The recession and Bangladesh

The IMF publishes forecasts for the world economy twice a year. After its April release, I wrote a piece for Daily Star Forum asking ‘How will the global economic slowdown affect Bangladesh?’ — here is the piece.  The October forecasts have recently been published, and this post revisits the question.  Outlooks for the world economy has been revised downward sharply in the past 6 months.  These are detailed first. 

Then we turn to the outlook for Bangladesh.  While the IMF has revised its 2008 forecast upward, 2009 is now expected to be weaker than thought earlier.  Unfortunately, they don’t actually discuss their numbers, but the ADB does.  The ADB’s latest forecasts for Bangladesh are actually quite optimistic for the financial year 2008-09.  After summarising the ADB’s analysis, I finish with some comments – inflation is expected to remain stubbornly high – and note potential risks to the outlook.  It seems to me that the IMF numbers are more likely to come true.

The case for Sen Obama

In about a week’s time, Americans will choose their next president.  The regular reader would be aware that I support Sen Obama.  Now, I am not an American, but the outcome on 4 Nov will affect us all.  Hence it is natural that most of us would have a view. 

My support for the Democrat candidate might seem unsurprising – after all, ‘the rest of the world’ is the strongest ‘blue state’, and I suspect Bangladeshis overwhelmingly prefer Democrats.  However, as explained below, I could have contemplated supporting Sen McCain.  In 2000, I did seriously think about supporting Gov Bush, and if I were around in 1980, I’d have heartily supported Gov Reagan.  So this post is partly a record of my reasons.  More importantly, just in case there are any undecided American voters among my readers, this note tries to swing your vote to Mr Obama.

School of rock

The cricket season is upon us, which means in my part of the world it is time for year end exams.  It is nearly 15 years ago I had my HSC.  I couldn’t go to my 15th high school reunion because of work pressure – damn the Wall St!  Instead, I’m going to write about some songs I loved in those four years. 

Ideas and Bangladeshi political allignment

…the ideas of … philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. … I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval … the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

That’s how John Maynard Keynes finishes his General Theory.  Seven decades after its publication, ideas from that book are once again being applied by governments of all hue and calling across the world.  But this post is not about the nasty, brutish and long slump we are heading towards.  Instead of that depressing topic, I am going to write about ideas that have shaped political allignments in Bangladesh in the past few decades. 

Some might scoff at the very notion that ideas have shaped our politics.  There are, after all, ample examples of the basest, most opportunistic political maneuverings devoid of any ideas other than the naked pursuit of money and power.  I accept this.  But following Keynes, I contend that underlying all else, key differences of ideas have shaped our political allignments.  I contend that Gen Zia built his majority coalition in the late 1970s on a set of ideas, and another set of ideas provided the basis to the political opposition to his rule.  A lot of water has flown under the Hardinge Bridge in the past three decades, but these ideas are still relevant for our politics.  I contend that regardless of what happens in December, it is these ideas that will determine our politics into the next decade.

On trying the war criminals

About a year ago, senior figures associated with Jamaat-e-Islami created a furore by making extremely provocative statements about Bangladesh’s Liberation War – a war in which Jamaat’s members actively fought against the country’s independence, perpetrating some of the worst war crimes of that conflict along the way.  Indeed, some of the very people making these statements themselves are alleged to be war criminals.  The statement reignited the demands to bring the war criminals to a trial. 

Here is a summary of the controversy.  The reasons for Jamaat’s offensive wasn’t clear to me then (see here), and they’re no more clear now.  What is clear to me though is that people like Matiur Rahman Nizami or  Ali Ahsan Mujahid — the party’s two top ranking leaders — should be brought to justice for their actions in 1971.  What is also clear to me is that the strategies — Shahrier Kabir’s writings linking war crimes trial with secularism or the Sector Commanders’ Forum’s call for banning Jamaat — adopted by those seeking a trial are not going to work.  In this post, I offer an alternative approach.