Got an Al-Qaida story? Sure man, how much?

At an office in Dhaka where this Channel 4 team first landed and then went about doing their job, they were mostly objects of derision more than rage.

"Not good enough... got the job because they are from the UK....Channel 4 has no funds so they hire such teams...."

"I have been told that within an hour after landing they were shooting."

"They don't seem to believe in research", someone said.

"Maybe they were insured", added another.

They are thought to be bad journalists, not bad people. Some seem to know a little more about the two than others. Some are safer than others I suppose, because not all who came in touch with them have been touched [by our government].

For one, we know, their visa declaration isn't the only fabrication they made.. and put people in trouble..

The GUARDIAN report doesn't say -- and why should it -- that both Saleem Samad and Priscilla Raj [the two Bangladeshi journalists who were arrested for translating for the two UK journalists] may have been tortured. It only says that "they" [the Ch 4 journalists] haven't been touched. "They" are different from the "other", for those familiar with post-modern lingo.

The Channel 4 duo wouldn't be touched and they haven't been. Zaiba and Sorrentino come from donor lands and their safety has been bought through aid packages which Bangladesh can't do without, or so they say, while Saleem and Priscilla come from around here...locals....

No matter how hard they try it's difficult for an Englishman to write with concern about people from a land which has no profile in the West. Now, even in the same jail, Z&S share Division prisons while S&P are with the plebeians. You don't have to do much, you just have to be -- to stay in the lesser jail..

That Ch 4 came to do a "simple political story" may be difficult to buy when all evidence is examined, but that's not the point anymore. Did they not scout to read the mood? Or was it unnecessary in Bangladesh because Western media has the right to go where they want?

Did they play a role in enhancing the crisis now in our country, that has led to all kinds of situations truly beyond our control? Bombs, arrest of "secret agents", arrest of intellectuals. We are shit scared. And the list will get bigger, but did we need an extra load because some Ch 4 goofs thought that this was a great place to do a story?

This morning, as I was interviewing someone about 1971 war, the man was guarded. "Days have changed" he sheepishly smiled. He listened to every recorded minute just to make sure. We are becoming cowards and soon people will say '"how come the people of Bangladesh are not rising in revolt against loss of freedom?" This society creates cowards more easily than another where you can return home. Here you live in the "unreported world." This is home.

Late last night, while waiting for news to arrive we chatted about the future or the lack of it. "We are becoming a storeyard of other people's wars.. other people's stories..." In the last two months there have been many queries from international media. " Do you have an al-Qaida story..?" a new Zealand outfit asks... "Sure man, how much?".....

Why haven't the journalists of Dhaka risen as one against the internment of Saleem at least? Because they are no longer one and will never be. Perhaps they never were.

Are we really anybody anymore? And its this missed opportunities. The opportunities that never came that define us. We can't get commissioned...not good enough...

western audience...western eyes...

Zaiba's sister lauds her saying that her father wanted her to be a lawyer or a barrister but she became a journalist. She is a brave lass! If you asked today, Priscilla would like to be a lawyer or barrister anytime, but can never become one. Saleem never made it past high school. He has been forced to become a fixer -- this man who now is not hirable anymore by the local papers.

And now, after this, no Editor (or not many) will dare hire him. After 25+years in the profession he will still have to do fixing for foreign journalists because he has a family to keep. It's been months without any regular work, otherwise why would he do this...he said a few days before the incident.

Priscilla is recently divorced and Bangladesh society will not forgive someone who has been jettisoned from that deadly cocoon of social security. With electric shock burns on her as per her statement she is reluctantly brave and unemployed. Unless some "kind" Westerner takes her away or hires her..

None of this makes great journalists because we get beaten so regularly and routinely rather than report. "But you have to work for gora (white) outfits if you want the world to notice...it just doesn't work any other way"...Last week when the bombs went off in Mymensingh and body parts travelled in many directions, it didn't mean becoming victims of a bomb only. It meant becoming victims of a livelihood loss. This is something the West can't understand. That we live next door to penury. That, for most of us, courage comes with a ticket to loss of job and work. Even as our jobs die on us so many times. That we shall pass this life without facing full starvation like many others but we will just never be secure. Always hoping that a fixing job will take us a few months longer.

It's this mix of our realities that we can't make others understand. Least of all our own leaders -- and to be comfortable, you need to be leaders... you don't have any other option. Nobody wants you to be a good journalist, they just want to fix you...fix for you...and take the plunge...

Where do lies start?

How can the West understand the meaning of Saleem being fifty and still without a decent job after 25 years in the profession? Fixing for careless strangers from the West who come visiting in victorious media boats carrying explorers into the uncharted unreported world...

Biswa Ijtema [World Muslim Council] on Dec 12, so opposition party has withdrawn hartal. Largest gathering of Muslims...many potential terrorists... won't a bomb go off please and fill the wires with news the world is waiting to hear..

Long before we had governments we had terrorists. Anybody wants this story?

Afsan Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star, wrote this in response to Guardian story on two arrested UK journalists. This was earlier published in The Guardian.