Living In Queens, Thinking Of Bangladesh

By JONATHAN KIVELL

Although the six, unassuming Bangladeshi men sitting around a dinner table recently in a Sunnyside restaurant were telling stories and laughing at each other, the executive committee members of the Queens-based North American Chapter of the Bangladeshi Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) are serious about religious persecution in their home country, and are working to help the people in their native land.

Members of a Queens based group are trying to help oppressed Christians, Buddhists and Hindus in Bangladesh.
Tribune Photo By Jonathan Kivell

“In Bangladesh now, Islamic fundamentalist organizations are undertaking the ethnic cleansing of religious minorities,” says Sitangshu Guha, who has compiled a list of nearly 400 media-reported incidents of abuses done to non-Muslims in Bangladesh from January to June 2002.

“Since 1947, the percentage of Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians in Bangladesh has dropped from 35 percent of the population to less than 10. People are being raped, murdered, and tortured every day.”

New York is the membership hub for BHBCUC members outside of their home country, and all members have full-time jobs, working for the council in their spare time.

The North American chapter holds full meetings once every six months with about 300 members in attendance, while the members of the 51-person executive committee meet biweekly.

“We pay for everything out of our own pocket,” says Rup Kumar Bhowmick, who has served as the council’s president for four years. “It’s hard to be so far away from home and want to see results fast.”

During its many trips to Washington D.C., the executive committee has met with members of the United States Department of State, as well as members of Congress and Senators.

A recent meeting with Queens Congressman Gary Ackerman, who sits on the House Foreign Relations Committee, allowed board members to discuss the human rights violations taking place in their country.

Although Ackerman was receptive, Bhowmick says, his effort to bring issues of Bangladesh to the full Congress were unsuccessful.

Council members also met the Prime Minister of India at a speech held in New York, urging him to consider Bangladesh in its foreign policy, aiding Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian people in any way possible.

“We are trying to convince the State Department to change its policy,” says Ratan Barua, former president of the council, who has helped spearhead letter-writing campaigns to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and European Union, urging the organizations to aid Bangladesh.

“The United States government helped religious minorities have voting power in Pakistan. It has the same power to bring about change in Bangladesh.”

Members of the executive committee relate the issues of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh to terrorist acts in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere, with a growing Muslim population that is trying to eliminate all non-Muslims.

Says one council member, “We’re afraid that in two or three years, our country will become another Afghanistan. The council relates the current situation in Bangladesh to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and East Timor.”

“We’re raising our voice,” says one council member, “to show people that Islamic fundamentalism is a problem in Bangladesh and many other places in the world. We’re saying what President Bush is saying because Muslims are now trying to make Bangladesh a strictly Islamic country. In our meetings with the State Department, we repeatedly ask, ‘How many people need to die to show that people are dying?’”

For more information on the group or the cause, call Bhowmick at 824-0833.

Bangladesh Group
Teaches Members How To Vote

By Angela Montefinise

Thousands of Bangladeshi Americans went to the polls this Election Day with a new knowledge of how to participate in the American voting system thanks to the efforts of an Elmhurst-based non-profit organization that aims to bring Bangladesh people into the American mainstream.

The organization, Bangladesh Society Incorporated, was founded at Columbia University in 1975, but shortly afterwards moved to Queens, where it has been ever since. After years of leasing space all over the borough – which has the most Bangladeshi people in the City – the organization finally bought its own building in Elmhurst in August for $500,000, and member Nasir Ali Khan said, “We finally have a home . . . We have many, many members from Queens. Many of our most active members are from there.”

Khan, who is from Jamaica Hills and said there are vibrant Bangladeshi communities in Astoria, Jamaica, and Ozone Park, is chairman of the organization’s Election Commission, and explained that during the Society’s membership elections on Oct. 27, a change was made to help teach Bangladeshi Americans how to vote in “American elections.”

“Our organization has 10,000 people,” he said, “Of that, about 50 percent are American citizens who can vote in American elections . . . Our belief is when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do. We used to use paper ballots, but this year, we rented six voting machines from a company in Woodside. We taught people how to pull the levers, this way when American Election Day comes, they can participate.”

The Society held elections to fill its 19 executive positions on Oct. 27 in Long Island City, and Kahn said more than 2,000 of the group’s 10,000 members came, voted, and learned the process of American voting. He added that there was a voting station in Brooklyn as well, and said, “In addition to the machines, we placed ads on Bangladesh television stations and in nine Bangladeshi papers explaining to people how to pull the lever . . . We want to join the mainstream. We’re moving closer, and events like this will help.”

Khan said he saw “an excitement” in people’s eyes when they voted on Oct. 27, and said, “I was talking to police there, and they said they’ve never seen people vote like this. We were so enthusiastic, and candidates were asking for people’s votes, and there were color posters . . . At one in the morning about 1,000 people were still there to hear the results. . . Imagine if we went out like that on American Election Day. We have nearly 200,000 people in the Tri-State area, and we could really get something done.”

Anyone with a connection to the Bangladeshi heritage is welcome to join the Society, which has branches in several other states, is mostly based in the Tri State area, Khan said. Although the Society is currently setting up its new office in Elmhurst, those interested in the group can call Khan at 523-2278.