Demonstrating women and men held a large banner which said “Sharon and Bush are Hitlers of the 21st Century,” at the opening of Joel Meyerowitz’s photo exhibition “After September 11: Images from Ground Zero” on Sunday April 7, 2002. The exhibition, which according to its brochure is “a cultural presentation” of the United States of America, was inaugurated by the US Ambassador Mary Ann Peters, at 18:30 hrs. at Drik gallery. The Director General of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy Mustafa Zaman Abbasi was present as the Special Guest.

The protesters, assembled only a block away from the gallery, were repeatedly hassled by police to leave. Soon the on-duty uniformed police were reinforced by plainclothes men carrying arms, but the demonstrators left only after the inauguration was well under way. When asked about why the demonstration was being held here, one of the demonstrators replied that the US Ambassador, and other top US and Western diplomats led very secluded lives in the Gulshan-Baridhara enclaves and had no inkling of the tremendous outrage that Bangladeshis in general felt at recent global events. Clarifying that they had been shocked at the Twin Tower tragedy and extended all sympathies to those who had lost family members and friends, she went on, “What is outrageous is how the US government is capitalising on the tragedy specially at a time like this when the Israeli government is carrying out genocidal programs against the Palestinians. This Meyerowitz exhibition is obviously a ploy to elicit sympathy and as such is calculated.”

Another demonstrator expressed deep concern at the spread of fascism in American society. He said, “It’s just amazing at how quickly fascism is spreading in the United States. And what I find most shocking is that the average American doesn’t even realize it.” A fellow-demonstrator, partly to explain the slogan in the banner told us that she had turned to reading-up on German history and particularly the pre- and Nazi periods, after reading in the newspapers that recently an Israeli military commander had advised his fellow officers and soldiers to examine Nazi strategies of Jewish extermination so that these could now be applied towards the Palestinians.