“When the Iraq war started in 2003″, types Rezwan, a Bangladeshi living in Berlin, “I was in Dhaka and I read a story in a local newspaper about a man called Salam Pax, an Iraqi, who was writing an online diary about the war and the effect it was having on his everyday life. I read his blog over and over, and started browsing around for others. After a while I started to think about writing my own. I found from many blogs from around the world that there appeared to be huge misconceptions about Bangladesh, mainly due to the absence of Bangladeshi voices on the internet, so I began to contribute comments to these blogs myself. It is vital that we correct these misconceptions,” he argues, in Rezwan’s 3rd World View which has become one of the most widely read Bangladeshi blogs on the net.
“Then I started following other Bangladeshi bloggers,” he ruminates. “And with time, I have seen more and more Bangladeshi bloggers emerge. Some of them approached me directly and I helped them set up their sites and supported them with ideas. In 2003 there were only a handful of Bangladeshi bloggers; now I have seen more than 500 writing in English, and over 3000 in Bangla.”
- Slate Magazine, The New Age, April 5, 2007
The outsider view of Bangladesh isn’t always postcard-pretty. Political unrest, natural disasters and religious extremism define the South East Asian republic in global news headlines. The mission of Third World View is to offer an alternate perspective, to be “a window of Bangladesh” from an insider’s point of view. Learn about Bangladeshi bands (the blogger, Rezwan, is a fan of The Doors), cricket and one opinionated blogger’s take on affairs around the world at The Third World View.
- ASIA! MAGAZINE, Singapore, July 2005 issue
‘The power of blogging is that it harnesses the strength of the Internet and it can reach people across the world instantaneously,’ said Rezwan, who is often referred to as the dean of Bangladeshi bloggers. [..]
The western media has more often been inclined to portraying the negative stereotypes of the country. However, says Rezwan, ‘they fail to see the miracle that with a high population density, these people are resilient to the wrath of nature and are fighting back.’ The images of Bangladesh on flickr.com, captured by the amateur photographers can stun anyone and change those impressions they have perceived from the global mainstream media. [..]
‘But it is not just about fame or publicity,’ said Rezwan. In the political culture currently prevalent in Bangladesh, where the parties do not have a system to value individual opinions, where a party follower cannot put forward an opinion to the leaders, ‘the blog is a useful platform to strengthen democracy, because here, people can lay out their opinions and there is a scope for a discussion in the comments section, so that the issue can be carried on further.’
- New Age Extra, Cover, January 22-28, 2010
