Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

The Missing Thriller Dear Readers, Black and white explanation for everything, the simplification of perplexed political maneuverings, the apparent unabashed deceits presented as the hype of conspiracy theory, these are quite good for the swindlers. The good and the bad, the beauty and the beast, so simple in clarity, so refined in texture for our moral nutrition and peaceful sleep after a heady day. Writers are part of this world community. To find out why there is not much uproar in the literary communities, in the world of fiction, except a notable few, is a task for the sociologists and the future historians shall play their role too. But for the contemporary regular folks it seems to be convoluted to know why the human nature is such that it continually concocts and fabricate myths in the defense of bigotry and misleads. The same writer once revered for exposing the cold war intelligence, for example John le Carre, are vindicated and amply criticized for writi...

An Insidious Evil -- an Interview with Christopher Browning Dear Readers, History has shown, repeatedly, that genocides, and mass murders were preceded by crafty “rationalization” by the active players of their respective time, who had distorted the facts, conjured frenzied fear among the populace for the support of “preventive measure”. Christopher Browning’s new book “The Origins of the Final Solution” is a timely reminder of Holocaust victims, the noxious historical routes that Hitler and his cohorts took in executing their incremental steps for achieving the “Final Solution” in extermination of the Jews. “Most genocides are conceived by their perpetrators as actions of self defense: "We must do this now because, if we don't, they will do it to our women and our children later." Mass murder is then justified as a preventive measure. I think this is just part of the mentality that makes genocide possible. First you divide people between "us" an...

Pilfering Water in Palestine By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel) February 14, 2004 In the recent years, increasingly, struggles over natural resources are exacerbating conflicts. Middle East is no exception. Under the hideous Israeli occupation, Palestinians are suffering from nonstop killings of their men, women and children and destruction of their home and furthermore there are acute shortages of water which is mostly caused by discriminatory allocation of this precious resource, that is causing more resentment in the occupied land. Palestinians don’t have their freedom, under the rolling tanks and flying jets, their thirsts and tears are snubbed. The neighboring nations have their respective deals with Israel. The only surface water source, the Jordan River and the Lake of Tiberias, even a single drop of water from these are not for the Palestinians who live just along the west bank of the Jordan River. Palestinians get their water from the underground aquifers. “O...

The Last Words on Earth - Story by Nicole Krauss Dear Readers, This is an excellent story published in The New Yorker this weekend. Nicole Krauss’ The Last Words on Earth is a stark portrayal of a man, his struggle for survival in his native country Poland during the severity of Second World War, the lost love, and his own child he was never able to tell his true identity to. An old man’s solitary life as an immigrant in North America, boundless sufferings has caused his sensibilities thickened. Here is a monologue: “My heart is weak and unreliable. I try to burden it as little as possible. If something is going to have an impact, I direct it elsewhere. My gut, for example, or my lungs. When I pass a mirror and catch a glimpse of myself, or I’m at the bus stop and some kids come up behind me and say, “Who smells shit?”—small daily humiliations that are par for the course—these I take, generally speaking, in my liver. The pancreas I reserve for being struck by all that...

Auschwitz Under Our Noses Dear Readers, There are other priorities of news. Janet Jackson’s flashing of right breast was repeated so many times after the Super Bowl, that it seemed for the moment that this was the real issue; this was the issue that the world’s goodness hangs on to. About sixty years after the shameful Holocaust of millions of Jews in the hands of Germans, many in the world still feel the pain for not doing enough for the victims during their time of despair. From time to time there are pointing fingers, blaming from one group to another can still be heard. “In recent years a plethora of respectable institutions -- the Vatican, the U.S. government, the international Jewish community, the Allied commanders -- have all been accused of "allowing" the Holocaust to occur, through ignorance or ill will or fear, or simply because there were other priorities, such as fighting the war.” Decades have come and gone and there are definite changes, mor...