You really need to give it to our ministerial force (rim-shot); they sure don’t mince their words.
A few careless remarks about our unsung blue-collar heroes toiling away abroad here, a bit of pooh-poohing on the chances of our country ending in a Roland Emmerich-esque calamity there, and pow! Right in the country’s honour!
Best to get the obvious out of the way: Yes, the Holey Artisan attack was a great tragedy; yes, it will invariably have repercussions for us in terms of international relations; but it’s hard to believe if the incident has had any actual effect on how our country is perceived by outsiders, as our prime minister has so exasperatedly expressed.
We’re still Bangladesh last I checked -- we’d be lucky to have other nations have an opinion about us at all.
When more developed countries such as France and Turkey are witnessing so much turmoil, of both the inner and outer varieties, who in their right mind would expect Bangladesh to live up to the highest global standards of safety and security?
It’s not like the attack was the result of some schoolboy errand on the part of our “intelligence” bodies, texting the wrong contact about a possible terror attack and missing the window of prevention by milliseconds -- actually, that doesn’t sound too unlikely in hindsight.
Nah, if anyone’s doing any besmirching to our nation, you can bet your Shonar Bangla that our thick-headed ministers will be there way before an Islamic State apostle can yell “Jesus Christ!” in disbelief.
When someone has the words “expatriates’ welfare” at the very beginning of their designation, one would expect that the welfare of expatriates would be their primary concern, as a minister or otherwise. But that would just be doing the job right -- where’s the fun in that?
“What’s that? You’re complaining that your employer is denying you your pay unless you give her consent to beat you to a pulp? Stop making stuff up and do what you are told, you cur. Rice just weighs you down anyway.”
Seriously, it must suck to be one of the 506,506 female labourers abroad, especially when it’s Saudi Arabia that houses the lion’s share of that curiously symmetrical figure.
Saudi Arabia! The nation-state equivalent of your middle-class chauffeur, who would love nothing more than some time in the sack with one of his wives back home after a hard day of doing nothing, but not before making her do his laundry first, and then berating her for the cruddy job she did.
A staunch denial of empirical evidence must be a requirement in order to be a politician these days.
If anyone’s doing any besmirching to our nation, you can bet your Shonar Bangla that our thick-headed ministers will be there way before an Islamic State apostle can yell ‘Jesus Christ!’ in disbelief
We all know how the government has been cashing in on climate change to ask for “preparation funds” hither and thither, a lot of willy-waving being done with the “most climate-vulnerable nation” tag not too long ago at COP21.
Which is why the statement of the relief and disaster management minister (heh) that “over the last 200 years, there have not been any earthquakes above 8 on the Richter scale” comes off as especially tone-deaf.
Newsflash, genius: Mother Earth can feel every piece of litter you so callously throw out of that gas-guzzling SUV you zoom by in on a road cordoned off for your VIP-ness -- and you better believe that she’ll react to it with gusto.
That’s almost, almost, as stupid as blaming Holey Artisan itself for the attack.
Wait, what? Oh … goddamnit, industries minister.
The constant cycle of wet and hot has clearly gotten to our dear prime minister, otherwise, it’s not very hard to see exactly what’s blemishing our country’s honour at this specific juncture: Senility.
