptly interrupted by his exile in France, first in Rennes, then in Paris, where he and his wife Vera were made welcome thanks to the help of Louis Aragon and Claude Roy – is inseparable from the vicissitudes of post-Yalta history, and the relative latitude then offered by the Communist regime to a promising young and gifted intellectual.
Young opportunist
In February 1948, a coup d’état in Czechoslovakia brought the communist Klement Gottwald to power. The young Kundera had become a member of the party slightly earlier, from which he was excluded for the first time in 1950. Was this the result of a fundamental ideological dissent or simply a youthful outburst, like Ludvik, the hero of The Joke? The facts are still being debated. And if he knew about it, how did the young man respond to the disgrace of the Communist Party leader Vladimir Clementis in 1952? It is a mystery. The story was to reappear later in an ironic apologue in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), describing the partial deletion of the outcast from the official photo, in which only the fur hat remains – sic transit gloria mundi (Thus passes the glory of the world).
In any case, Kundera rejoined the Communist Party in the mid-1950s, which allowed him to publish two collections of lyrical poetry Man: A Wide Garden (1953), Monologues (1957) and a long epic poem “The Last May” (1955) that he dedicated to Julius Fucik, a communist Czech resistance fighter executed by the Nazis. In addition, he produced a collection of essays and the play The Owners of the Keys (1962). The young opportunist wrote a few more excusable propaganda texts, prefaces and afterwords, which at least indicated that he was a well-known and publicly recognized author. He received official prizes and benefited, as others did, from the secondary advantages of protected status, in return for an ideologically uncontroversial and rather conformist output.
Perhaps due to a relaxation of the regime, Monologues marked an aesthetic turning point in this period of poetic production constrained by circumstances: The claim to an interior life is expressed; the personal lyricism offers breathing space and breaches the vein of revolutionary pathos in its pure state. Kundera later mercilessly shredded this period of immaturity through the character of Jaromil, his “experimental ego” on paper, and the ludicrous poet of Life is Elsewhere (1973), for which the novelist was awarded the Prix Médicis.
Emerging talent
It is undoubtedly the play The Owners of the Keys, which was a great success when it opened, and was translated into several languages, including French in 1969, that brought Kundera’s nascent talent to light. It showed his skill at combining superficial respect for the realist Zhdanovian doctrine (the alliance of workers and intellectuals and anti-Nazi resistance and so on) and dramatic situations that he exploited in a register akin to the theater of the absurd.
For a time, Kundera was friendly with Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), but fell out with him over the question of “Czech destiny,” and placed his hope in the Prague Spring in 1968. He published his novella Laughable Loves and his novel The Joke in his own country without any censorship constraints. The crushing of the Prague Spring did not prevent him from continuing to teach, but at the cost of a continuous struggle, bullying, and increasing humiliations.
As heartbreaking as the decision was, the opportunity to emigrate marked the beginning of a new era, a quasi-literary renaissance, which reached its peak in the late 1980s with the fall of the Berlin Wall. In France, there was renewed interest in Central European literature, conveyed by journals such as Le Messager européen (The European Messenger) and L’Atelier du roman (The Novel Workshop). Kundera first taught cinema in Brittany, then in Paris where he was introduced to the Parisian intellectual milieu, and his work was translated and published by Gallimard.
A hyper-controlled conception of the work
His literary work, soaked with the phenomenology of emotion, succeeded in bringing together a vast international readership of enthusiasts, intellectuals and academic circles, particularly in Canada under the leadership of François Ricard. In France, Italy and Germany he garnered attention around themes now associated with his poetics of the novel: eroticism and libertinism (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), derision (The Farewell Waltz, 1976; Laughable Loves), the refusal of kitsch (throughout his work) and illusion deadly lyric (Life is Elsewhere), memory and amnesia (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting), but also nostalgia (Ignorance, The Curtain, 2003 and 2005). All in the name of a hyper-controlled conception of the work, which receives a restricted perimeter administered by the sole author.
“There are two conceptions of what is a ‘work.’ Either one considers a work as everything that the author has written; it is from this point of view, for example, that writers are often published in the famous La Pléiade collection [book collection], that is to say with everything – every letter, every diary entry. Or the work is only what the author considers valid at the time of the assessment. I have always been a vehement supporter of this second conception.”
Kundera’s “author’s note,” added to the Czech reissue of The Joke following the Velvet Revolution (1989) – which lifted censorship of his works in his home country after 20 years of censorship – marks the ethics and bias that are endlessly stated in French in his four published essays. It also serves as a rigorous protocol for the “definitive edition” in La Pléiade (two volumes) of the work, compiled by Ricard in 2011, but without any critical apparatus or biography of the author, with only one “biography of the work” under the auspices of the Latin adage: Habent sua fata libelli (“books have their own destiny”).
A body of work translated into over 80 languages
Kundera, who disowned his early poetic texts and other literary output deemed unworthy of being passed down to posterity, left a recognized body of 16 works, translated into more than 80 languages. From 1985, Kundera made the conscious transition from his first literary language (Czech) to a “second first” language, French – which has since become the language of reference for all translations.
Even though thematic unity strongly dominates throughout his creation, from one language to another, and from one genre to another, some critics have hoped, sometimes maliciously, to find a drying up of inspiration and some diminution of form associated with the transition to direct expression in French, or even problems in writing in order please an international readership. A less partisan reading almost allows us to affirm that, on the contrary, the Kunderian stamp was perfectly at ease with the drypoint and rhythmic pulse of the French language. This undercover trial undoubtedly hid others that were more underhand, or non-literary settlements of accounts such as the one to which Kundera was exposed in 2008 following allegations of denunciation made by the Czech newspaper Respekt.
On the basis that betrayal plays a central role in his imagination, why didn’t Kundera “rat out” Dvoracek in 1950? A late, dubious accusation, and a typical case of “lustration”, which despite the friendly actions taken by many international intellectuals, left wounds in the old man. It dealt a definitive blow to Kundera’s desire to resettle in his native country and hindered the meritorious efforts of Czech intellectuals and academics to translate and locally rehabilitate a bibliography with such a paradoxical reception, as was demonstrated at an excellent international colloquium in Brno in 2009, his native city.
The impossible return of an exile
The novelist’s penultimate novella Ignorance (2003), almost predicted it, and takes the emotional powers of “pensive fiction” to its climax: In the staccato rhythm of its 53 chapters, the story weaves the fable of the impossible return of the exile. In contrast to the myth of Ulysses, a melancholic variation of which is offered in the narrative against a backdrop of philological reverie. Set in 1990, the story’s Czech protagonists, Josef and Irina are caught up in the insidious work of the “great broom of history,” in which Prague is no longer part of Prague, and they become definitively converted to a “liberating exile” extolled by the novelist Vera Linhartova, and quoted by Kundera at the beginning of his last essay, An Encounter. Published in 2009, this is undoubtedly the most autobiographical of his essays, and even manages to bypass the much-hated “biographical shamelessness” by a subtle weaving of new and rhapsodic themes, defined as, “The meeting of my reflections and my memories; my old themes (existential and aesthetic) and my old loves (Janacek, François Rabelais, Federico Fellini, Curzio Malaparte).” The father figure, already present in The Curtain, passes through with emotion and warmth.
Kundera, left no biological descendants, but has many literary heirs, “young shoots” that he has fostered or helped, and having been his friends in his waning years, they salute his memory with gratitude: Marek Bienczyk the Pole, Patrick Chamoiseau the Frenchman, Adam Thirlwell the Briton, Lakis Proguidis the Greek and Massimo Rizzante the Italian, among others.
In fact, it was in Italy that Kundera’s last novel, The Festival of Insignificance, was first published. It was released in France in 2014. It is a fantasy in seven movements, under the banner of non-seriousness and jokes, and of lightness as seen by Arthur Schopenhauer – the secret of which was held by the discreet novelist.
https://twitter.com/urumurum/status/1679147915384881152
মাসুদ করিম - ১৩ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৫:০৩ অপরাহ্ণ)
How Tamim Iqbal’s un-retirement unfolded
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/bangladesh-cricket-how-tamim-iqbals-unretirement-unfolded-1386687
Bangladesh cricket is back to its status quo. Thanks to the country’s Prime Minister. Tamim Iqbal’s un-retirement was Sheikh Hasina’s doing. A lifelong cricket fan, she watches Bangladesh play regularly, on TV and sometimes at the stadium. She’s always enquiring about the players’ welfare.
Tamim’s sudden, teary goodbye on Thursday afternoon touched a nerve everywhere. And when the news reached the Prime Minister, it was natural for her to get involved. As soon as Tamim received the message that she wanted to meet, it was clear he would have to un-retire.
After a three-hour meeting, all parties, including BCB president Nazmul Hassan, emerged smiling. And Tamim confirmed he was going to continue playing. Hassan welcomed his return. Mashrafe Mortaza didn’t want the credit but he was influential too.
Credit where it’s due though. The Prime Minister is a big cricket fan. Mashrafe is a former captain beloved by players. But neither are part of the BCB. They had to intervene when those in charge of handling such situations had failed. Once the Prime Minister heard of the issue, she reached out to Hassan and Mashrafe. Tamim responded to Mashrafe’s call on Thursday evening, and they went to meet the Prime Minister on Friday.
The saga had begun on July 4, rather innocuously. Tamim said in a pre-match press conference ahead of the first ODI against Afghanistan that he was available for selection but his back had to be monitored, having had pain while doing gym work ahead of the series.
“I am feeling better but I am not 100%,” he had said. “I can tell after the match tomorrow (July 5). I need to see how much I can cope. I am not going to do anything that makes the team suffer. The team comes first over any individual. I think I am ready for tomorrow. But during the game, if I feel any different, myself and the medical team will decide accordingly.”
Tamim’s back had been an issue for over a week, and it was no secret. The medical team was treating it. The team management certainly knew about it. Head coach Chandika Hathursinghe was certainly aware.
The BCB, though, doesn’t work that way. Even though there are personnel employed at every level of their professional structure, all decisions – big or small – come from one place: Nazmul Hassan. It’s the real version of the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, as portrayed in the American TV show Seinfeld.
Hassan’s modus operandi affects the entire chain of command. The national team, its coaching and support staff, and the selection committee, are all under the BCB’s cricket operations department in theory. But it is an open secret that players and coaches have direct access to Hassan. Some maintain that communication channel; others don’t do it regularly. Hassan, for example, has a strong relationship with Hathurusinghe.
He also has good relationships with a number of cricketers, including Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim himself, and he monitors them regularly. But when news of what Tamim said about his back reached him, Hassan’s response – an outburst – landed up straight in a newspaper. No channel of communication or his relationship with Tamim was used. Straight to the press. It’s likely Hassan was upset that Tamim had not spoken to him directly first.
Hassan’s interview was published in the Bengali daily Protidiner Bangladesh on the morning of July 5, hours before the first ODI against Afghanistan in Chattogram. He accused Tamim of being unprofessional and said that head coach Hathurusinghe was irate with him.
“The captain is saying before the first match of the series that he is not fit but he will play,” Hassan was quoted as saying. “He is saying that he will understand his fitness by playing the match. It is not a professional attitude. I don’t know why Tamim would say such a thing. I spoke to the coach who is not used to such behaviour. He is upset. Tamim has to tell us clearly what he wants to do. I will go to Chattogram to watch the match.”
“I lost my temper at Tamim’s statement. Hathu shouted at me for half an hour on the phone. Did he think it is a street cricket match? He is saying he will check his fitness by playing the match. Either you are fit, or you’re not fit. The doctors can’t find anything. The coach told me what he said [in the media]. Tamim has to decide what he wants to do. He is always unsure if he wants to play or not. He did it in the last match.” Hassan was referring to Tamim pulling out of the one-off Test against Afghanistan.
Bangladesh lost the first ODI, a meek defeat in the rain. Tamim made 13. A couple of hours after the match ended, he informed journalists of a press conference on Thursday afternoon. The dots started to connect themselves. Hassan’s words spread like wildfire. Tamim must have read them or someone must have told him. He then didn’t score runs. Bangladesh lost.
The BCB directors who got wind of Tamim’s press conference tried to contact him on Wednesday night, but to no avail. From what we know now, Tamim’s mind was made up about retiring. Nobody could have influenced him at that point. He ignored all their calls. On Thursday evening, hours after Tamim’s emotional farewell, Hassan tried reaching out to him. He then appointed the Bangladesh team manager Nafees Iqbal, Tamim’s elder brother, to get the message through. Tamim stood firm.
Tamim’s teary press conference had given us a peek into his mental state. For those who follow Bangladesh cricket, he was a symbol of how tough life at the very top of Bangladesh cricket can be. The Bangladesh captain is the leader on and off the field. There is no escape from the fact that man management is a huge part of being the Bangladesh captain. Many have succumbed in the past after failing to unite the team.
Tamim’s welcoming attitude towards new and younger players is well known. He is also quite an open person. But in any case, secrets don’t stay secret for very long in Bangladesh cricket. All the relevant people knew about Tamim’s injury, and given the access Hassan has to the team, it’s a mystery this issue went unnoticed. To his credit, Tamim didn’t blame anyone in his retirement speech. He kept it relatively short, though his emotions got the better of him several times.
But when the Prime Minister invited Tamim for a meeting on Friday afternoon, things changed quickly. Mashrafe took Tamim and his wife to her residence in Dhaka. A couple of hours later, Hassan joined them. It was the first time Tamim spoke directly to Hassan after retiring. Had he done so earlier, perhaps things may have played out differently.
Tamim later confirmed that he was un-retired. He’s also getting a six-week break to recuperate from his back injury. Hassan said he was happy too.
But what does it say about the BCB and the way it operates? The board had no idea what the ODI captain was going to do, and even if it did, no one could tell him anything. Is it because the only person allowed to handle such matters is the board president himself?
In the post-mortem of the Tamim tamasha, these questions should resonate in the BCB’s corridors of power. There may be a six-week vacation from the talk about Tamim and his decisions, but when he comes back, it will be the same Tamim and it will be the same BCB. They will have little time to react to any issues within the team. The ODI World Cup is fast approaching and despite the bonhomie within the Bangladesh team, true leadership, at all levels, is missing.
মাসুদ করিম - ২১ জুলাই ২০২৩ (১১:২০ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
ইংল্যান্ড-অস্ট্রেলিয়ায় মারুফার ‘আগুনে বোলিং’ দেখার অপেক্ষায় স্মৃতি
https://bangla.bdnews24.com/cricket/tsx9l6o3fh
বাংলাদেশের তরুণ পেসারের পারফরম্যান্সে প্রতিপক্ষের ক্রিকেটাররাও দারুণ অনুপ্রাণিত, বললেন ভারতের অভিজ্ঞ ব্যাটার স্মৃতি মান্ধানা।
বিশ্বের সেরা ব্যাটারদের একজন স্মৃতি মান্ধানা, সেরা বোলারদের বিপক্ষেও তার ব্যাট ছুটেছে দাপটে। সেই স্মৃতির হৃদয়ে আলাদা জায়গা করে নিয়েছেন মারুফা আক্তার। নিজ থেকে বাংলাদেশের তরুণ পেসারের কাছে গিয়ে সেই ভালো লাগার কথা বলেছেনও ভারতের সহ-অধিনায়ক। মারুফার ভেতরে বড় ক্রিকেটার হওয়ার ‘আগুন’ দেখতে পাচ্ছেন স্মৃতি। ইংল্যান্ড-অস্ট্রেলিয়ার পেস সহায়ক কন্ডিশন ও উইকেটে এই পেসারের বোলিং দেখতে মুখিয়ে আছেন ভারতের অভিজ্ঞ এই ব্যাটার।
বাংলাদেশের ক্রিকেটে মারুফার প্রতিভার আলো ছড়িয়ে পড়ছিল বেশ কিছুদিন ধরেই। তবে ভারতের বিপক্ষে চলতি সিরিজে তিনি যেন পুরোপুরি উদ্ভাসিত। এখনও পর্যন্ত সিরিজের ৫ ম্যাচের সবকটিতে একমাত্র বিশেষজ্ঞ পেসার হিসেবে তাকেই বেছে নিয়েছে দল। তিনিও প্রতিদান দিচ্ছেন পারফরম্যান্সে।
টি-টোয়েন্টি সিরিজে দারুণ বোলিংয়ের পর ওয়ানডে সিরিজের প্রথম ম্যাচে দলের ঐতিহাসিক জয়ের নায়ক তিনিই। ২৯ রানে ৪ উইকেট নিয়ে নারী ওয়ানডেতে প্রথমবার ভারতের বিপক্ষে জয় এনে দেন বাংলাদেশকে। ওয়ানডেতে পেস বোলিংয়ে বাংলাদেশের সেরা বোলিংয়ের রেকর্ড তা। পরের ম্যাচে দল হারলেও অসাধারণ এক ডেলিভারিতে শুরুতে এনে দেন উইকেট।
উইকেট যতটা না ধরা দিয়েছে, তার চেয়ে বেশি নজর কেড়েছে মারুফার বোলিংয়ের ধরন ও স্কিল। সহজাতভাবেই তিনি বেশ গতিময় ও দারুণ আগ্রাসী। নতুন বল সুইংও করাতে পারেন দুই দিকেই। বাতাসে যেমন সুইং করাতে পারেন, অফ দা পিচ মুভমেন্টও আদায় করে নিতে পারেন, লেট সুইং করাতে পারেন। ব্যাটার বুঝে বল করায় উন্নতি হচ্ছে ক্রমেই।
আলাদা করে নজর কেড়েছেন তিনি ফিল্ডিংয়েও। দুর্দান্ত এক অ্যাথলেট। ব্যাট হাতে আন্তর্জাতিক ক্রিকেটে এখনও তেমন কিছু করতে পারেননি। তবে সেখানেও সামর্থ্য আছে কিছুটা। সব মিলিয়ে ১৮ বছর বয়সী ক্রিকেটার শুধু বাংলাদেশ ক্রিকেটের ভবিষ্যতই নয়, তিনি উজ্জ্বল বর্তমানও।
কোভিডের দিনগুলিতে বাবার সঙ্গে কৃষি জমিতে হাল টেনে খবরের জন্ম দিয়েছিলেন তিনি, এখন তার ক্রিকেটের আলো ছড়িয়ে পড়ছে দেশের সীমানা ছাড়িয়ে।
বাংলাদেশ-ভারত ওয়ানডে সিরিজের শেষ ম্যাচের আগের দিন সংবাদ সম্মেলনে স্মৃতি মান্ধানা যেমন বললেন, মারুফাকে দেখে অনুপ্রাণিত এমনকি ভারতীয় দলের সবাই।
“আমি বলব, সে খুব ভালো একজন ক্রিকেটার। গত ম্যাচ শেষে তার সঙ্গে খানিকটা কথা হয়েছে আমার। তাকে অভিনন্দন জানিয়ে বলেছি যে, তার পারফরম্যান্স আমাদের সবাইকেও দারুণ অনুপ্রাণিত করেছে।”
“তার বয়স কত, এটা কোনো ব্যাপার নয়। মাঠে যেভাবে সে নিজেকে উপস্থাপন করছে, (বোলিংয়ের পাশাপাশি) ফিল্ডিংয়ে যেভাবে সে নিজেকে মেলে ধরছে, তা অসাধারণ। তার ভেতরে ভালো ক্রিকেটার হয়ে ওঠার যে আগুন দেখেছি… আমি নিশ্চিত, সামনের পথচলায় সে বাংলাদেশের জন্য অসাধারণ একজন ক্রিকেটার হয়ে উঠবে।”
মিরপুর শের-ই-বাংলা স্টেডিয়ামে এই সিরিজের সবগুলো ম্যাচই হয়েছে বেশ মন্থর ও নিচু বাউন্সের উইকেটে। পেসারদের জন্য সহায়তা ছিল না বললেই চলে। মারুফা জ্বলে উঠেছেন এমন বিরুদ্ধ প্রান্তরেই।
স্মৃতি মান্ধানা মনে করিয়ে দিলেন সেই দিকটিও। মারুফার বোলিংয়ের বিশেষত্ব তুলে ধরে আইসিসি উইমেন’স র্যাঙ্কিংয়ে ওয়ানডেতে ছয় ও টি-টোয়েন্টিতে তিনে থাকা এই ব্যাটার বললেন, পেস সহায়ক দেশগুলিতে এই পেসারকে দেখতে চান তিনি।
“তার অ্যাকশন একদমই আলাদা। সে যতটা জোরে বল করে, অ্যাকশনের কারণেই আরও দ্রুতগতির মনে হয়। তার রিলিজ পয়েন্ট থেকে আমাদের ধারণার চেয়ে আরেকটু বেশি স্কিড করে তার বল। তাই (ব্যাটারদের) আরেকটু বেশি প্রস্তুত থাকতে হয়।”
“এই ধরনের উইকেট অবশ্যই তাকে খুব একটা সহায়তা করছে না। ইংল্যান্ড ও অস্ট্রেলিয়ায় সে কেমন করে, দেখার অপেক্ষায় থাকবে।”
মাসুদ করিম - ২৪ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৫:৪৪ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
“Stop US interference”: Interview with the Labour Party of Taiwan
https://nocoldwar.org/news/stop-us-interference-interview-with-the-labour-party-of-taiwan
In 1949, when the Communist Party of China established the People’s Republic on the mainland of the country, Chiang Kai-shek, China’s deposed leader, fled to the island of Taiwan together with his soldiers, political followers and their families. In total, roughly one million people would cross the Taiwan Strait. Chiang’s government and party, the Kuomintang, established a repressive dictatorship over the island’s 6.5 million inhabitants – imposing martial law for 38 years from 1949 to 1987 – and developed a close alliance with the United States.
Recently, Taiwan has been at the centre of headlines around the world as tensions increase between the United States and China. Little of this media coverage has discussed the island’s history, let alone the points of view of local progessive and left-wing forces. This interview with Wu Rong-yuan (吳榮元), the chairperson of the Labour Party of Taiwan, tries to fill that gap.
In the West, very little is known about the politics and history of Taiwan. Some will remember the island was ruled by the Kuomintang dictatorship for decades during the latter half of the 20th century. Others will know that, since becoming a presidential democracy in the 1990s, the island has had a two-party system with the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as the main political parties. Few will know of your party, the Labour Party of Taiwan. Can you tell us about its history?
Wu Rong-yuan: The Labour Party of Taiwan was founded in March 1989 by three groups of people. First, the veteran political prisoners of the martial law period in Taiwan who persisted in their struggle while they were imprisoned for a long time. Second, a collection of progressive intellectuals who were united by the well-known magazine “China Tide” (夏潮) in the 1970s and the equally prominent publication “The Human World” (人間) in the 1980s, including Chen Ying-zhen (陳映真), Su Qing-li (蘇慶黎), Wang Li-xia (汪立峽), and others. Third, there were some leaders of the labour and social movements at that time, such as Luo Mei-wen (羅美文) (now a member of the Hsinchu County Council), Ngan Kun-chuan (顏坤泉), and others.
The establishment of the Labour Party of Taiwan initiated the third period in the history of the Left in Taiwan. The first period, from the early 1920s to 1931, was defined by the resistance against the Japanese Empire’s colonial rule;1 the second period, from 1945 to the 1950s, was marked by the participation of the “Old Classmates” in the New Democratic Revolution2 in Taiwan; and the third period, from 1988 onwards,3 has been characterised by the re-uniting the labour movement with the movement for the reunification of China. Therefore, we can say that the Labour Party of Taiwan has inherited the history of the left-wing movement of the Taiwanese people since the 1920s, and has continued the history of its patriotic anti-imperialist and unification movement, which was interrupted for nearly 40 years due to the so-called “White Terror”.
Every fall, the Labour Party of Taiwan and many pro-unification groups pay tribute to the victims who died during the “White Terror” in Taipei City. Can you tell us more about what happened to them?
Wu Rong-yuan: My heart is heavy when I talk about this historical tragedy. Most of the victims of the White Terror in Taiwan during the 1950s were local patriotic progressives. Thousands were killed and at least 140,000 were imprisoned in harsh conditions.
During Taiwan’s martial law, the former political prisoners linked up across the island after their release from prison through mutual aid associations. Immediately after the lifting of martial law in October 1987, the Taiwan Political Prisoners’ Mutual Aid Association was established and in March of the following year, Lin Shu-Yang (林書揚), the longest-serving political prisoner in Taiwan, was elected chairperson. They called each other “Old Classmates” and worked hard to continue the tradition of the anti-imperialist patriotic movement of the Taiwanese people.
These “Old Classmates” had been eyewitnesses to Japanese colonial domination and to the civil war between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang. After the lifting of martial law, they laid the basis for a number of unification organisations, including the Labour Party of Taiwan.
Did you have experiences with repression yourself?
Wu Rong-yuan: In the early 1970s, when I was a student, young Taiwanese students had a strong Chinese national identity. The more critically minded young Taiwanese began to question the Kuomintang because its version of nationalism was full of pointless formalities and sounded hollow. Instead, we were inspired by Sun Yat-sen’s statement that “socialism and communism are the solution to people’s livelihood”4 and identified with the American, European, and Japanese student movements at the time, as well as the anti-Vietnam War movement and the African American civil rights movement.
During this period, Taiwan was also impacted by two major international events. One was the adoption of Resolution 2758 by the United Nations General Assembly in 1971, which recognised the government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate representative of China to the United Nations.5 The other was the “Defend the Diaoyu Islands movement”6 that asserted Chinese sovereignty over these islands when the United States turned them over to Japan. In this way, my personal political views didn’t stop at criticising capitalism and advocating anti-imperialism but were also characterised by a strong identification with our motherland.
I was arrested for organising the “Communist Party of National Cheng Kung University” with my classmates in college and sentenced to death by the Taiwanese authorities. This sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment and then to fixed-term imprisonment. For a young political prisoner, that meant 15 years.
At that time, political prisoners were sent to Green Island, known as the Bonfire Island, to serve their sentences. It was there that I met many renowned political prisoners who, despite having been imprisoned for almost 20 years, were not demoralised. They were still in high spirits, displaying a rational attitude toward life. What I learned from my predecessors in Green Island Prison provided me with a systematic understanding of patriotism and socialism. The ideals of the “Old Classmates” became the political and ideological inspiration for my work in the patriotic unification movement after my release from prison.
Who were those people whom you met on Green Island?
Wu Rong-yuan: I was most impressed by the late comrades such as Lin Shu-yang, Chen Ming-zhong (陈明忠) and Chen Ying-zhen, who all made important contributions to the founding and development of the Labour Party of Taiwan. Lin Shu-yang was the honorary chairman of the Labour Party until his death in 2012. When I was on Green Island, Lin Shu-yang used to say: “Prison is a school for revolutionaries, so we must stick to our principles and maintain our fighting spirit.” Lin was an outstanding leader and theoretician of the patriotic unification movement in Taiwan. After his release from prison, he wrote and translated numerous articles on cross-strait relations, Taiwan’s history, Marxism, and the international situation.
Lin Shu-yang, who had been imprisoned for 34 years and 7 months, often emphasised the importance of combining theory and practice, and he tried his best to be personally involved in various movements that we were engaged in. Lin once said that when looking at the Taiwan issue from the historical perspective, the complete unification of the country would complete the liberation movement of the entire Chinese nation. This is the continuation of the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and anti-colonial Chinese national liberation movement that goes back to the 19th century.
Chen Ming-zhong also was one of the key founders of the Labour Party of Taiwan. During the period of martial law, he risked ordering progressive books and voluntarily photocopied articles that were worth reading and recommended them to “Old Classmates” who wished to learn. He was particularly concerned about the socialist revolution and construction of China and the socialist future of humanity, and authored a book entitled “China’s Road to Socialism”. His biography, “No Regrets”, has become a reference book for young people who want to understand the real history of Taiwan.
Chen Ying-zhen was another strong supporter and promoter of the Labour Party of Taiwan after his release. He had already written a number of novels before his imprisonment. In 1985, he presided over the creation of a news and photojournalism magazine, called “The Human World”, which had a profound impact on the social movements in Taiwan. He has been the most important author of the unification movement and the Left in Taiwan.
Chen was also a revolutionary practitioner, and he was present at the May Day rallies of Taiwanese workers, the protest against the US invasion of Iraq, and the demonstration against the occupation of the Diaoyu Islands. When organisers invited him to speak, he would give lively speeches to inspire the participants; and when he did not have the opportunity to speak, he would carry the banner together with the others, just like any ordinary member of the group. And he would enjoy it as well.
You have provided us with an important overview of the recent history of Taiwan. Can you tell us more about the Labour Party? What kind of party is it and how has it evolved since its founding in 1989?
Wu Rong-yuan: Since its founding, the Labour Party has represented the interests of the working class in Taiwan. Therefore, we have been fully involved as a political party in the Taiwan workers’ movement, the movement against imperialist domination and interference, and the movement for reunification.
To give you an example of our influence in the labour movement, we can look at the establishment of the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions in 2000, the first general trade union after the end of the dictatorship. At the inaugural meeting, the Labour Movement Contribution Award was given to labour movement leaders and intellectuals. Of the five individuals who were nominated by the labour movement, three were members of the Labour Party.
At present, the Labour Party is promoting the annual May 1st Labour Day activities together with various labour organisations in Taiwan. We also have offices to provide services to the labour movement in the cities of Hsinchu, Taichung, and Kaohsiung, as well as in the North, Central and South of Taiwan.
In addition, we insist on combining social and political movements, and have been participating in local elections for more than a decade. We hope to gain seats to represent the people’s point of view through our participation, so that we can continue to expand our influence and gain favourable conditions to serve the people. At present, the Labour Party has two seats in Hsinchu County,7 which is the result of its hard work under unfavourable circumstances.
In the Labour Party of Taiwan’s analysis of the social and economic situation in Taiwan at the current historical stage, the contradiction between unification and independence is the main contradiction in Taiwan’s society, while the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie is the basic contradiction. The Labour Party has always adhered to the One China principle.
Faced with the downturn of the international socialist movement in the 1990s and the subsequent deterioration of Taiwan’s political and social situation, the party is in a very difficult situation. However, it is increasingly clear that its analysis remains valid. The main contradiction has not changed regardless of which political party has been in power in Taiwan. It has become more and more pronounced in Taiwan’s political environment and even in the daily lives of the general public.
The war in Ukraine has sharpened the contradictions between the West and Russia, and the contradictions with China have also become more prominent. In the Western media, many commentators have begun to compare Taiwan with Ukraine. What do you make of this analysis? Is Taiwan also facing the threat of a military invasion?
Wu Rong-yuan: We believe that the Russian-Ukrainian War was caused by the expansion of the US-led NATO military alliance to the east. However, we oppose the use of war as a means of resolving this dispute and we call on both sides to sit down for negotiations and talk.
It is now clear that this is a proxy war, and Ukraine is just cannon fodder for Washington. The United States is gaining economic benefits from the war, including the expansion of the global arms market, and military benefits from weakening Russia. Therefore, if the United States is not willing to stop the war, the war will not stop. We must strongly condemn the US empire.
Taiwan is not Ukraine, because Taiwan is a part of China. Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are one country. It is an internal political issue. However, the Russian-Ukrainian war has given us a lot of insight; we are worried that Taiwan might similarly be used as a proxy to start a war in the Taiwan Strait. For example, the United States could deliberately let Taiwan cross China’s red line and provoke the mainland to attack. Such a tactic could be pursued as part of Washington’s efforts to contain and slow down the rise of China.
Now more than ever, we want peace across the Taiwan Strait. So we must defeat the attempts of the United States, in conjunction with conservative regimes in East Asia, to encircle China and escalate the conflict.
When a number of high-profile US politicians visited Taiwan this summer, most notably US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it did provoke tensions with the Chinese mainland. Interestingly, the Taiwan government, led by President Tsai Ing-wen, seemed to welcome these visits and has generally been very receptive to US attempts to drum up tensions with China. How do you explain this?
Wu Rong-yuan: The emergence of the “Taiwan independence” separatist forces or the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has its historical roots. The DPP is the representative of the local bourgeoisie in Taiwan, which emerged as a political force at the end of the martial law period, when the Kuomintang was in power. With the rise of their economic stature, the DPP are no longer satisfied with having money but no power.
Their anti-communist politics and their desire for a Western political system gradually led to the formation of a separatist “one China, one Taiwan” political line. Following several changes of political power between these two main parties, the “Taiwan independence” forces have now become bigger, and they are going further and further down the road of national secession, pushing cross-strait relations into an increasingly dangerous situation.
The “Taiwan independence” forces have been in power twice8 and still have not dared to touch the political red line drawn by the mainland. The “Taiwan independence” forces understand that they will pay a price if they cross it. Therefore, the DPP authorities are trying to strengthen the island’s security system. Internally, they stir up the so-called Taiwan nationalism ideology and externally, they rely on the United States (and Japan) to resist the Chinese mainland.
In the January 2020 elections, the DPP and its leader, Tsai Ing-wen, won the elections and came to power for the second time. However, prior to this, in the 2018 local elections, the ruling DPP government suffered an unprecedented defeat, and, in 2019, Tsai’s popularity rating had dropped to just 15 percent. Ahead of the 2020 elections, any observer would have thought that there was no hope for Tsai’s re-election.
As a result, Tsai’s government launched a desperate counter-attack and began to create an anti-communist political atmosphere. The Tsai Ing-wen administration began to drum up ‘espionage incidents’. Mainland students, retired military personnel, Hong Kong businessmen, and political figures advocating unification were accused of espionage. In the second half of 2019, the DPP strengthened the national security legislation with a provision directed against so-called ‘agents of the Chinese Communist Party’. It is forbidden for people or organisations to act as ‘agents’ of the mainland or to engage in political propaganda that is deemed to endanger national security. This reminiscent to the Cold War: the regime can criminalise anyone it wants to.
In addition, other new security laws were passed and a new provision was added to the Cross-Strait People’s Relations Ordinance to de facto block the possibility of the government signing any political agreement with the mainland. This provision stipulates that a political agreement with the mainland requires the presence of three quarters of the members of the Legislative Yuan (the parliament) and the approval of three quarters. This is a higher threshold than is required for a constitutional amendment!
In 2018–19, the Trump administration escalated its trade war against China on the pretext that China was stealing US intellectual property and trade secrets. Some DPP politicians were overjoyed by this development, openly welcoming the return of the anti-communist Cold War and arguing for Taiwan to return to its old anti-communist system. Some independent Taiwanese and DPP leaders have even placed newspaper advertisements calling on the opposition Kuomintang and the DPP to return to the old anti-communist system of Chiang Kai-shek.
In short, after suffering a crushing defeat in the 2018 local elections, Tsai Ing-wen’s government weaponised the anti-communist and anti-China atmosphere both inside and outside of Taiwan. In less than a year, the administration increased its support in the polls to almost 60 percent, winning the 2020 elections with 57.1 percent of the votes. Based on this, one should be able to imagine the violent anti-communist and anti-China atmosphere the presently exists in Taiwan.
Taiwan is gradually returning to the dictatorial system of the past. A year and a half ago, a news channel in Taiwan which opposed the DPP had its licence withdrawn by the government on trumped up grounds. Meanwhile, it is a recognised fact that the DPP uses the government’s budget to maintain a large online army to manipulate public opinion in an organised manner. When people post or share comments critical of the government on the internet, they are often prosecuted by the government for allegedly creating or spreading false news; these charges are levied under legislation which dates back to the martial law era, now renamed the Social Order Maintenance Law.
The DPP has established a far-right, anti-communist, anti-China, and pro-US regime. The anti-communist operation from 2019 to 2020 has been quite successful in spreading fear among the public. As a result, in the past few years, almost no one has dared to oppose the increasing public debt accumulating from arms purchases from the United States. At the behest of Washington, Taiwan’s defence spending has risen to 2.3 percent of GDP, which is having a serious impact on social welfare and education. Despite this, the US has not relaxed its pressure on Taiwan to increase military expenditures, demanding that the government increases its spending to 3 percent of GDP. Also at the behest of the United States, the DPP government will change the military service system to a one-year conscription system.
These are very worrisome developments. How does the population understand the situation, especially the increasing closeness to the United States?
Wu Rong-yuan: In Taiwan, more and more people are seeing the true face of the United States as a result of the war in Ukraine. In particular, they see that the United States itself does not send troops to support Ukraine, but continues to supply weapons so that the Ukrainian people keep sacrificing their lives in order to combat Russia.
In the past, most Taiwanese believed that the United States would send troops to support the island in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait. However, according to the latest poll, the number of Taiwanese who “strongly believe” or “fairly believe” that the United States would send troops to Taiwan in such a situation has dropped to 36.3 percent. We hope that the decline in Taiwanese people’s trust in the United States will help to build an atmosphere of reconciliation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
However, we are not optimistic. There are still many pro-independence forces in Taiwan who firmly believe that, unlike Ukraine, Taiwan’s geographical location is strategically important to the United States in blockading the Chinese mainland and that Washington will send troops to Taiwan in the event of a cross-strait war. Moreover, the DPP and other pro-independence forces see the Russian-Ukrainian war as an important opportunity to continue to increase military purchases from the United States and intensify militarisation.
You referred to the growing influence of United States in Taiwan under former President Donald Trump as a destabilising factor. Under President Joe Biden tensions have escalated further, including the recent passing of the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (formerly known as the Taiwan Policy Act). What do you think is behind trend? Why is the US interested in increasing tensions with China over the issue of Taiwan?
Wu Rong-yuan: The objective of the Taiwan Policy Act is to advance the United States’ own strategic interests in the name of Taiwan. It aims to provoke China and challenge China’s peaceful reunification policy. Politically, it intends to create “one China, one Taiwan” by enhancing relations with Taiwan and undermining the internationally recognised One China principle.
Militarily, it gives the Taiwanese authorities the status of major non-NATO ally and establishes the so-called “Taiwan Security Assistance Initiative” to provide USD 4.5 billion in foreign military funding over the next four years. These funds will be used to finance further arms sales to Taiwan with the intention of stockpiling a huge arsenal of weapons on the island and making it the frontline of the battlefield, and of course for the benefit of the US arms industry.
Economically, it is forcing important companies such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to set up factories in the United States in an attempt to cut off the natural cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Worse still, there have been a number of recent reports in the US media that Washington intends to sabotage and destroy important semiconductor industries on the island of Taiwan, in a so-called “Taiwan-Chinese destruction” plot.
In terms of public opinion and propaganda, the United States has stigmatised national unification efforts between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and misled the world by referring to it as aggression. The United States believes that the status quo of “peace without unification nor separation” across the Taiwan Strait is in its national interest. However, the United States has been escalating its use of the so-called “Taiwan card”, which has encouraged separatists, changed the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and created tension in the region.
Facing these provocations, the Chinese mainland will certainly strengthen its defence of its territorial sovereignty, exemplified by the recent military exercise around Taiwan in reaction to Pelosi’s visit. This is because China believes that the resolution of the Taiwan issue and the realisation of unification is in its core interest.
To maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait and avoid the scourge of war, it is necessary to stop US interference, to encourage cross-strait exchanges under the One China principle, and to move toward the completion of national reunification through internal consultation on the basis of equality. Therefore, the slogan of the Labour Party is: “One China on both sides of the Taiwan Strait for peaceful development”.
What are the concrete proposals of the Labour Party of Taiwan to resolve the tensions?
Wu Rong-yuan: In the face of the current serious and tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, we in the Labour Party advocate peace negotiations and peaceful reunification. We believe that after cross-strait reunification, Taiwan will no longer be a neo-colony under the hegemonic control of the United States and Japan, and that the people of Taiwan, who have returned to the Chinese national community, will be in power. Without the external interference of the United States and the squeeze placed on Taiwan’s finances by arms purchases, Taiwan’s budgetary resources will be available to increase the welfare of the people.
Finally, we call on the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the progressive peace-loving people of the world to unite against the hegemonic intervention of the United States in China’s internal affairs and the Taiwan issue.
With thanks to Mrs. Wang Juan-ping (王娟萍) for her assistance with translations.
1 Taiwan was occupied by Japan from 1895 to 1945. After the violent suppression of local resistance, came a period of enlightened colonial rule in the 1920s until Japanese militarism got the upper hand in the 1930s, and especially the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria on the Mainland.
2 According to the theory of the two-stage revolution, the New Democratic Revolution is the first stage that countries have to go through as long as they are subjected to imperialist domination. The New Democratic Revolution aims to defeat imperialist domination and bring an end to feudal exploitation. In the case of China, the Communist Party of China successfully completed this stage in 1949, when it defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang and established the People’s Republic. This was also the start of the second stage, the socialist revolution.
3 This is the period after the lifting of martial law in July 1987.
4 Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) became the first provisional president of China and the first leader of the Kuomintang in 1912. In 1923, he forged an alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China. Sun is unique among 20th-century Chinese leaders for being widely revered in both Mainland China and Taiwan. According to Sun Yat-sen, the three people’s principles are nationalism, democracy and people’s livelihood.
5 China was one of the original member states of the United Nations, which was created in 1945. At that time, the Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang, was the government of China and even when they didn’t control Mainland China anymore, tthis government held on to the seat of China in the United Nations. It is only in 1971 that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 on the “Restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations” recognised the PRC as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations” and removed “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” (referring to the ROC) from the United Nations.
6 The Diaoyu islands, also known by their Japanese name as the Senkaku islands, are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, that were annexed by Japan in 1895 and came under United States occupation in 1945. The United States turned them over to Japan in 1972.
7 Hsinchu County is one of the 13 administrative regions of Taiwan.
8 The DPP was in power for the first time from 2000 to 2008 under president Chen Shui-bian.
মাসুদ করিম - ২৬ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৩:৩১ পূর্বাহ্ণ)
Diana Edulji writes: It was deplorable… Harmanpreet Kaur crossed the limit against Bangladesh
https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/diana-edulji-writes-it-was-deplorable-harmanpreet-kaur-crossed-the-limit-against-bangladesh-8858109/
Former India captain says reacting to bad umpiring was not ideal but understandable but what happened post-game was not needed
I have been very disturbed by the visuals from Saturday’s India-Bangladesh women’s game at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka that ended in a tie. I have been watching cricket for a long time but have never seen anyone behave that way India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur did after the game. What happened in Bangladesh was uncalled for.
Cricketers reacting to a bad umpiring decision, though not ideal, is nothing new. To a certain extent, one can be pardoned since when you get out in a crunch match, sometimes it is difficult to control the emotions. Harmanpreet isn’t the first cricketer to show dissent and the ICC rightly imposed sanctions on her. I understand wrong decisions were made. We have seen wrong decisions in the past too, not only in women’s cricket but in men’s cricket too.
However, what happened post-game was not needed, all the more because Harmanpreet is the Indian captain. She has set a bad example for her teammates. I say that because juniors look up to seniors and this, over a period of time, can impact the team culture. This makes Harmanpreet’s behaviour all the more unacceptable.
It was deplorable to see Harmanpreet call the umpires to pose with the Bangladesh team, suggesting that they were part of the team and playing for them. I am aware that Harman is hot-tempered, and maybe her ugly conduct was because she wasn’t able to score runs. But she crossed the limit that day as she continued to protest during the presentation ceremony.
What is more worrying is the fact that the team is not performing as per expectations. The BCCI is giving them everything possible. The problem is that these players are playing like stars and not concentrating on their cricket. It is high time the BCCI takes action. Such behaviour cannot be accepted.
Meanwhile, the Indian board also needs to ensure that the women’s team gets permanent coaching staff. There is an urgent need for intervention, the ad-hoc appointments should stop. There has been no coach for six months and we need to sort out this problem before the Asian Games.
Lot of issues
Why is there so much delay in hiring support staff? Ad-hoc coaches can’t understand a team. They are not worried about the players because they know they are there for a short duration. We need full-time support staff so that these girls can get serious.
At the same time, it’s high time BCCI takes some tough calls, there is no accountability right now. Players need to realise that if they cross the line, the Indian board will take action. During the series we saw Jemimah (Rodrigues) and Shafali (Verma) bowling, where are the bowlers?
Luckily, they got wickets but they have not been picked because of their bowling. From the look of things, it seems that since Shafali is not scoring, the team is trying to cement her place by getting her to bowl.
Where are the pacers? The selectors picked Shikha Pandey, but she has been dropped. Pooja Vastrakar has been kept in the reserves for the Asian Games. Is there something wrong going on there? Hope the BCCI has a meeting with the team and asks them some tough questions. They need to answer what went wrong and why. There is also a need to fix accountability for everyone, be it player or selector or coach.
In my opinion, the team should also have a proper fitness roadmap. They can even go for rigorous army training. There has been a report about selectors not picking Richa Ghosh as she failed a fitness test but looking at this team, there could easily be more players who would have failed the test, but they are still in the team.
The BCCI is giving them everything, from high pay to facilities, and it’s high time they have a psychologist to understand why these girls choke whenever there is a pressure situation. What is the reason that we weren’t able to do well against a team like Bangladesh? What will be the scenario if we play ‘big’ teams like England and Australia?
https://twitter.com/urumurum/status/1684027229393801216
https://twitter.com/ICC/status/1683824414389837824
মাসুদ করিম - ৩১ জুলাই ২০২৩ (৪:১৭ অপরাহ্ণ)
Famed art historian, educator Kavita Singh dies at 59
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/famed-art-historian-educator-kavita-singh-dies-at-59-8868427/
Lahiri further said, “Apart from her vast knowledge of the world of art, what distinguished Kavita was her ability to make her audience understand and feel a sense of delight about little noticed details in the paintings she loved. Really sad that she passed away much before her time.”
Lahiri further said, “Apart from her vast knowledge of the world of art, what distinguished Kavita was her ability to make her audience understand and feel a sense of delight about little noticed details in the paintings she loved. Really sad that she passed away much before her time.”
Lahiri further said, “Apart from her vast knowledge of the world of art, what distinguished Kavita was her ability to make her audience understand and feel a sense of delight about little noticed details in the paintings she loved. Really sad that she passed away much before her time.”
Singh had published several essays on secularism and religiosity, “fraught national identities”, and the memorialisation of “difficult histories”.
Historian and author William Dalrymple tweeted: “This is the saddest news… RIP lovely, brilliant Kavita Singh who always dazzled @JaipurLitFest with her fabulous insights to Mughal painting and did so much to educate us all on obscure recesses of Indian art history. What an irreplaceable loss!”
Singh received her BA Honours in English Literature from Lady Shri Ram College in 1985 and her Masters in Fine Arts in Art History from M S University Baroda in 1987. She received a PhD in Art History from Panjab University, Chandigarh, in 1996.
Singh also curated exhibitions at the San Diego Museum of Art, the Devi Art Foundation, apart from JNU and the National Museum of India. Volumes that she has edited and co-edited include New Insights into Sikh
Art (Marg, 2003), Influx: Contemporary Art in Asia (Sage, 2013), No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: The Museum in South Asia (Routledge, 2014) with fellow art historian Saloni Mathur, among others.
“Kavita was one of the brightest art historians and one of the most brilliant people I knew. We worked together for about 20 years. She was one of the founding members of JNU’s School of Arts and Aesthetics,” said Naman Ahuja, professor of Art History at JNU. “She specialised in miniature paintings of the Mughal and Rajput courts and then she touched on something that was very unique and important, which was how the revival of Mughal, and Lucknow and Jaipur styles was carried out in the 18th Century — a period that very few people worked on,” Ahuja added.