Man on the moon

If someone told you that they saw an image of this man's face on the moon, who happens to be Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a Bangladeshi Islamic politician and Muslim cleric, would you believe them?  Yeah, me neither.  But surprisingly, many people fell for the hoax and saw it as an omen to fight the government and free Sayeedi.

In case you haven't been following the news on Bangladesh, hartals (protests) have become a regular occurrence here for the past few months.  Elections are expected to happen somewhere between October and January, so the main political parties here have been busy waging hartals against each other until then.

Things have gotten worse though after Sayeedi, the man in the moon, was found guilty of war crimes committed during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.  He was recently sentenced to death by hanging.  This has led to country-wide protests practically every other day.  Villages of minority groups (mostly Hindus and Buddhists) have been destroyed, rickshaws have been burned, and innocent people have been killed.  Although there have been hartals in Dhaka, most of the more violent protests have occurred outside of Dhaka.  And because we live in the diplomatic zone, we're pretty sheltered from all the chaos which we only see on TV or read about in the newspaper.  It's actually strange to know that all these things are happening just a few miles away from where we live, and yet we haven't even seen any of it.  I should mention that part of the reason for this is that when a hartal is called, we're restricted to a certain area (the diplomatic zone).  Plus, the police have been good about keeping the protests contained within the downtown area.

No one really knows what's going to happen.  But one thing is certain.....the hartals are not going to stop any time soon.  I wouldn't be surprised if they continued even after we leave in June 2014.  Personally, I'm not against the hartals since I do believe in free speech.  However, I don't see the need or the justification for resorting to brutal attacks on people, especially minority groups, and their homes and property.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to add this post because my intention is to keep this as a family blog.  But I figured there might be some people back home who might be interested in Bangladeshi politics or who are worried about our safety.  So we'll post updates periodically to feed your curiosity and to ease your minds:)