Productive at work

Ted Kennedy and Bangladesh

This 1971 file photo shows the then US Senator Edward Kennedy visiting a refugee camp in Kolkata, India, in 1971. More than 10 million Bangladeshis took refuge in India during the Liberation War. (AFP)

*The version of the story that appeared on CNN here

Granted it was a politically prudent move by a Democratic senator eyeing the White House during a Republican regime, but when Edward Kennedy stood up to the Nixon administration in 1971 to alert the world about the genocide and refugee crisis unfolding in what was then-East Pakistan, he became a figure who continues to be revered in now-independent Bangladesh.

“In 1971, there were very few leaders from the so-called free world who were paying any attention to what was going on in Bangladesh. And for Ted Kennedy to come forward and to personally visit, the impact was huge,” said Akku Chowdhury, founder and director of Bangladesh’s Liberation War Museum.

“And that’s one thing Bangladeshis have always remembered.”

At the time the United States policy — directed by President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger — was to resolutely support Pakistan, from which Bangladesh was trying to secede.

The administration had good reasons: The Soviet Union and India had just signed a treaty of friendship, and Kissinger was concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in the region.

Thus, it made strategic sense for the United States to align itself with India’s neighbor, Pakistan.

And so, the United States turned a blind eye as brutal details continued to emerge of atrocities committed by the Pakistani army to suppress the independence movement by Bangladeshis — even as U.S. diplomats urged the administration to speak up.

Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities….

But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the … conflict , in which unfortunately the overworked term ‘genocide’ is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state.

From one of the many “dissent cables” sent to the State Dept by the U.S. Consul General in Dhaka questioning U.S. policy. Emphasis added. The “Blood Telegram,” as it came to be known, was reclassified as secret, and Consul General Archer Blood transferred out of Dhaka.

Soon afterward, Kennedy traveled to east India and documented the plight of displaced Bangladeshis — more than 10 million of whom had sought refuge there.

Upon his return, he issued a scathing report to the Judicial Committee on Refugees. The report, ‘Crisis in South Asia’ spoke of “one of the most appalling tides of human misery in modern times.”

“Nothing is more clear, or more easily documented, than the systematic campaign of terror-and its genocidal consequences-launched by the Pakistani army on the night of March 25th….

All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad. America’s heavy support of Islamabad is nothing short of complicity in the human and political tragedy of East Bengal.

“Crisis in South Asia” report by Senator Edward Kennedy to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement. Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. 1 Nov. 1971

The Nixon administration maintained its stance. But Kennedy focused the spotlight on the genocide at a time when everyday Americans had begun to share in the outrage. (The Concert for Bangladesh, the first benefit event of its kind, was staged at this time to further highlight the plight of Bangladeshi refugees.)

Beseiged, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to ban arms sales to Pakistan.

Bangladesh gained independence on December 16, 1971.

Sheikh Mujib’s government says that 3 million Bengalis died between March and December of 1971….

When the fighting was over, there were vultures almost too fat to fly, and Bangladesh was a land with few of the sinews of nationhood left unsevered.

“Bangladesh - Hope nourishes a new nation.” Sept. 1972, National Georgaphic. Emphasis added.

Two months later — on Feb. 14. 1972 — Kennedy flew to Bangladesh where he delivered a speech at Dhaka University, where the killing spree had begun a year earlier.

About 8,000 jubiliant students crowded into the university courtyard and jammed lecture hall balconies and roofs, greeting him with chants of “Joi Kennedy” — a variation on the independence slogan of “Joi Bangla.”

In his speech, Kennedy drew parallels between the liberation of Bangladesh and the American Revolution. He said America had prospered despite people who predicted it would collapse following independence, and so would Bangladesh.

“Even though the United States government does not recognize you,” Kennedy told the crowd, “the people of the world do recognize you.”

Kennedy also planted a sapling, which blossomed into a banyan tree and still stands today — a testament to a country that overcame all odds to survive and the man who helped play a part in assisting its creation.

— Saeed Ahmed

Sex in Bangladesh

During my nearly month-long trip across Bangladesh, the Lonely Planet: Bangladesh was my bible.

There are two passages in the book that really caught my eye.

First, this one addressed to ‘Gay & Lesbian Travellers’ which talks about how there is a “high degree of sexual repression (and frustration) in Bangladesh” and “authorities generally deny the existence of homosexuality.”

It adds:

“Bangladesh society can be privately tolerant towards homosexuality among young men, but only if it is a phase that doesn’t interfere with marriage prospects.”

My favorite, however, is this list of useful phrases that travelers might need to learn to say in Bengali:

“I’m allergic to … condoms” ??

I cannot imagine why or when someone going to Bangladesh will ever have — or need — an occasion to use this.

More huh-inducing photos from my trans-continental vacation here

Vocoders: Ruining radio since the 70s

Pink Floyd. Tupac Shakur. Kanye West.

I haven’t been able to turn on the car radio in years, without being subjected to the annoying aural gimmick known as the vocoder.

Below, a decade-by-decade look at this blight on music. (Note: this posting, at times, lifts entire paragraphs verbatim from the Averagebro.com blog)

First, a quick explanation. From the wiki entry.

A vocoder (a portmanteau of vox/voc (voice) and encoder) is a speech analyzer and synthesizer. It was originally developed as a speech coder for telecommunications applications in the 1930s, the idea being to code speech for transmission. Its primary use in this fashion is for secure radio communication, where voice has to be digitized, encrypted and then transmitted on a narrow, voice-bandwidth channel. The vocoder has also been used extensively as an electronic musical instrument.

For musical applications, a source of musical sounds is used as the carrier, instead of extracting the fundamental frequency. For instance, one could use the sound of a synthesizer as the input to the filter bank, a technique that became popular in the 1970s.

1970’s

Kraftwerk’s Autobahn is believed to be the first pop song to use the Vocoder. Following suit: The Alan Parsons Project, Giorgio Moroder, and Pink Floyd.

The Styx had a huge hit with “Mr. Roboto” — a song that would be annoying even without it:

1980’s

Jazz giant Herbie Hancock, in his rare foray into pop, probably had the first breakout ‘urban’ hit of this genre with his Grammy-winning single “Rockit”: 



While other bands like Dazz, Guy, and the Gap Band successfully used the machine to crank out 80’s hits, perhaps no single artist exemplified vocoder fever more than Roger Troutman.

The frontman for Zapp elevated the form to all new levels with a plethora of hits such as “Computer Love,” “Slow And Easy,” and “I Wanna Be Your Man” :



1990’s

With the advent of the 90s, R&B gave way to hip-hop and grunge, and the vocoder appeared to be on its last legs.

The decade wasn’t too kind to the ole voicebox — except for a few notable guest appearances by Troutman on West Coast gangsta rap songs, such as the seminal mid-90’s hit “California Love” where Troutman gets down with Dr. Dre and Tupac:




Then came Cher, with her career-reviving 1998 “Believe” — the third biggest-selling single released by a female singer worldwide, the eighth best selling song of the 1990s and the biggest-selling dance song, having sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

And it took vocoder abuse to an absurdly new level:




2000’s

A new decade arrived with great hopes that the vocoder had been killed and buried — or at the very least, shipped off to another land.

That land ended up being Bangladesh, where vocoder use became so ubiquitous that one would be forgiven to think that maybe the country’s constitution was rewritten to mandate its inclusion in every song.

The culprit: New York transplant Fuad Al Muqtadir

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., a Senegalese named Akon dusted off the ole’ voice box and quietly started pumping out hits like “Locked Up,” “Belly Dancer,” and “Lonely”: 



Next came, ex-rapper turner singer named T-Pain. By unapologetically embracing the voicebox, Teddy Pain has become a commercial success beyond Troutman’s wildest dreams, with such ditties as “I’m Sprung,” “Buy You a Drank,” “Bartender,” and my personal favorite, “I’m In Love With a Stripper”:



T-Pain’s success spawned a legion of copycats, including some reasonably talented artists who’ve recently adopted his computerized gimmick to garner airplay, such as Lil’ Wayne’s catchy but dirty ditty, “Lollipop”:

Even Kanye “I march to the beat of my own drum machine” West got in on the act, with liberal vocoder use in “Stronger,”  “Swagger Like Us,” and in his guest appearance on Young Jeezy’s “Put On”:

Of course, hip hop artists aren’t the only ones who jumped on the vocoder bandwagon, such as Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved” — leaving us absolutely nowhere to run.

For the foreseeable future, the vocoder will continue to ruin radio and eardums worldwide. There’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle. We might as well embrace it, or at least learn to tolerate it.


Fortunately, just when we think all hope is lost, along comes Imogen Heap who puts it to incredibly creative use — with unbelievable results in “Hide and Seek”: