Despite the British withdrawal from South Asia seventy years ago, it often pays to be an Englishman in our part of the world. The best example: David Bergman.
Married to Sara Hossain, daughter of Dr Kamal Hossain who resents the Awami League for entirely personal reasons, David Bergman's initial foray into journalism in Bangladesh was fraught with failures.
Despite the color of his skin and the local clout of his in-laws, Bergman hardly did anything worth notice working for bdnews24.com and 'New Age' English daily.
His marriage to Sara Hossain colored his vision of Bangladesh politics -- anything Awami was bad, unacceptable, fit to oppose.
With the BNP-Jamaat coalition out of power following the Awami League sweeping landslide in Dec 2008 polls, Bergman turned to deposed radicals for a new career: political consultancy – an euphemism for political activism under the garb.
He signed up for a three-point contract -- (a) defame, debunk and demean the Awami League by means fair or foul (b) project BNP and Jaamat-e-Islami as the only credible alternative in Bangladesh (c) oppose and undermine the credibility of the International War Crimes Trials through constant legal sniping, so-called media exposes and constant lobbying in Western countries.
As a born British, he was suited for the job.
But somewhere down the line, through his media contacts, he sneaked in.
Having worked for a while in Bangladesh's English media, Bergman managed to project himself as an “independent analyst”, a worthwhile country contributor out of Bangladesh.
Though the big media in the West avoided him, his writing was accepted in Al Jazeera, a new Middle East TV channel and online media, where a number of ex-BBC staffers had moved. The 'white connect' worked.
But his reporting was motivated by one single purpose -- bring down the Awami League government. It focused on ceaseless attacks on national institutions of Bangladesh. 2020 was a dull year for him but as it now transpires, he was busy planning, setting up and doing up the so-called Al Jazeera investigations, now aired with a highly misleading and intentionally spun title “All The Prime Minister's Men.”
“Al Jazeera introduced him in the TV documentary as an independent analyst which he is not. He has been pulled up in Bangladesh courts for running down the casualty figure in the Liberation War. He is a paid lobbyist of the BNP-Jamaat combine,” said Bangladesh watcher Sukhoranjan Dasgupta.
Pakistan military and its collaborators have killed about 3 million Bangladeshis and outraged over 300,000 women during the 1971 War of Independence. Pakistan, BNP and Jamaat always downplay the genocide.
Bergman also distorted the history and said only 300,000 people were killed. The court in 2011 found him guilty of contempt for challenging the official death toll from the liberation war, and said he deliberately distorted history.
Dasgupta says both Indian and Bangladesh intelligence have reports that Tarique Rahman paid Bergman and his hardly-known British firm 'millions of dollars' for his active role in trying to undermine the Awami League government.
When dozens of globally famous journalists have objectively covered Bangladesh's phenomenal economic success story and also rapid strides made by the country in human development, Bergman's reporting has been stridently negative.
Last year, a major power signed him up for 'offensive media operations' to topple the Awami League government by sustained smear campaigns intended to provoke public unrest. Netranews was born. From the beginning, his target was the country's first family. Even the publication of an English journal Whiteboard did not escape his scathing attack. And he got away with much more -- perhaps because he is British and not seen as good enough got retribution meant for Bangladeshis.
