![]() Nayanika Mookherjee: The book is an ethnography, which means it is an anthropological project looking at various kinds of peoples' point of view about what I call a public memory of wartime rape during the Bangladesh war of 1971. Nayanika MookherjeeThe Daily Star: Could you give us a brief overview of your research work and your book? In an interview with Moyukh Mahtab of The Daily Star during the recently ended Dhaka Lit Fest, where she was a speaker, she elaborated on what drove her to do the research, her work and the implications of it for journalists, activists and researchers who work with the history of Birangonas. ![]() The book, in her own words "argues that identifying raped women only through their suffering not only creates a homogenous understanding of gendered victimhood but also suggests that wartime rape is experienced in the same way by all victims." She suggests that this makes us unable to "see how violence is folded into the everyday lives of those who were raped during the war." Her work, which started in 1997, and spanning almost 20 years, has resulted in The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories and the Bangladesh War of 1971 (published by Duke University Press in 2015 and the South Asian version was published by Zubaan in 2016). Interested about this radical acceptance of survivors of sexual violence in her neighbouring country, Nayanika Mookherjee, now Reader in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Durham University, decided to do her PhD research on the issue in 1996. However, this memory has also resulted in a portrayal of Birangonas as a generic figure, defined by the incident of the rape and disregarding how they dealt with the incident in their subsequent lives. This, along with the state efforts of rehabilitating these women, has meant that unlike the conventional attitude towards wartime sexual violence, the issue is not mired in silence within Bangladesh - there exists a public discourse and memory of the Birangona. ![]() The Allied forces formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany on the 8th of May, 1945, with the day thereafter celebrated in Europe as Victory Day.Merely days after the Liberation War ended in 1971, the government of the newly formed Bangladesh, in a historically unprecedented move, termed women who were victims of sexual violence during the nine months of the war as Birangonas (war heroines). Hollande laid another wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the iconic Arc de Triomphe, before a moment of silence. In France, President Francois Hollande laid a wreath in front of a statue of Charles de Gaulle to mark the 71st anniversary of the Allied victory on Sunday. Russia had the highest casualties of any country during the war, with the dead toll exceeding 26 million people. Victory Day is Russia's most important non-religious holiday, and is seen as a key element of the nation's identity, reflecting Russia's enormous suffering during the war. The celebration marks the 71st anniversary of Russia's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Thousands of Russian troops have marched on Red Square in Moscow in the annual Victory Day parade. Russia hosts the annual military parade in Red Square to commemorate the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany, with over 10,000 soldiers and veterans participating. ![]() Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu inspects a military parade marking the 71st Victory Day in Red Square in Moscow, the capital of Russia, on May 8, 2016.
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