I started my journey towards National Health Insurance Co. from my University at 5:30 in the morning. It was Friday and I was having the last class of the week. But who cares about the class when you are going to DMZ, a place near to North Korea!!

I reached at the venue before starting the event. At the reception we were welcomed by the organizers and they gave us some gifts including 20000won!! A perfect starting, isn't it ???

The program started with self introduction of the participants. We introduced ourself in Korean Language. After that there were 2 presentation before the lunch on Korean Health Insurance and Health Tourism. Both of the presentations were in Korean so we barely understood the presentation. I was trying to understand something from some brochures and from the hard copy of the presentation which was in English.

During the lunch break everyone went to cafeteria to have lunch. Only 5-6 of us who were fasting were chatting outside the cafeteria. Some people were asking us that why we were not eating and we were explaining to them that we were fasting and we could not eat till before sun set. After hearing this the expression that they  were giving was "OO!! Ramdan!." I think most of the Koreans know what Ramdan is, even though they don't know what does it really means. 

Anyway, after the lunch we took a group photo in front of the office and started our journey towards North Korea.

Everyone of us was so excited as it was our first experience to go so near to North Korea. After 1 hour we reached infront of a bridge that was built by Hyundai Co to send relief to North Korea. One of my Korean friend was explaining to me that the founder of Hyundai Co has some relatives in North Korea and he has a good feelings for North Korean People. That's why he made this bridge to send some assistance to them. This bridge is called Unification Bridge.

                               This is the Unification Bridge that we crossed

Click here to read "My visit to Korean Demilitarized Zone tour"

~ The Rohingya: Myanmar's outcasts ~
Millions of residents of western Myanmar have been stripped of citizenship and basic human rights. Will Suu Kyi help?








The Rohingya ethnic group of Myanmar is not recognised by the government [GALLO/GETTY]


This article is the first in a series by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to the UK, exploring how a litany of volatile centre/periphery conflicts with deep historical roots were interpreted after 9/11 in the new global paradigm of anti-terrorism - with profound and often violent consequences. Incorporating in-depth case studies from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Ambassador Ahmed will ultimately argue that the inability for Muslim and non-Muslim states alike to either incorporate minority groups into a liberal and tolerant society or resolve the "centre vs periphery" conflict is emblematic of a systemic failure of the modern state - a breakdown which, more often than not, leads to widespread violence and destruction. The violence generated from these conflicts will become the focus, in the remainder of the 21st century, of all those dealing with issues of national integration, law and order, human rights and justice.

Washington, DC - The image of a smiling Daw Aung San Suu Kyi receiving flowers from her supporters is a powerful message of freedom and optimism in Myanmar, the symbol of democracy in a country which has known nothing but authoritarian oppression for decades.

Yet few ask one of the most pressing questions facing Daw Suu Kyi. How will she deal with the Rohingya?

"The Rohingya," you will ask. "Who are they?"

The Rohingya, whom the BBC calls "one of the world's most persecuted minority groups", are the little-publicised and largely forgotten Muslim people of the coastal Rakhine state of western Myanmar. Their historic lineage in Rakhine dates back centuries, as fishermen and farmers. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically driven out of their homeland by Myanmar's military junta and subjected to widespread violence and the total negation of their rights and citizenship within Myanmar. They are a stateless Muslim minority.

The continued tragedy of the unrecognised Rohingya, both in Myanmar and as refugees abroad, casts a dark shadow over the bright hopes and prospects for democracy in a country plagued by violence and civil war. Suu Kyi is ideally placed to extend democratic reforms to all ethnic peoples, including the Rohingya, in a free Myanmar.

Though the Rohingya may be small in number at less than two million, the real lesson of the Arab Spring is that no notion of democracy can succeed without the inclusion of all people within a country's borders. Every member of society, regardless of race and religion, must be given their due rights as citizens.



"While many ethnic minorities in Myanmar have been the victims of the central government's oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart in that their very existence is threatened."


While many ethnic minorities in Myanmar have been the victims of the central government's oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart in that their very existence is threatened. The Rohingya's plight abroad as refugees in places such as Bangladesh and Thailand has seen glimmers of the media spotlight, but less attention has been brought to the underlying cause of their flight: the violence and cultural oppression at home.

These policies were enacted by Myanmar's government to force the Rohingya outside of Myanmar as a result of their being Muslim and ethnically non-Myanma. The government erroneously labelled them as "illegal Bengali immigrants" in their efforts to eradicate the Rohingya culture.

Kings to refugees

Yet, the long history of the Rohingya and the Rakhine state contradicts the government's claims. The medieval Kingdom of Arakan, encompassing the Muslim Rohingya, was once an enlightened centre of culture, knowledge and trade, displaying a harmonic blend of Buddhism and Islam in its administration and court life. The kingdom's cosmopolitan and international capital city, Mrauk U, was described in the 17th century as "a second Venice" by a Portuguese Jesuit priest and was often compared to Amsterdam and London by travellers and writers of the time.

It was the 1784 military conquest by Bodawpaya, the king of Burma (now Myanmar), that transformed this once vibrant kingdom into an oppressed peripheral region. After this, many haunting tales began to circulate of Burmese soldiers rounding up the Rohingya in bamboo enclosures to burn them alive, and marching thousands to the city of Amarapura to work, effectivley as slave labour, on infrastructure projects.







With the rise to power of the military junta in 1962 under General Ne Win, a policy of "Myanmarisation" was implemented as an ultra-nationalist ideology based on the racial purity of the Myanma ethnicity and its Buddhist faith. The Rohingya, as both Muslims and non-Myanma, were stripped of their legitimacy and officially declared foreigners in their own native land. With the passage of the junta's 1982 Citizenship Law, they effectively ceased to exist legally.

Stripped officially of their citizenship, the Rohingya found their lives in limbo: prohibited from the right to own land or property, barred from travelling outside their villages, repairing their decaying places of worship, receiving an education in any language or even marrying and having children without rarely granted government permission. The Rohingya have also been subjected to modern-day slavery, forced to work on infrastructure projects, such as constructing "model villages" to house the Myanmar settlers intended to displace them, reminiscent of their treatment at the hands of the Burmese kings of history.

The denial of citizenship and rights was accompanied by a military strategy of physical and cultural war designed to drive the Rohingya out of Myanmar.

The initial push of the military's ethnic cleansing campaign came in 1978 under Operation Naga Min, or Operation King Dragon. The purpose of this operation was to scrutinise each individual within the state as either a citizen or alleged "illegal immigrant". This resulted in widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, desecration of mosques, destruction of villages and confiscation of lands among the Rohingya people. In the wake of this violence, nearly a quarter of a million Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, many of whom were later repatriated to Myanmar where they faced further torture, rape, jail and death.

In 1991, a second push, known as Operation Pyi Thaya or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, was launched with the same purpose, resulting in further violence and another massive flow of 200,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.
Non-governmental organisations from Europe and North America estimate that 300,000 Rohingya refugees remain in Bangladesh, with only 35,000 residing in registered refugee camps and receiving some sort of assistance from NGOs.

Acknowledging the Rohingya

Those remaining, more than 250,000, are in a desperate situation without food and medical assistance, largely left to slowly starve to death. The December 2011 refugee repatriation agreement reached between Myanmar President Thein Sein and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will exclude the Rohingya, due to their lack of Myanmar citizenship, one of the conditions for repatriation for the expected 2,500 returning refugees.

The Rohingya predicament underlines a paradox for the world's great faiths, straddling the divide between Islamic Asia and Buddhist Asia. Each emphasises compassion and kindness and yet, we see little evidence of this in their dealings with the Rohingya people.

As part of this current study on the relationship between centre and periphery in the Muslim world, we recently interviewed Dr Wakar Uddin, Chairman of The Burmese Rohingya Association of North America (BRANA). A gentle and learned man, he is an energetic ambassador for his Rohingya people with a firm grasp of regional history. All the Rohingya want is the reinstatement of their citizenship in their own land, as revoked by the former dictator General Ne Win, and the dignity, human rights and opportunities that come with it.

Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy have a unique opportunity to reach out to the Rohingya people and include them in the new democratic process. The NLD should work with the central government to expand the role of all ethnic minorities as full Myanma citizens.

By acknowledging their rights, the government will bestow upon the Rohingya the dignity and the responsibilities of citizenship and present opportunities for mutual cultural understanding and the repatriation of the thousands of refugees existing in purgatory, separated from their homes and families. Great strides have recently been made by the Myanmar government towards the creation of an open and democratic political system and an end to ethnic violence, yet this is only the beginning.

With the recognition of the Rohingya as Myanma citizens, Suu Kyi will honour the memory of her father, Aung San, as he, before his untimely and tragic death, also reached out to ethnic minorities to participate in an independent Myanmar. Only then can a democratic and modern Myanmar be legitimate and successful in the eyes of its own people.

But the first step is to acknowledge the Rohingya exist.

This article is based on research being conducted by Professor Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, Washington, DC, and Harrison Akins, a Research Fellow attached to the Chair, for the forthcoming study, Journey into Tribal Islam: America and the Conflict between Center and Periphery in the Muslim World, to be published by Brookings Press, exploring the conflict between Muslim tribal groups and central governments across the Muslim world in the context of the US-led 'war on terror'.

Ambassador Ahmed is a former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and former administrator in Waziristan and Balochistan. He is the award-winning author of numerous books, including Discovering Islam, and Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam (Brookings Press, 2010).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.






Akbar Ahmed

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington.

Source: Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/201212710543198527.html

Secularism is not mere a simple word. The repercussion of this concept is far-flung. Historically, it is intertwined with vengeance and violence; persecution and execution. Atheist thinkers of the so-called enlightened period put forward this worldview or ideology based on materialistic philosophy. Therefore, the word secularism is fundamentally implicated with negative connotation when compared with monotheistic religious worldview. Scholars and philosophers of our time have been trying to define or depict this secularism concept in a more presentable way in order to get the acceptance from public or to avoid public backlash. As a consequence, there are several versions of secularism concept have been emerged over the ages, for instance, French secularism, American secularism (allow more freedom from religious point view), English secularism, secularism without democracy (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan etc.), Hindu secularism (India) and Muslim secularism (some Arab countries, Indonesia etc).If we consider the models of Western secularism and secularism without democracy (it should be, since they are more developed), there are some universal core principles of secularism including modernization, progressiveness, human rationalism, freethinking and freedom of expression (in political sense, this is not applicable for china and Russian block). As an outcome of these core values, there are some social norms have established in the secular society. What we know as "sin" in religious perspective that is not sin or is legalized in secular term depending on personal freedom until it does not harm other people directly. Homosexuality, for instance, was defined as mental disease until 1973 in American Psychiatric Association. Currently, most of the Western countries regard this phenomenon as natural and accepted in the society. The same-sex marriage has been legalized in more than 23 European countries (first in Denmark in 1989), US (some states), and some countries of Latin America, South Africa and Nepal (judicially mandated but not yet legislated). Many more countries are on the process of legalization of same-sex marriage in order to keep up pace with modernization and progressiveness. Forget about nudity, sexual promiscuity; these days' people of the secular society are campaigning to legalize incest (see also Wikipedia): sex between father-daughter, brother-sister (my hands are scrambling to write about this phenomenon).



How about Muslim secularism?

Among Arab countries, Islam is "the religion of the state" in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Syria, Mauritania, Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia and Yemen. Since all those countries' regimes are undemocratic and unpopular due to their inefficiency, corruption and Westernized way of life, they try to claim legitimacy by resorting God's name. On the other hand, Malaysia and Indonesia can be considered as secular state (both Muslim and non-Muslim have separate civil courts). Army is required to rescue secularism in Turkey and Algeria.

Over the decades atheistic form of secularism have been tried in many Muslim countries (such as Iraq under Saddam's regime) but ended with failure, bloodshed, oppression and execution. Secularism was also tried in Afghanistan and Iran but backfired. In Iran 1928, Reza Khan seized power in 1928. It decreed European attire for men (1936) and banned hijab and chador for women in order to generate Europeanizing Muslims. This type of oppression led to the Iranian Revolution in1979, which reversed the decree, where hijab is obligatory. Interestingly, the secular rulers of the Muslim countries have attempted to implant Westernized secularism but in most cases failed due to public outcry. Even though in Tunisia, practicing Muslim is the prerequisite to be the president according to constitution, government has declared hijab as "sectarian dress code" and banned from public sphere. Police have been employed to implement this decree fiercely. There are many allegations to human right organization about harassments; woman wearing Muslim dress was raped in the police station in order to spread the fear among people who wish to wear Muslim dress. Hijab is used to snatch away on the street, university by police. Another Muslim secular country, Morocco is on the verge of banning Muslim dress in the ground of the symbol of fundamentalist/Islamist.



Turkish model of secularism:

Turkey (having 99% Muslim) is considered to be the role model of secularism in Muslim country according to Western observers. Ottoman Empire ruled the world for seven hundred years based on Islamic principles. Caliphs and ummah of the moribound Ottoman Empire were dirfted away from their guiding principles. As a consequence, it became corrupted and infficient. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander led the Turkish War of Independence to form the Republic of Turkey from the ruins of the defunct Ottoman Empire. The Turks revered Ataturk so much and given the title as 'Atatürk', meaning Father of the Turks. He used to give sermons during Friday prayer under Ottoman rule. He was an astute statesman and strewed strategist. He didn't express to the public how he would develop Turkey until he became president. He carefully devised a secular master plan, known as Kemalism. Ataturk and associates first started to question the religious values publicly and held the view that religion was not compatible with modern science and progress.

In order to implement Ataturk's ideology, government abolished Islamic religious institutions; replace the Shariah law with adapted European legal codes; replaced the Islamic calendar with the Gregorian calendar; replace the Arabic script (used to write the Turkish language) with the Latin script and closed all religious schools . Morevoer, Ataturk took control of the country's 70,000 mosques and restricted the building of new mosques. Muftis and imams (prayer leaders) were appointed and educated by the government. Imams were used to preach his ideology. According to Ataturk modernity was valued and represented as not wearing any religious dress or being non-religious.

Mustafa Kemal, took an infamous famous "hat revolution" in 1925. By this hat law, he outlawed all religious turbans and made it compulsory for civil servants to wear the "headgear of the civilized peoples. It was impossible to wear this rimmed hat during the daily Muslim prayer, in which the believers put their foreheads to the ground as a sign of submission to the Almighty. One religious scholar named İskilipli Atıf, wrote an treatise titled "The Hat and the Imitation of the Franks," He objected to the idea by arguing that it would amount to the abandonment of Muslim culture. Later, he was arrested and charged with treason. In his defense, İskilipli Atıf said that he stood behind his views, and the court cold-bloodedly sentenced him to death. The old man was executed by hanging on Feb. 4, 1925. "Don't cry my child," he said in his last hours to his daughter who was in tears. "Just recite the Koran for my soul." He was only one of the many victims of the hat revolution. According to the Turkish version of Encyclopedia the number of people killed by the regime was as high as 78. Moreover, many others were sentenced to 10 to 15 years of imprisonment.

Druing Ataturk regime, the veil and hijab (headscarves) were discouraged and restricted for women. After some time the Atatürk regime moved towards more extreme measures. Ataturk prohibited religious education. The existing mosques were turned into museums or used for the regimes secular purposes. Those who protested against his ideology were brutally oppressed in order to suppress the rebellions after massive bloodsheds. (for example, Seyh Sait rebellion in southeastern Turkey claimed about 30,000 lives). In 1980s, amidst this environment, a new generation of educated, articulate and religiously motivated leaders emerged to challenge the dominance of the Kemalist political ruling elite. By their own example of piety, prayer, and political activism, they have helped to spark a revival of Islamic observance in Turkey. Works of Fatemullah Gullen and Harun Yahya have contributed in this regards. Secular establishment/elites were frigthened to this revival. Secular military took over the power in order to protect the secularism. As a control measure, the wearing of the hijab in universities was first banned shortly after a 1980 military coup. The headscarf is banned in the public square such as, governmental building, schools, colleges, courts and universities (both private and public).



How about Bangladesh in the context of secularism?

If we consider the positive connotation of secularism, the present laws in our country fulfill the requirement of secularism. In Bangladesh, everybody can freely practice their own religion and at the same time, constitution is not sharia based. In some cases, our system is better than that of US. For instance, every religious group enjoys their important religious festival as national holidays in Bangladesh, which is unthinkable in US and Europe. But astonishingly, when Awami league government comes to power, the ideology of secularism comes to scene. Does this mean, policymakers and intellectuals of AL want to impose atheistic version of secularism in Bangladesh? Government assures people verbally but general people like me are not assured due to some legitimate concerns. It is quite well known that supporters (journalist, intellectuals, leftist) of staunched secularism always try to mock or ridicule Islam, Islamic values, Islamic symbols in the name of attacking Jamaat and therefore general people may not be aware. It has been well established as norms that intellectuals of secularists' forums who are fiercely promoting for secularism in Bangladesh, ridicule religious values, symbols and our prophet. It is quite rational to doubt their motives and version of secularism. In this regards, one of the key Awami league policy makers, Ex-Mayor Hanif, repeatedly and confidently protested about the secular view in AL constitution. According to the report published in the Daily Star (2005) he said; "I am not secular because I believe in Islam and follow its teachings ". Afterwards, Mayor Hanif was politically sidelined. Before election, one of the chief policymakers clearly stated his plan which was published internationally regarding the establishment of secular system in Bangladesh:

"Can the Awami League stop the growing tide of Islamism in a country that has seen the sale of burkas rise nearly 500 percent in the last five years? The answer is yes if it implements the following secular renewal plan. First, it must modernize the curriculum of the madrasses. Second, it must build proper, secular elementary schools and hospitals. Third, it should increase the recruitment of secular-minded students into the military from secular cadet academies. Fourth, it must attempt to rehabilitate known extremist clerics. Lastly, and perhaps the most abstract solution, it must push to vanquish Bangladeshi poverty and illiteracy that consistently ranks among the worst in the world. This plan would make the country less hospitable to a growing Islamist movement and help return Bangladesh to its secular roots".

Why does this key policy maker label religious dress as sectarian dress? If we carefully look at the proposed plan, you will find that the proposal is in paralleled with Turkish model, which is atheistic version of secularism. In the meantime, education policy has been made in that direction in order to implement this master plan in the long run. The education policy has been made based on thoughts and experiences of several individuals whose ideological view are well known from their seminar, symposium, books, and columns. It is noticeable that their ideological thoughts have been reflected in the policy. As a general citizen of Bangladesh, it is my right to see the explanation whether motives are really honest, since my kids and the next generation would be affected by this policy. In historical perspective, it would be imprudent to divert the general public attention just by labeling this important issue as the propaganda of Jamaat or Islamists.



http://shodalap.com/sorowar/311
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5413808.stm
http://thedailystar.net/2005/10/23/d51023060364.htm
http://www.yvonneridley.org/yvonne-ridley/articles/hijab-ban-in-tunsia-4.html
http://hir.harvard.edu/index.php?page=article&id=1784

 Om Malik

Bio:Om is the founder of GigaOM Network, where he is currently a senior writer. He has worked as a senior writer for Forbes.com, Red Herring and Business 2.0. He is the author of Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist. Om blogs about baseball, life and music on his personal blog, OmIs.Me.


Last month, I took a little break from all the hustle and bustle of the Internets and decided to focus on trying to get a better handle on my daily life. It included eating right, working out and, in short, decompressing. I was trying to use a month-long break to change life-long behaviors such as staying up late, working long hours and more often than not, eating erratically. I think these were some of the problems that got me into trouble the first place.
That growing bit of self-awareness and some well-minded friends and colleagues who convinced me — it was time to Get. A. Grip. In short, what I was trying and am actively trying to do is change behavioral patterns that have now become embedded in my brain.
Large companies are somewhat like me — once they get used to a certain behavior, they develop a certain culture and a set of procedures, processes and a work environment that defines them and their future. These define their corporate DNA. It is hard to change. You can’t buy new DNA, and companies can’t acquire their way into new corporate cultures. Furthermore, companies that lack that self-awareness of their DNA and behaviors, in the end, find themselves extinct.
The Corporate DNA

DNA contains the genetic instructions used to build out the cells that make up an organism. I have often argued that companies are very much like living organisms, comprised of the people who work there. What companies make, how they sell and how they invent are merely an outcome of the people who work there. They define the company.
If a company makes luxury goods, all its “genetic instructions” whether it is sales processes, manufacturing and production methodologies, its design and ultimately its messaging are tuned to provide a collective “corporate DNA.” Similarly a company making paper napkins is built a certain way and another one selling routers and switches is built in a certain way.
These instructions are often so ingrained in a corporate psyche, that they start to impede progress — mostly because they encourage a type of repeated behavior, which becomes a pattern that is hard to break. In the end, this behavior is what gets you into trouble — just as my own behavior got me into trouble. So while, you can’t change your DNA,  the question is, can you change your programming and behavior?

• LOST FORGOTEN HISTORICAL FACTS 1. During the 18th century, India especially South India was invaded by the British Intruders (penceroboh). The noble king Veerapandiya Kattabomman and his subjects who fought bravely against the British aggressors and eventually Kattabomman was captured and hanged by the British. 2. His beloved subjects who resists against the British rule were later being arrested and deported (buang negeri) as war prisoners to neighboring lands especially to malay archipelagoes which was then slowly coming under the British colonization. 3. Where are the Indian’s roots and origins? The war prisoners are actually the warriors. The P-word never exits in this situation. It’s strongly believe, this forgotten historical facts can shed some light to our ‘Interlok Wed-lock’ issue, an info for our local historians and scholars who has failed to address this fabricated issue which has gone out of hand!