Web Write-up Abed Chaudhury

Our UN blunder, and the mayhem in Manhattan

Abed Chaudhury

The UN building stands elegant and tall, its glass of greenish hue scintillating by the East River.  Often in New York for my work I stay not too far from this building; everytime I am there I feel optimistic, energised by the grand scale of the building, by its bleeding-heart promises; sometimes with naivete, but often with genuine optimism I mingle among the people who frequent the Plaza in front of the UN building, feeling the pulse of the whole globe descend on this already thriving city.

A few years ago my adopted country Australia tried hard to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, a cherished honour for any nation.  Our diplomats posted in New York lobbied hard, lubricating the Byzantine machine of international reciprocal favour dispensation, a process for which the UN has become r famous.  Finally after must trepidation when the votes were counted Australia had not made it to the Security Council.  It was a great disappointment for us all and in anger villains were sought and blamed by the Australian Press, and fingers were pointed at an important Australian Diplomat, and his acerbic and snooty style that was supposed to have antagonised some countries who in the end did not support Australia.

Happily, the country of my birth Bangladesh became a member of the Security Council twice, and is currently a member.  I heartily commend our diplomats for bringing this honour to our nation.  In March 2000, two months after becoming a member of the Security Council Bangladesh for a while had the presidency of the council.  Bangladesh is a very small fish in the lake of international deliberations, much much smaller than Australia.  It should be a national pride for all Bangladeshis, a bi-partisan cause for celebration that a country often known for poverty and disaster  has the wherewithal to perform this important international duty.  Irrespective  of politics we should be proud of our bureaucrats who are performing this job on behalf of our nation.  And in dealing with a diplomat who has been responsible for our UN mission for a while and who only recently has been a president of the Security Council on our behalf, our government, of whichever political persuasion it is, should be discreet, diplomatic, and civil to a fault.  As a Bangladeshi citizen that is what I would expect from my country.

I am sorry to have to say that the recent episodes involving the Permanent Representative of our mission in New York does not make me proud as a Bangladeshi.  Irrespective of what the allegation against Mr. Anwarul Karim Chowdhury is, the decisions originating from Dhaka clearly did not derive their inspiration from the manuals of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy.  The events are still much too raw to assess them clearly but in the gossip-prone corridors of the UN tongues are wagging and the image of our Nation is getting a battering.    It is difficult to see the logic of these peremptory action only days before some very important UN conferences requiring vital Bangladesh presence.  Mr. Chowdhury was involved in many of these deliberations for years and only a very grotesque mis-behaviour on his part could warrant his summary removal at this critical time.  In a straw poll that I did among people I know, including some diplomats, most were left unconvinced that Mr. Chowdhury deserved this treatment at this time.

It is indeed a sad episode and sooner it is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, the better it is for the image of the country.  Mr. Shafi Sami the new Chief of our department of foreign affairs has the job cut out for him.  He has a good reputation as a soft-spoken methodical man.  Maybe he can reverse the negative effect of this debacle.  It will require adroit and bold decisions.  The sessions of general assembly are about to begin; Bangladesh needs to participate in numerous important deliberations in various UN committees.  Our national elections are less then a month away when an entirely new set of people will come to power and will appoint people in key positions such as UN.  It is only logical that Mr. Anwarul Karim Chowdhury should be allowed to stay on till the election.  This will stop this embarrassing jostling and point scoring that is publicising the fractiousness of our nation to the whole world.  I appeal to the honourable chief adviser and to Mr. Shafi Sami to display discretion and sagacity and to resolve this issue at once.

The skyscraper with sparkling green glass by the East River is a beacon of hope, co-operation, and of coming together with forgiveness.  Let us all, in the name of our nation, show that we belong in the hallowed corridors of this building.

Postscript:  As I sat on my computer writing these paragraphs about the events that were unfolding in our UN mission two hijacked planes rammed in succession into the World Trade Center building, eventually destroying both buildings in eerie implosion that sent showers of metal, glass and sand and literally burying lower Manhattan in a thick layer of debris.  The definite human toll has already exceeded 1500 and is expected to rise to many thousands.  I could almost feel the awesome connectivity of this inside me, so familiar to me is the urban landscape of Manhattan although I was writing this sitting in Canberra, Australia thousands of miles away.  My writing about a human drama of a few Bangladeshi protagonists being acted out in a building in midtown Manhattan, framed against a staggering sudden event on my TV screen that probably forever changed the psychology of America’s relationship with the rest of the world occurring in downtown Manhattan.  I observed it like a surreal fantasy, almost like an orchestrated event of a stunt movie with two planes with benign signs of passenger airlines written on their fuselage suddenly becoming winged cruise missiles of wanton destruction.    The human carnage that is still hidden by the unfathomable rubble and fire is bound to scar America forever. Many many remain missing including some professional colleagues and in all likelihood many people of Bangladeshi origin. 

A protagonist of my earlier story, Mr. Anwarul karim Chowdhury, by now having transferred his charge to the councillor of the mission writes to me from New York about the calamity “ there is now an eerie total silence in the city that never sleeps”

I leave my article as it is, though it is now rendered somehow irrelevant by the whirlpool of events.  Who knows if the general assembly will even convene in Manhattan this year, and the UN subcommittees seem like a moot, obscure point in the face of this rapid-fire drama?  Be as it may, I nevertheless let my article stay like this, as a testimony to the turbulence of our times.

Abed Chaudhury writes from Canberra, Australia