Reading The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi in the midst of Israel’s genocidal bombing and starvation of Gaza is both illuminating and depressing.
Before taking a close look at the three feature films that comprise Ray’s tribute to Tagore we might note a few similarities between the two cultural giants.
The poet and playwright Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1824–73) made no effort to conceal his disapproval of traditional Brahmin pundits.
Reading The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi in the midst of Israel’s genocidal bombing and starvation of Gaza is both illuminating and depressing.
Before taking a close look at the three feature films that comprise Ray’s tribute to Tagore we might note a few similarities between the two cultural giants.
While the July Uprising was sparked by economic problems, political repression, and a desire for democracy, it found a strong and surprising voice in a new form of music for Bangladesh: rap. Two songs, “Kotha Ko” (Speak Up) and “Awaz Utha” (Raise Your Voice), came to represent the sentiment of the movement in July.
In his analysis of the Estado da Índia, which was the official name of the Portuguese Empire, George Winius distinguished between the formal administration by the Estado’s headquarters at Goa over overseas possessions and the ‘informal empire’, which he called the ‘shadow empire’, that the Portuguese established in the Bay of Bengal. The shadow empire was a unique experiment carried out by sailors, merchant adventurers, pirates, and missionaries, with little formal sanction either from Goa or from Portugal.
In the immediate aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War, as world attention fixated on the harrowing human toll of conflict and the fate of 93,000 Pakistani POWs in Indian custody, a darker, largely buried chapter was quietly unfolding in Pakistan.
“If properly planned, even now, Dhaka can be transformed into a very decent, liveable city. We can take advantage of the river, the khals, the lowlands, and the richness of the soil for the growth of trees and plants.
“O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” — Frantz Fanon had thundered, as if pleading with flesh and sinew to refuse silence, to resist obedience.
The poet and playwright Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1824–73) made no effort to conceal his disapproval of traditional Brahmin pundits.
In the late afternoon, the sun seemed to drift hastily towards the Phuromon hill in the west. The krishnachura leaves whispered softly in the breeze while the birds’ chirping spread a melodic resonance.
Chittagong’s neighbour Sandwip is absent from Bay of Bengal history because its nature is hard to define.
