In the news these days...

Well the new semester is underway, and I've got a few new responsibilities that will keep things interesting. Also underway, the new Awami League led parliament is already locked in some pointless bickering with opposition members. Opposition law makers were give four of the nine available seats to the left of the Prime Minister, the remainder sitting in the second row of the parliament room. This, obviously, is a cruel and conniving attempt by the Awami League to silence to already battered opposition law makers. Said law makers have refused to participate in governing this poor, abused, and disintegrating nation until they get their front-row seating! Neither side looks like budging, and the mediator assigned to the dispute recently said that he "doesn't see any way of making both sides equally happy." Once again the theater of Bangladeshi politics triumphs above attempts to make their constituents' lives better.

In other news, police recently beat down on hundreds of student protesters in Old Dhaka, where students were protesting the seizure of their dormitories by, as the article stated "the powerful people, politicians, and criminals"... I think they could have just listed one of these titles and implied the other two. The police used "trudgeons," clubs and tear gas to disperse the crowds. The university has accused the police of attacking women and students uninvolved with the protests, simply trying to get to class. The picture on the front of the Daily Star newspaper was of three police raining down on an unarmed student with clubs. The caption read "police beat up a student protester at ____ University" (no archives online for the Daily Star, and I've forgotten the name!). As I read on, I discovered that the speedy response of the police may have been influenced by the fact that police families had occupied the hostels and apartments designated for student housing.

There were also students protesting the protesters. They claimed that the students were trying to upset the law and order of the university... by trying to get their housing back... by carrying signs and walking around. These students assisted the valiant police officers by causing physical harm to as many of the dislodged students as possible.

It will be interesting to see if these types of uprisings and subsequent responses will become more prevalent without the military government in power. From what I'd seen and read before coming here, I guess I would have assumed that as a military government that seized control of the capital and arrested hundreds of politicians left power, things would become MORE democratic. However, nothing happens as you might expect here, and the truth is that while protests were halted under the military government, this type of abuse is unlikely to stop as those with power to gain from corruption will also no longer have the fear of military arrest. Paradoxically, although the restrictions implemented by the military government hurt rights to free speech and free assembly, though they also cracked down on the abuses of power that are truly hamstringing this country. Hopefully things won't get too ugly in the next five years of Awami League power.