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Who is this Setara Hashem ? Would the man masquerading as Setara Hashem please stand up? Published on April 08, 2006 Won’t you forgive me please for giving this expository article a title that would imply that I am a pedagogue, which I am not? However, please read on, and you will understand why I gave the article such a weird title. I will be exposing here a strange person whom you may call a cross-dresser who claims to have attended Dacca University in the early sixties when Dhaka used to be spelled that way. About 4-5 years ago, I first saw the name of a female person by the name Setara Hashem from New York City who would post short articles to News From Bangladesh (NFB). Those article written in non-standard English (often devoid of articles and strange sentence construction) used to glorify Marxism at the cost of demeaning the free market economy (read capitalism). We did not pay much attention to it because most people inhabiting this orb know by now that communism is on the way out from twenty first century. One would be hard pressed to find communist nations on earth barring Fidel Castro's Cuba and Kim Jong II's North Korea. Marxism these days are suffering from a severe case of malnutrition and had been infirm since when the Soviet imploded in the summer months of 1991.
The ground reality however did not deter Setara Hashem from penning her short articles through which “she” used to lambaste the free market economy. This was odd because of all places in the world “she” decided to live in USA - the citadel of capitalism. The Mecca of capitalism, the Wall Street, is located miles away from Setara’s home but still then “she” went on to saying demeaning things about the free market economy. Thus, many sensible people in the Net were sick and tired of reading the junk she would post in various forums. When I found out that the information on which “she” was basing her thesis were all wrong, only then did I protest in the pages of NFB and Vinnomot. That nonetheless brought a deluge of condemnation from Setara. One veteran writer, Mr. Mahfuzur Rahman from New York, once suggested Setara not to butcher Shakespeare's mother tongue. The article was written in humorous tone but Setara did not get to see the lighter side of the article; Mr. Rahman was vilified rather mercilessly. After this incident, Setara Hashem became very belligerent and unfortunately resorted to name-calling in every possible way whom would agree to disagree with “her” pet by weak thesis.
In 2003, Setara started to pen her articles in Bangla along with many Bangalees. The deshi forums such as Mukto-Mona, Vinnomot, Shodalap, etc., became more colorful and vibrant. And Miss Hashem writings in the Net took a colorful turn. Now she was able to throw epithets in Bangla. What an epiphany! Many Bangalee writers in the Net were bestowed with colorful names. I was named "Bongo- Chelabi" even though I wrote quite a few articles against George Bush's adventurism in the Middle East. Vinnomot's editor, Quddus Khan, used to be Setara’s most favorite punching bag. I requested many a time to her through my writing to stop to this practice of name-calling but she hardly cared or listened.
By 2004, it was very clear that a man was using a female name to abuse other Bangalee writers. This person’s attack was become very bold and brazen. The language was becoming foul too. One time in 2002 or 2003 (I forgot now the exact year) this person while rebutting my article used some anatomical terms from human’s lower extremity. I then figured that this person is no female because a woman won’t use those terms in public. Then I started to look closely for the choice of words and diction in Setara’s writing and what I saw was not an ounce of femininity. It was very clear that the person was masquerading as a female in the cyberspace. As any Netter would agree with me, it is very easy to throw mud in the Internet under an assumed name. This person was just doing that day-in-day-out.
This person used to mention in his article that she attended Dacca University studying sociology. It befitted “her” because “she” used to write on topics covering the field of social anthropology, human society, etc. But then, later “she” started to write on the perils of free market economy, Marxism, and other topics. Setara mentioned in an article that she had a degree in science and tech area. I was confounded reading this. “She” was like a multi-headed hydra assuming myriad personality.
Many readers in Mukto-Mona forum were confounded when “she” would vigorously defend the divinity of Muhammad, Koran, and Islam. In fact, if someone would critique Islam, Setara would say contradictory thing such as all religions including Islam is manmade but somehow Muhammad’s religion is somewhat more divine than other preexisting religions.
By now many forum-goers would know that Darwinism is a favorite topic among freethinkers in Mukto-Mona forum. Many of us would pen essay to mark the Darwin Day in this forum. Setara would remain reticent when Darwin Day is celebrated in early February 2006. However, one time “she” vigorously protested against my write-up on Charles Darwin asking me do I know what is “Social Darwinism,” which was “her” pet topic? I vigorously protested that that field was not discussed anymore in academia because it is a defunct concept. After two years she has changed her mind and I found it that “she” no longer believes in such a bogus subject as ‘Social Darwinism.’ Many of us had observed that “her” knowledge in myriad worldly subject is superficial, feeble, and limited to propaganda material printed in Kolkata by the Soviet in the heydays of Brezhnev era in the1960s and 1960s. In fact, her writings remind many of us those booklets, which are lovingly called “Choti Boi” in Bangla. Readers in the Net by now had heard an earful of glowing encomiums to Marxism from Setara. The concept of Dialectical Materialism was defined and redefined up to umpteenth times by “her” but the way “she’ acts even today Setara thinks “she” is hardly done with it. At every opportunity that lands before “her” Setara lambastes the capitalist society while devouring the nectar of capitalism sitting cozily in the Big Apple. How ironical it could get?
Lately, Setara’s ire had fall on two netters, namely, Mr. Mehul Kamdar and Dr. Biplab Pal. While Mr. Kamdar had joined M-M forum as one of the moderators, Dr. Pal is now devoting his time with Vinnomot after maturing in M-M forum throughout 2005. Another person who is routinely abused by Setara is Avijit Roy, the founding moderator of Mukto-Mona forum. Setara through “her” infinite “wisdom” thinks the secularists in M-M forum are just the same as fundamentalist Muslims. “She” considers these two competing ideas as coin’s two sides. This is a weird concept of “her”; it was derived from dialectics, which Setara is so enamored with. This person sees everything in the light of dialectics. I tried to point out many a time that there is such a thing call gray scale going from black to white. The world we live in has many things that won’t fall within the domain of dialectics. That is the reason many philosophers had pooh-poohed dialectics in late eighteenth and early twentieth century. Idealism came out as a philosophical term to denounce dialectics and Marxism. Human endeavors such as music, sculpture, dance, arts, etc., developed because of the force inherent to idealism. Our society made progress in myriad fields such as medicine, industry, education, technology, etc., because of a few visionaries. Marxism or dialectics had no role in it. In fact, Karl Marx’s ideas of human society were confined to late nineteenth century when the world was ushering in a new wave of industrialization. Marx correctly saw the evils in rampant industrialization as it relates to exploitation of labor. However, the labor movement in the West took the corrective measure to protect the interest of labor. We tried hopelessly to tell Setara all this but it fell into “her” deaf ear. Setara was already brainwashed by the Soviet propaganda literature in the 1960s.
In recent days, Setara’s attack on Avijit Roy grew by leaps and bounds. In one recent post Setara laments by saying that it confounds her to know that both M-M and Vinnomot had appointed two Dogs from India. Such epithetical remarks go to show how much hate Setara has on Indians. I have already alluded to this in my previous write-up that many Dhaka University graduates of the 1950s and 1960s were brainwashed by their professors to hate India. It hardly surprises me to know that these graduates were victims of brainwashing by their pedagogues. As per the two-nation theory of M. A. Jinnah, Pakistanis should abhor India by all means. Setara and many other DU graduates became a lost cause as far as building amity among Indians and Bangladeshis. To these folks India is a six hundred pound gorilla about to devour Bangladesh in a moment’s notice. I have seen many delusional people in Bangladesh who harbor this kind of fear and they will say out loud how much hate they have in their heart for India. Well, enough on Setara'’ confounding and delusional mental state!
How did we learn the true identity of Setara Hashem? Is there a real Setara Hashem living in any of the five burroughs of New York? Please visit many of the social gatherings in the Big Apple and ask this question – “Would the real Setara Hashem please stand up?” I am sorry. You would come out empty handed. I came to up state New York in late September in 2005 because of the destruction of my homes in the Gulf Coast of America. My employer put me in Cornell campus where there is a USDA research facility but once it was known that I am in Ithaca, a professor approached the Dean of CALS and I was invited to join the department of Animal Science, which I did. After settling in Ithaca my contact with New Yorkers grew exponentially and asked them do they know whom Setara Hashem is. They simply shrugged their shoulder. No one has seen this outstanding woman from NYC who single-handedly had strewn the cyberspace with expired and outdated concepts. But then the lucky break came in. The truth has a peculiar way of emerging out! One Mr. A.H. Mohiuddin (aka Ahamed Mohiuddin) may have bragged among a closely knitted circle of friends that he pens using this moniker in various forums in the Internet to lambaste the secularists from Sonar Bangla. That is not all, he also submits article in Bangla newspapers published in the NYC area to propagate his hate for freethinkers. Well, I would not reveal the name of the person who decoded the “da Vinci” code to let us know the true identity of Mr. Mohiuddin, however, suffice it to say that the mystery behind Setara is over. Please take it from me — there is no Setara Hashem in NYC. Not even the ghost of Setara. Zilch! The name just came from a thin air and concocted by this conniving man who is well into his sixties. I have no idea what Mr. Mohiuddin does to eke out a living in NYC but it will come now because Setara Hashem's identity is known now. What drove him to behave like this in the net? Maybe, his loved one may shed light on this. He most certainly had hated other successful Bangalees who could pen meaningful articles. A case of inferiority complex! Who knows?
Why did Mr. Mohiuddin take up a female name to confuse us all? His friends should ask him this simple question. Did he want to draw sympathy? Or, is it that no one would go after a female participant in a discussion forum? I have no easy answer. Well, I hope this would be the end of Setara Hashem but if I may guess there will be a reincarnation of Mr. A.H. Mohiuddin. Therefore, clean your reading glass or better yet, get a powerful magnifying glass because a new moniker would show up in the cyber space. The face will be new but the message will be the stale one – long live Setara Hashem's version of Marxism and socialism and to hell with capitalism. And that is for sure. ------------------------- A.H. Jaffor Ullah April 6, 2006 Honness Lane, Ithaca
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Einstein's theory suggests - Everything is relative, Says
Setara Hashem
.
We have not allowed anyone to abuse others on our forums and in
that sense we could stop his insults." 
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