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<title>Counterpoint &#45; Zakir Kibria</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/rss/author/Zakir Kibria</link>
<description>Counterpoint &#45; Zakir Kibria</description>
<dc:language>en</dc:language>
<dc:rights>Copyright 2025 counterpoint&#45; All Rights Reserved.</dc:rights>

<item>
<title>A User&amp;apos;s Guide to the Un&#45;Governed: The Bangladesh Lexicon</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/A-Users-Guide-to-the-Un-Governed%3A-The-Bangladesh-Lexicon</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/A-Users-Guide-to-the-Un-Governed%3A-The-Bangladesh-Lexicon</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ In 840, the mayor always wins. The machine keeps humming. The tenders keep flowing. But the film exists. Someone made it. Someone watched it. Someone wrote about it. And that, perhaps, is where the next story begins. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:07:48 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Loans, Corruption, Rana Plaza</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>A Reply to Shahidul Alam on Performative  Governance</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Complicity-and-the-Critic</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Complicity-and-the-Critic</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ A government that reduces VIP protocol but continues to evict vendors without rehabilitation has merely exchanged one performance for another. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:26:52 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Performative Governance, BNP, Political Symbolism, Tarique Rahman, Shahidul Alam</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Theatre of the Streets: How Bangladesh Mistakes Performance for Governance</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Theatre-of-the-Streets%3A-How-Bangladesh-Mistakes-Performance-for-Governance</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Theatre-of-the-Streets%3A-How-Bangladesh-Mistakes-Performance-for-Governance</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Albert Camus wrote that we must imagine Sisyphus happy but for those caught in Bangladesh’s cycles of performative governance, happiness is not the point. Each new deadline, each “operation,” each raid is a boulder pushed up the hill. The problem rolls back down, and we begin again. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:29:00 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>DMP, Footpath, Street Vendors, Governance</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Shingara as a Geopolitical Testimony</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Shingara-as-a-Geopolitical-Testimony</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Shingara-as-a-Geopolitical-Testimony</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ On gravity, and those who bear its weight. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:14:55 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Geopolitics, Food, Supply chain, Bangladesh, Russia-Ukraine, Iran-Israel</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Lost Art of Getting Lost: How Smartphones Messed Up Our Mental Maps</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Lost-Art-of-Getting-Lost%3A-How-Smartphones-Messed-Up-Our-Mental-Maps</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Lost-Art-of-Getting-Lost%3A-How-Smartphones-Messed-Up-Our-Mental-Maps</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ We now know exactly where we are, but we have lost all sense of where we could be. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:37:53 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Boi Mela, Google</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Global South Watches America&amp;apos;s Dystopian Test Run</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/the-global-south-watches</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/the-global-south-watches</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ We have a choice: To be passive consumers of the spectacle, or active collaborators in writing a different ending -- one based not on fear and division, but on the unbreakable, transnational solidarity of those who believe, against all odds. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:55:45 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Ayatollah, Iran, politics, Minneapolis</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Dhaka After Dark</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/dhaka-after-dark-</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/dhaka-after-dark-</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The night is not one thing. It is a thousand negotiations, a million small decisions about where to stand, how long to stay, who to trust. The city&#039;s soul is not a fixed thing but a process -- an ongoing negotiation between collapse and creation. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 14:03:00 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Dhaka</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Electric Dreams and Neon Hearts</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Electric-Dreams-and-Neon-Hearts</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Electric-Dreams-and-Neon-Hearts</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ From Victorian automata to today’s AI girlfriend apps, we have sought to mechanize intimacy, to distill love into algorithms. This musing traces that arc, using Joi as a lodestar to navigate the shadows of desire, capitalism, and digital isolation. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sun, 22 Feb 2026 12:49:55 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Blade Runner, AI</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The House That Divides Us: Building a Nation from the Rubble of Victory</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-House-That-Divides-Us</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-House-That-Divides-Us</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ BNP has to govern not merely as the winner of an election but as the steward of a divided nation. Jamaat-e-Islami has to act as a parliamentary opposition, not as a liberation war revision society. The international community has to support democratic consolidation, not strategic alignment. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sat, 14 Feb 2026 10:53:44 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>BNP, Awami League, July Charter</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Democracy Day Special Biriyani: A Facebook Feed on Election Day in Bangladesh</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Democracy-Day-Special-Biriyani</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Democracy-Day-Special-Biriyani</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The polls close. One by one, the live streams flicker and die. The official pages go dormant, saving their energy for victory declarations or accusations of theft. The meme pages are quiet. The deepfake bazaar has shut its stalls. Your thumb, trained for twelve hours on a refresh-loop, finally has nothing to pull. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:46:45 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Elections</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>A (Darwinian) Manifesto for Dhaka’s Walkers</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/A-Darwinian-Manifesto-for-Dhaka%E2%80%99s-Walkers</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/A-Darwinian-Manifesto-for-Dhaka%E2%80%99s-Walkers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Dhaka’s walkers are not Darwinian subjects -- they are Darwin’s teachers. They have mastered the art of evolving within the apocalypse, turning every sidewalk and sewer into a classroom. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 02 Feb 2026 13:22:26 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Dhaka, Urban Planning, Rebellion</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The City That Kills You on Your Walk Home</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/the-city-that-kills-you</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/the-city-that-kills-you</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Ashfaq Chowdhury Piplu’s death is a question thrown at our feet by the city we are building. The falling rod asks: What do you value more? The abstract future value of a building, or the concrete, present life of a person walking? ]]></description>
<enclosure url="https://counterpointbd.com/uploads/images/202511/image_870x580_692963e77634e.jpg" length="98620" type="image/jpeg"/>
<pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:11:31 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Dhaka</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>When Citizenship is Redefined by Faith</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/When-Citizenship-is-Redefined</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/When-Citizenship-is-Redefined</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The path forward begins by refusing to accept the silent exclusion as normal. It requires naming the disagreement for what it is: an attack on the pluralistic foundation of the state. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 21:42:09 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Discrimination, politics, Religioun, Islam, Jamaat-E-Islam</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Great Blue Jeans War: How Sydney Sweeney’s Genes Powered Trump’s Spectacle Engine</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/the-great-blue-jeans-war-how-sydney-sweeneys-genes-powered-trumps-spectacle-enginefrom-cultural-grievance-to-geopolitical-shock-and-awe-the-unifying-logic-of-a-politics-built-on-spectacle</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/the-great-blue-jeans-war-how-sydney-sweeneys-genes-powered-trumps-spectacle-enginefrom-cultural-grievance-to-geopolitical-shock-and-awe-the-unifying-logic-of-a-politics-built-on-spectacle</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The question for a republic is whether it can learn to look away from the dazzling, authoritarian image long enough to see -- and rebuild -- the dull, demanding, and essential foundations of a reality-based politics. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:14:47 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Spectacle, Republican</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>A Resistance Song for the New Empire</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Right-to-Live</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Right-to-Live</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The right to live in peace is not a gift from empires. It is a demand, shouted into the barrels of their guns. It is a world, built stone by stone, in the ruins they leave behind. ]]></description>
<enclosure url="https://counterpointbd.com/uploads/images/202601/image_870x580_695f9f3e2f878.jpg" length="92121" type="image/jpeg"/>
<pubDate>Thu, 08 Jan 2026 12:20:41 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Venezuela, Maduro, Trump</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Biman&amp;apos;s Crossroads: A Billion&#45;Dollar Gambit in the Shadow of Giants</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Bimans-Crossroads</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Bimans-Crossroads</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The message for Bangladesh&#039;s policy-makers is clear: ground this decision in data, not delusions of grandeur. Commission and publish an independent, peer-reviewed fleet plan. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sat, 03 Jan 2026 14:10:18 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Biman, Airbus, Boeing</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Algorithm’s Muse: How a Cat Meme Led Me to the Barricades</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Algorithm%E2%80%99s-Muse</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Algorithm%E2%80%99s-Muse</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The crown cat becomes a single blood cell in the circulatory system of the algorithmic beast. Nusrat doesn’t remember the cat meme today. Not consciously. ]]></description>
<enclosure url="https://counterpointbd.com/uploads/images/202512/image_870x580_69527bdd6a26a.jpg" length="173835" type="image/jpeg"/>
<pubDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:07:53 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Algorithm, Data, Digital Footprint</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Clock is Broken: How Bangladesh’s Managed Time Descended into Chaos</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/the-clock-is-broken-how-bangladeshs-managed-time-descended-into-chaos</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/the-clock-is-broken-how-bangladeshs-managed-time-descended-into-chaos</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ It is no longer an abstract fight over who controls the political clock. It is a concrete, urgent battle for the very foundations of public order, institutional integrity, and rational discourse. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sun, 21 Dec 2025 15:12:56 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Osman Hadi, Daily Star, Prothom Alo, Interim Government</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Digital Jester’s Plea</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Digital-Jester</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Digital-Jester</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ We need laws that protect us from genuine harm without imprisoning our sense of humour, and platforms accountable to local contexts. Most of all, we must remember that the ability to laugh at power -- cleverly and without fear -- is not a Western import. It is a homegrown, centuries-old Bengali tradition. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 06:02:07 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords></media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Unheard Song: How Abul Sarkar&amp;apos;s Arrest Reveals Bangladesh&amp;apos;s Fractured Soul</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Abul-Sarkar-and</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Abul-Sarkar-and</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The arrest of Baul singer Abul Sarkar exposes a deeper struggle over who gets to define Bangladesh’s cultural and religious identity, portraying a growing state-backed exclusion of syncretic and minority traditions from the national narrative. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:45:07 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Shrine Baul Mystics</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Panopticon Paradox</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/the-panopticon-paradox-how-cctv-is-creating-a-new-more-terrifying-reality-in-bangladesh</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/the-panopticon-paradox-how-cctv-is-creating-a-new-more-terrifying-reality-in-bangladesh</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ How CCTV is creating a new, more terrifying reality in Bangladesh ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Wed, 19 Nov 2025 14:24:19 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords></media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Unboxing Gen Z</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Unboxing-Gen-Z</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Unboxing-Gen-Z</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ What does this Western-originated term truly reveal, and what profound realities does it obscure about the young people of the Global South? ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2025 14:33:28 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Gen Z, July Uprising</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Is It Time for Bangladesh to Look Beyond the Dollar?</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Bangladeshs-Sovereign-Debt</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Bangladeshs-Sovereign-Debt</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The time for action is now. Bangladesh must look beyond Western-dominated financial institutions and embrace a multipolar financial world that offers better terms, greater sovereignty, and sustainable development. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 10:31:02 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Dollar, Debt</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>Soundtrack for the Apocalypse: A Dhaka Gridlock Playlist</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/Soundtrack-for-the-Apocalypse</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/Soundtrack-for-the-Apocalypse</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ You can&#039;t defeat Dhaka traffic. But these tunes can minimize your pain. ]]></description>
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<pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2025 12:07:46 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Traffic, Dhaka</media:keywords>
</item>

<item>
<title>The Orchestrated Crash: Why Bangladesh’s Roads Are a Laboratory of Chaos</title>
<link>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Orchestrated-Crash</link>
<guid>https://counterpointbd.com/The-Orchestrated-Crash</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Traffic accidents and the devastation they wreak are not inevitable. We can fix this problem, if we have the will. ]]></description>
<enclosure url="https://counterpointbd.com/uploads/images/202510/image_870x580_68eb521758afe.jpg" length="126031" type="image/jpeg"/>
<pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2025 11:37:06 +0600</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zakir Kibria</dc:creator>
<media:keywords>Traffic</media:keywords>
</item>

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