Confessions of a Muslim, Asian.........-American??

Yes, I too need to blog about this historic event...GOBAMA! Especially now, since today is 5th November and I just posted an entry about being Bangladeshi versus an American. Let me start off by saying, my earlier blog was in reaction to a conversation I had with a group of Bangladeshi-Americans at the American Club here in Dhaka right after watching Obama's victory speech.

We were all having a friendly argument about how Bangladesh is going down the dumps. Some of us felt that we needed to get away and others felt we needed to stay to bring about changes. Anyway to not completely appear a blind nationalist I should point out that while I fervently defended Bangladesh saying we were still a relatively new nation and that changes would come slowly with time...I went back home and had the same argument with my dad but this time I was the one wanting to get away from here!

Anyway, so here goes to being American. I moved back to Bangladesh this summer in June after almost four years in America and let me tell you, I have not come across one person (neighbors/strangers) since I came back who had not asked me why I decided to come back? Yes, even after all the harassment during immigration, and the Bush blunders and other whatnots a lot of people here still continue to think of the US as the land of dreams.

Nevertheless, along with a more popular opinion at present, America had lost my respect a long time back. How in the world could a country considered the world's greatest democracy, start wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and support the military governments in Pakistan and guess what, even in Bangladesh! (We shall keep out of all the other blunders Bush made and for the moment just stick with America's greatest appeal to the world over...Democracy! the freedom to choose). Yes, I suppose the Afghanis and Iraqis love the fact they are now surrounded by the American army, or that Palestinians love America for supporting the Israeli government who not only keep the Palestinians enclosed on little strips of land but also control the flow of their food and water! Or that Pakistanis are ecstatic about thier very recent ex-Prime Minister Pervez Musharaf who with America's backing, controlled the people of Pakistan on a very tight leash for way to long. Yes, this must be the kind of democracy in America that appealed to the rest of the world.

You can forgive the-Bush-mistake once. But how could it have happened a second time? How in the world did so many Americans support this man a second time? This is the man that made a fool of not only himself but of America to the rest of the world.

To not make this blog too long, I shall end it by saying: No, I never really felt like an American ever before in my life.

How could I? My nationality was questioned both because of my RACE and my RELIGION. Yes, I am Muslim and I love being one but - No, you do not have the right to question me about it. As we all know, Barrack Hussain Obama, the 44th President of the United States had to campaign long and hard to convince Americans that he was a) not Muslim and b) that he was an American, and black ethnically. As a result of this, he did turn many Muslim-American voters off of him but I would just like to say, that I wasn't one of them.

I don't think he would have become the 44th President had he not divorced any relations with Islam completely. But do I think he is the man to restore America's place and respect to the rest of the world? Yes, I do. The fact that so many Americans, after so many years of foolishness has chosen to make Obama the president despite the Hussain in his name, and despite his skin color, my faith in Americans is a little restored. Not everything may work out as promised, and maybe Obama will not be able to bring back America to its position pre-Bush, but, he was able to make Americans take a step towards the right direction and choose Obama to be the President..... despite his ethnicity and despite his so called connections to Islam.

Identity Crisis?!?

I have never really considered or called myself an American. One, I may have been born there but I never lived in the US until four years ago. Second, I never really felt like I belonged in a country where no matter how well I spoke the language or picked up the culture, some people still needed to asked me where I was from originally.

Take for example, a good American friend of mine from here (L: forgive me for sharing this even after you explained it to me, it's too good an example) looked at a group photo of mine from college, and said something along the lines of all my friends having been internationals. Nope. All the people in the photograph had been Americans except maybe one/two. Many were Americans I think who had never in their lives left America. Ethnically my friends from the photo (taken after a performance - bhangra/hiphop) had been South Asian, African-American, Hispanic, etc. otherwise all those considered minority population and hence the question about their nationality. But what a question, and surprisingly all the way out here, even in Bangladesh!

Therefore, whatever problems Bangladesh may have, and we have quite a few - one of the poorest, highest crime rate (eh...one of the top i suppose), apparently even a terrorism breeding ground- I still belong and always will to Bangladesh first. If nothing else, nobody questions my nationality or ethnicity when I go about in this country. Also, we may be small and we may be poor but we did fight and gain our independence and the right to speak our mother-tongue.

P.S. I guess it's unfair of me to not add this: the friend I wrote about earlier did tell me that she assumed I was international (because I did not grow up in the US and we clearly had different definitions of identity/nationality etc.) and also the fact that all students of color at her college had been international students, is what made her ask me whether all the people in my photo had been international students also.

Imma working lady!

I’ve decided to take up blogging again. I figure it’s easier for me to keep in touch, and less of a nuisance for people who don’t want to read emails or facebook messages from me. Anyway so too much has happened since last year for me to try and take up from my last blog. I will just start a new entry with something that happened really recently. To give some background details, I now work at James P. Grant School of Public Health in Bangladesh. The work is very interesting, and the atmosphere dynamic and female dominated so for those who know me well, I am sure you can tell how perfect it is for me.

Anyway I am involved in a couple of projects that belong to the Center for Gender, Sexuality and HIV/AIDS a collaborating center between UNAIDS and BRAC School of Public Health. I’ve recently helped to complete an HIV stakeholders project, where we interviewed various key stakeholders working in the HIV field in Bangladesh to identify success, challenges and opinions on ways to move forward. The work was really helpful in giving me a good solid background on what has been going on in the HIV/AIDS field in the past and at present. The report was recently submitted to UNAIDS and my name is there as part of the research team!

I also helped coordinate and MC'd a student seminar to raise awareness about HIV to students from 6 public and private universities. That went really well and I’ll have a lot more to say about it in my next entry.