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    My friend came to me, with sadness in his eyes

    He told me that he wanted help

    Before his country dies

    

    Although I couldn't feel the pain, I knew I had to try

    Now I'm asking all of you

    To help us save some lives

    

    Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh

    Where so many people are dying fast

    And it sure looks like a mess

    I've never seen such distress

    Now won't you lend your hand and understand

    Relieve the people of Bangla Desh

    

    Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh

    Such a great disaster - I don't understand

    But it sure looks like a mess

    I've never known such distress

    Now please don't turn away, I want to hear you say

    Relieve the people of Bangla Desh

    Relieve Bangla Desh

    

    Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh

    Now it may seem so far from where we all are

    It's something we can't neglect

    It's something I can't neglect

    Now won't you give some bread to get the starving fed

    We've got to relieve Bangla Desh

    Relieve the people of Bangla Desh

    We've got to relieve Bangla Desh

    Relieve the people of Bangla Desh

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 George Harrison and the Concert for Bangladesh

-------By Bill McKibben

He knew what he should do and he went out and did it. The result was the first, and perhaps the greatest, concert-for-a-cause ever staged.

 

 

 

Dec. 1, 2001 | In Dhaka, the sprawling capital of Bangladesh, a small museum on a quiet side road commemorates the country's war of liberation -- a war that, though now dimly remembered, stands among the greatest genocides of the 20th century.

The museum houses a numbing collection of tragic artifacts from that 1971 conflict -- shirts and sandals of some of the nearly 3 million Bengalis the Pakistani government managed to kill in their convulsive yearlong campaign to retain control over the eastern portion of their country. Maps of mass graves were left behind by the Pakistanis, who then as now enjoyed the patronage of America, in this case because Henry Kissinger thought they were geopolitically significant. Oh, and hanging on the wall of the museum is an LP jacket, and inside it the record of a fundraising concert in Madison Square Garden.

George Harrison organized the Concert for Bangladesh -- the first, and perhaps the greatest, concert-for-a-cause that rock 'n' rollers ever staged. "Rock reaching its manhood," Rolling Stone said in its review. "Under the leadership of George Harrison, a group of rock musicians recognized, in a deliberate, self-conscious, and professional way, that they have responsibilities -- and went about dealing with them seriously."

In a sense, the concert for Bangladesh begins with "Norwegian Wood," where Harrison first experimented with the sounds of the sitar. He went on to India to see Ravi Shankar, the master of the instrument (currently on his own farewell tour). "I felt that his enthusiasm was so real, and I wanted to give as much as I could express," said Shankar in a 1997 interview on VH1. Beatlemania intervened -- people recognized Harrison in Bombay and eventually he had to flee.


But the men stayed friends, and in 1971 Shankar, who had relatives in East Bengal, told Harrison he was trying to put together a benefit show "and maybe raise $20,000, $25,000, $30,000, and send it," Shankar told VH1. "George saw how unhappy I was, and he said, 'That's nothing, let's do something big.' And immediately he, like magic, phoned up, fixed Madison Square Garden and all his friends, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and it was magic really. And he wrote that song also,' Bangladesh.' So overnight that name became known all over the world, you know."

It's hard now, 30 years later, to imagine rock stars as real honest-to-God consciences of anything. We're used to a certain smug self-satisfaction behind almost every gesture -- and used to the mediocre music that usually accompanies feed-the-world extravaganzas. But George Harrison clearly didn't need to buff his image by raising money for Bangladesh. And this was not precisely a safe cause: America was sending both money and arms to the Pakistanis. Harrison told VH1 that he'd been inspired by John Lennon -- "I think one of the things that I developed, just by being in the Beatles, was being bold. And I think John had a lot to do with that, you know, cause John Lennon, if he felt something strongly, he just did it. I picked up a lot of that by being a friend of John's."

The concert, Harrison added, ran on "pure adrenaline," without a full rehearsal. Who needs to rehearse, however, when you have George to sing "Here Comes the Sun," "My Sweet Lord" and "Something"; Ringo to sing "It Don't Come Easy;" and Dylan to add "Just Like a Woman." And everyone, all together, on the title track:

    My friend came to me
    With sadness in his eyes,
    He told me that he wanted help
    Before his country died.
    Although I couldn't feel the pain
    I knew I'd have to try
    Now I'm asking all of you
    To help us save some lives

Here we remember the Concert for Bangladesh as the birth of a new kind of political-artistic-philanthropic circus, one of those cases where the first example was also probably the best. There are moments now when one wishes that it had never occurred to singers that they should also preach.

But 1971 was not one of those moments. Not here, where in the midst of a dozen other crises the atrocities in Bangladesh were passing largely unnoticed. And certainly not in Bangladesh, where desperate people screwed by the imperatives of Cold War politics suddenly found themselves being heard by the world. "You can't imagine what a ray of light that was when we found out," said the museum's director.

That small museum in Dhaka is one of the most moving places I know on earth. It is haunted by the usual ghosts -- the millions of Muslims raped and killed by rampaging Pakistani troops, armed and funded by the grotesqueries of Cold War politics. And haunted now too by a shaggy-haired British musician who knew what he should do and went out and did it.


Performers

    * Ravi Shankar, sitar and Ali Akbar Khan, sarod
          o Backed by Alla Rakha, tabla, and Kamala Chakravarty, tamboura
    * George Harrison – Vocals, guitars
    * Ringo Starr – Vocals, Drums, tambourine
    * Leon Russell – Vocals, piano, bass guitar
    * Billy Preston – Vocals, organ
    * Eric Clapton – Lead guitar
    * Bob Dylan – Vocals, guitar, harmonica
    * Klaus Voorman - Bass guitar
    * Jim Keltner – Drums
    * Badfinger – Rhythm guitars, backing vocals
          o Pete Ham, Tom Evans, Joey Molland and Mike Gibbins (percussion)
    * Jesse Ed Davis – Lead guitar
    * Don Preston – Lead guitar, vocals
    * Carl Radle – Bass guitar
    * The Hollywood Horns: Jim Horn, Allan Beutler, Chuck Findley, Jackie Kelso, Lou McCreary, Ollie Mitchell
    * Backing vocalists: Don Nix, Jo Green, Jeanie Greene, Marlin Greene, Dolores Hall, Claudia Linnear

There are only 14 million Jews in the world; seven million in the Americas, five million in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa. For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together.

Ever wondered why? 

Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish. Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine's 'Person of the Century', was a Jew. Sigmund Freud -- id, ego, superego -- the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew. So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman. 

Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity: Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle. Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine. Alert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine. Gertrude Elion gave us a leukaemia fighting drug. Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B. Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis (a sexually transmitted disease). Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases. 

Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission. Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology (disorders of the endocrine system; diabetes, hyperthyroidism) . Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy (psychotherapy to treat mental disorders, depression and phobias). Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill. George Wald won a Nobel for furthering our understanding of the human eye. Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology (study of embryos and their development) . Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine. 

Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes).

Why are Jews so powerful? Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip. Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor. Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable; Charles Adler, traffic lights; Benno  Strauss, Stainless steel; Isador Kisee, sound movies; Emile Berliner, telephone microphone and Charles
Ginsburg, videotape recorder. 

Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include Ralph Lauren (Polo), Levis  Strauss (Levi's Jeans), Howard Schultz (Starbuck's) , Sergey Brin (Google), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Donna Karan (DKNY), Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts). 

Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush), Joseph Lieberman, Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state), Casper Weinberger (American secretary of defence), Maxim
Litvinov (USSR foreign Minister), David Marshal (Singapore's first chief minister), Issac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia), Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov  (Russian PM), Barry Goldwater, Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal), John Deutsch (CIA director), Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes (French PM), Michael Howard (British home secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria) and Robert Rubin (American secretary of treasury). 

In the media, famous Jews include Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time), Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyyeld (Executive editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times). 

Can you name the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world? The name is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world. Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred 
libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion.

At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by wining seven gold medals. Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker are all Jewish. 

Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter Falk are all Jewish? As a matter 
of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew. Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky and Hutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The thief of Baghdad) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish. 

To be certain, Washington is the capital that matters and in Washington the lobby that matters is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Washington knows that if PM Ehud Olmert were to discover  that the earth is flat, AIPAC will make the 109th Congress pass a resolution congratulating Olmert on his discovery. 

William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed.

Guess what faith did he belong to? 

Question: So, why are Jews so powerful?

Answer: Education.

Why are Muslims so powerless?

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas. Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there 
are one hundred Muslims. Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?

Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities’, and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a
literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.

Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two percent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to
1,000 technicians per one million). Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan's exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait, Morocco, and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't producing knowledge. 
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't diffusing knowledge. 
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't applying knowledge. 
And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion. America, just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).

So, why are Muslims so powerless? 

Answer: Lack of education.