Dr. Ahmed's reply
Fakhruddin Ahmed On e-mail
As a journalist I am never offended if someone writes a letter disagreeing with me. But the letter by Air Cdre Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury (Retd.) published in The Daily Star on September 30 viciously attacks me personally. If a letter writer claims to quote from articles of mine that were published in The Daily Star, the quotes must be correct. Cdre Choudhury's quotes and insinuations are malicious and wrong. Although I do live in the Princeton area, you coined the byline "Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed writes from Princeton," I did not. This is certainly not "to mention that he is from Princeton; the idea is probably to impress the readers with his Ivy League connections," as Cdre Choudhury puts it. How these personal attacks have anything to do with my column I have no idea! He criticises me for introducing "his nephew who became the second Rhodes Scholar of Bangladeshi origin; Dr. Ahmed being the first." Once again this is incorrect. In my January 2005 piece I congratulated Sabeel Rahman, who happens to be my kid cousin, not my nephew, on becoming the first Bangladeshi American Rhodes scholar. I was the first "East Pakistani" to win the Rhodes scholarship. You know that I am far too classy to, and never did, say anything like, "Dr. Ahmed wondered why the natives were complaining of high costs of living when things were so cheap and a journey by rickshaw cost only few cents" as Cdre Choudhury accuses me of. He continues with his lies: "Once he even gave some tips to Tiger Wood on how to improve his golf swing although he admits never to have hit the golf green." First of all, it's Tiger Woods, not Wood, and I am not that stupid to offer probably the greatest golf player ever tips. All I said was that experts agreed that he should go back to his pervious swing coach. And of course I could never have said that I admit to never hitting the golf green, because I have played golf! In the second paragraph of the letter Cdre Choudhury says of me, "He argues that the signatories, all except one from New England states, had eyes on Bangladeshi vote bank." Please check my article published in The Daily Star on September 23, and you will see no mention of any "vote bank." Cdre Choudhury makes things up and then accuses me of having said those things!
|
|
