"There would be no winners in any war, only losers."
July 16, 2016 7:49 PM Subscribe
Gulsen Bahadir could not have known that one week after speaking out on Facebook against the futility of war and the importance of resisting injustice, that her name would be added to the roll call of losses, along with 43 others killed in the attack on Istanbul's international airport on June 28.
Three days later in Bangladesh, the country's grief would in no way be lessened by the fact that the 20 people slain by terrorists at a cafe in Dhaka were mostly foreigners.
. Thank you, very powerful stuff. So many wonderful lives cut short. The bird simile really cut me, too.
From a profile in the first link:
"I have never got into a war in my life, never. Not because I'm weak but because I chose so. My choice was resisting. Because I know that war is futile. There would be no winners in any war, only losers. I'm resisting against the injustices of the state. I'm only asking for the deserved welfare of the people. I resist against evil."
posted by smoke at 8:10 PM on July 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
From a profile in the first link:
"I have never got into a war in my life, never. Not because I'm weak but because I chose so. My choice was resisting. Because I know that war is futile. There would be no winners in any war, only losers. I'm resisting against the injustices of the state. I'm only asking for the deserved welfare of the people. I resist against evil."
posted by smoke at 8:10 PM on July 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
The sadness seems so unrelenting lately.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on July 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on July 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
All of these lively, lovely people, taken in an instant or cruelly over hours of suffering. War is the worst of our nature, acted out.
I just finished reading Phillip K. Dick's Penultimate Truth; most definitely an anti-war novel with amazing undertones. We don't even do peace very well.
My heart goes out to everyone who is lost, to lose who lost, to those standing in the queue.
posted by Oyéah at 9:03 PM on July 16, 2016
I just finished reading Phillip K. Dick's Penultimate Truth; most definitely an anti-war novel with amazing undertones. We don't even do peace very well.
My heart goes out to everyone who is lost, to lose who lost, to those standing in the queue.
posted by Oyéah at 9:03 PM on July 16, 2016
So much heartlessness in the world.
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posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:05 PM on July 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:05 PM on July 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
Thanks, OP. There's nothing I can write that's not a cliche. So much pain, so much loss. Damnation.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:10 PM on July 16, 2016
posted by Bella Donna at 9:10 PM on July 16, 2016
I fear for the future of Bangladesh. In addition to a potential earthquake of huge proportions, climate change is eating away at the country bit by bit, and the government - both parties - seem to be nakedly venal and self-serving, promoting extrajudicial killings and promulgating violent rhetoric. If western countries start looking for somewhere "safer" to make their clothes, the stuttering economy will completely disintegrate. From here, it seems like the place is a powder keg, and as always, it is the innocent citizens who will suffer.
The standoff in Bangledesh
Bangladesh's long road to Islamist violence
Bangladesh is caught between Muslim and Bengali identiies (Indian perspective).
posted by smoke at 9:36 PM on July 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
The standoff in Bangledesh
Bangladesh's long road to Islamist violence
Bangladesh is caught between Muslim and Bengali identiies (Indian perspective).
posted by smoke at 9:36 PM on July 16, 2016 [7 favorites]
I'm taken by the words of Simona Monti's brother: "She was a citizen of the world, her desire to travel, her curiosity. And even in this experience of death there's a spiritual testament not only to our family but the whole nation and all of humanity, it's that of being open without limits to everything that in the world is good, beautiful, just and true."
posted by Lyme Drop at 12:30 AM on July 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 12:30 AM on July 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
A friend who goes to UC Berkeley posted this tribute to Tarishi Jain, a fellow student at Berkeley.
Tarishi, eighteen years old, was an incoming sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, on a summer internship from the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies. The internship placed her at the Eastern Bank Limited in Dhaka, where Tarishi was studying the growth of e-commerce.
Subir Chowdhury, the quality-management strategist, writer, and engineer whose donation and vision launched the Chowdhury Center, said of Tarishi that “she was a very talented young lady with a passion to make a positive difference in the world. It is not just a loss for India or UC Berkeley, but a loss for the world.”
posted by peacheater at 5:43 AM on July 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
Tarishi, eighteen years old, was an incoming sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, on a summer internship from the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies. The internship placed her at the Eastern Bank Limited in Dhaka, where Tarishi was studying the growth of e-commerce.
Subir Chowdhury, the quality-management strategist, writer, and engineer whose donation and vision launched the Chowdhury Center, said of Tarishi that “she was a very talented young lady with a passion to make a positive difference in the world. It is not just a loss for India or UC Berkeley, but a loss for the world.”
posted by peacheater at 5:43 AM on July 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:42 AM on July 17, 2016
posted by ChuraChura at 7:42 AM on July 17, 2016
From smoke's first link, towards the end, about the massacre at the Holey Bakery:
More food for thought in that first link (and expanded in the second) is the way that the now ISIS-affiliated Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was a fairly minor force until one of the major parties,the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, used the JMB in the early 2000s to harass Leftist groups. By the end of that decade, the empowered JMB was seeking its own goals independent of it's former sponsors. are seeing this in a lot of places around the world -- various governments have allied themselves overtly or covertly with extremist groups in their countries and are now finding those groups harder and harder to control or even influence, while the opposition parties, when they get power, are even less able to address the problems caused by these emboldened extremist minorities. It's like these Faustian bargains are all coming due at the same time all over the globe, making it very hard to reverse the process, since political, religious, and nationalist extremists also feed off of "their opposite numbers" domestically and internationally. I have no idea what the answer to this is, besides a lot of people saying "no" and taking the immediate consequences for the rest of us.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:11 AM on July 17, 2016 [6 favorites]
Faraaz, one of the victims at the Holey Bakery on July 1, was “definitely able to recite the Koran,” his brother told the press. As a result, eyewitnesses say, he was told he could leave the restaurant alive. Survivors note that he refused to leave without his two classmates, one American and one Indian, whose bodies were later found in the morgue, with wounds suggesting they had been tortured. Faraaz died protecting his friends.Is both heartbreaking and hopeful. One of the only ways to fight against this disorganized violence is to just say "no." Which means taking the consequences, which is a terrible cost for the individual. I hope Faraaz is remembered long after his killers are forgotten as just faceless murderers.
More food for thought in that first link (and expanded in the second) is the way that the now ISIS-affiliated Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was a fairly minor force until one of the major parties,the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, used the JMB in the early 2000s to harass Leftist groups. By the end of that decade, the empowered JMB was seeking its own goals independent of it's former sponsors. are seeing this in a lot of places around the world -- various governments have allied themselves overtly or covertly with extremist groups in their countries and are now finding those groups harder and harder to control or even influence, while the opposition parties, when they get power, are even less able to address the problems caused by these emboldened extremist minorities. It's like these Faustian bargains are all coming due at the same time all over the globe, making it very hard to reverse the process, since political, religious, and nationalist extremists also feed off of "their opposite numbers" domestically and internationally. I have no idea what the answer to this is, besides a lot of people saying "no" and taking the immediate consequences for the rest of us.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:11 AM on July 17, 2016 [6 favorites]
From that Tarishi Jain link, it appears that she is the Indian classmate (though the link states that they went to Emory not Berkeley) referenced in your quote GenjiandProust:
On the night of the attack, Tarishi had gone to dinner with her friends Abinta and Faraaz to a popular restaurant in Gulshan. The attackers, according to the emerging testimony of survivors, singled out the restaurant as “foreigners” congregated there. The attackers allegedly told restaurant workers that they would not kill Bengalis; a survivor reported that the test of nationalism was the ability to recite from the Koran. Faraaz was told he could be released but elected to stay with his two friends: all three died along with the others singled out for death.
I hadn't realized that she was tortured before death. That is a heartbreaking detail.
posted by peacheater at 8:19 AM on July 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
On the night of the attack, Tarishi had gone to dinner with her friends Abinta and Faraaz to a popular restaurant in Gulshan. The attackers, according to the emerging testimony of survivors, singled out the restaurant as “foreigners” congregated there. The attackers allegedly told restaurant workers that they would not kill Bengalis; a survivor reported that the test of nationalism was the ability to recite from the Koran. Faraaz was told he could be released but elected to stay with his two friends: all three died along with the others singled out for death.
I hadn't realized that she was tortured before death. That is a heartbreaking detail.
posted by peacheater at 8:19 AM on July 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by chicainthecity at 9:35 PM on July 17, 2016
posted by chicainthecity at 9:35 PM on July 17, 2016
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posted by toerinishuman at 2:02 AM on July 18, 2016
posted by toerinishuman at 2:02 AM on July 18, 2016
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