A Kennedy speaks for Bangladesh

I read a letter carried in USA's Huffington Post, a leading liberal online newspaper in the United States. It has been written by Bobby Kennedy's daughter Kerry Kennedy, one that will touch the heart of any Bangladeshi and make him/her proud of the country. The letter's title The steady pursuit of freedom and justice has been chosen thoughtfully to underline the spirit that inspired Bangladesh's glorious war of liberation in 1971.
The elder Kennedys were dead by the time our liberation had started. John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and Bobby Kennedy five years later in 1968. Ted Kennedy was the patriarch of the family in 1971. True to the Kennedy family's tradition of upholding human rights and human values everywhere, Ted Kennedy plunged himself whole-heartedly in building up public opinion in his country and worldwide against the Bangladesh genocide at a time when the US government, led by President Richard Nixon, was supporting the murderous Pakistani military regime.
Kerry Kennedy was then in her pre-teen years. The Kennedy family was so deeply engrossed in the Bangladesh tragedy that it had a deep impression in her young mind. It also left in her a desire to someday visit the country. That desire was fulfilled when Dr. Mohammad Yunus, whom she calls "my friend", invited her recently to attend the Social Business Day event arranged by the Yunus Centre. The trip moved her so much that in the letter to her daughters Maria and Michaela she wrote that it made her realise why "Great Uncle Teddy" was so moved and inspired with "the courage of a nation fighting against the Pakistan Army" that was "the stuff of legend in our family".
Kerry Kennedy recollected the dubious role of the US government while remembering her uncle. Thus she wrote to her daughters what their Great Uncle Teddy had felt after visiting the refugee camps: "The people in these camps had fled the mass killings - some would say genocide - that the United States had failed to stop, as the Nixon Administration's official policy was to choose our relationship with Pakistan over those who shared our love of freedom."
In that context, she further wrote that the people of Bangladesh "love freedom so much that they have withstood great armies, famine and intractable poverty."
Kerry Kennedy wrote to her daughters that she saw the same spirit for freedom and justice in the people of Bangladesh that their Great Uncle Teddy had seen in 1971. She saw that spirit in the Grameen Bank and its workers where she spent most of her time in Bangladesh. She saw the desire for freedom and justice in the real life stories of Grameen Bank borrowers who have changed their lives by borrowing money from the Grameen Bank to come out of poverty. The spirit was also visible to her in the bank's scholarship programme that is giving hope and opportunity to the poor to educate themselves and make their lives better. She saw that spirit in the 10 women she met, women who sit in the Board of the Grameen Bank who are all also the bank's borrowers.
Kerry Kennedy saw the spirit to fight for freedom and justice in these 10 Board members of Grameen Bank. She learnt from them how the government "cajoled the rubber-stamp parliament to change a banking law for the specific purpose of ousting the impoverished women from the Grameen board and replacing them with ruling party toadies, who, the women fear, will transform the multibillion-dollar bank that has helped so many escape poverty into just another slush fund for kleptocrats to draw upon.
Kerry Kennedy wrote about the women NGO leaders who are fighting for a wide array of rights ranging form those of rights of the women to those of the indigenous people and environment in the face of threats from the authorities that included forced disappearances and arrests.
She wrote of these Bangladeshi women who, she said, "fear the nation's security forces, which are known for kidnappings, torture and extrajudicial executions."  Yet they are not daunted and go about their daily chores in a show of rare courage.
Kerry Kennedy also wrote to her daughters about the Rana Plaza tragedy and the great work of the non-profit Rana Plaza Claims Administration where a dedicated group of professionals with experience in law, labour and computer science are reaching out in an admirable manner to the victims, both physical and psychological, with US$ 17 million so that not a single one of these victims are left out.
She mentioned in her letter about the good work of the US Ambassador Dan Mozena who is encouraging young Bangladeshis to better prepare themselves to go to the United States for higher studies telling her daughters that they "will have plenty of competition from young Bangladeshis as you apply for college".
Kerry Kennedy was full of praise for the work of Adil Rahman Khan and his work on human rights in Bangladesh adding how proud Great Uncle Ted would have been if he were alive to learn that Adil would be receiving the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award later in the year.
The greatest praise in the letter was reserved for Dr. Mohammad Yunus. She reminded her daughters that the Noble laureate had visited their house in the USA 15 years ago when she had interviewed him for her book Speak Truth to Power. Yet she wrote that she would not have known how great the Noble laureate is had she not undertaken this trip and seen for herself how he endures his current predicament of unremitting pressures of the government to destroy what he has built over a lifetime and still pursues "peace amidst the chaos in our lives" and finds "joy through service".  
Kerry Kennedy quoted the appropriate lines from Rudyard Kipling's immortal poem If. She told her daughters that Dr. Mohammad Yunus reminded her of the poet's imaginary hero!  Rudyard Kipling's poem If is remembered worldwide "as a blueprint for personal integrity, behaviour and self-development." She, however, left the ultimate praise for Bangladesh that she described as "an amazing country" that could inspire Americans to take a lesson from it to  "rededicate ourselves to democracy and freedom, knowing that the price may be high, but the sacrifice is well worthwhile. "
Kerry Kennedy wrote the letter with emotion and love for Bangladesh. It has come from a member of a family whose support for the Bangladesh war of liberation has been invaluable and love for the country, unquestionable. Therefore, the government, if it believes in the well-being of the country, would do itself a great favour if it took careful note of the subtle and the not so subtle messages addressed to it in the letter. The letter will undoubtedly leave many wondering how the government could humiliate a man held in such high esteem on the world stage.
The writer is a retired                   career Ambassador.                        [email protected]