Himal Southasia, a quarterly published from Kathmandu, yesterday launched a special issue focused on Bangladesh: “The Bangladesh Paradox”, with a panel talk between Afsan Chowdhury, Prashanta Tripura, Kasia Paprocki, and Garga Chatterjee.
The talk was moderated by Himal Southasian’s editor Aunohita Mojimdar.
The panelists discussed various politics of Bangladesh in the south Asian context: including its geopolitical issues, language, and race.
A part of the conversation also focused on why, often, Bangladesh is sidelined in the international media despite having volumes of stories to tell.
Afsan Chowdhury, a journalist for the BBC, talked about his experiences of writing Bangladesh-focused stories for the international media, sharing anecdotes of how and when a Bangladeshi story is considered “important” for the world.
“What terrorism is to the western world is something we will never understand because terror has been so normalized for us,” he said. “That’s why we make it to the news when we have a big incident of ‘terrorism,’ and not other incidents that may also have a lot of deaths but different causes.”
The panelists further discussed issues of climate change in the Bangladeshi context, and how that plays into stories of international media (or doesn’t).
The session was held at the lawn in the afternoon.
