I have not quite gotten over with what Roseanne Barr had to say about Bangladesh. While doing one of her stand-up comics in front of a studio audience, America´s most profane–and perhaps most overweight TV actress–once said, the best formula for weight loss is 'to spend a few weeks in Bangladesh'.
On the other hand, Roseanne´s comment is not particularly surprising. This image of Bangladesh, once described by a former US Secretary of State as a 'bottomless basket', and since repeated countless times by the Western media, is now written in stone.
Not only in the West, but also in much of the developing world, whenever the talk shifts to under development and poverty, it is Bangladesh that immediately springs to mind. Living in the United States, one does not have to go far to search for examples to cite. In recent months, as the American press jostled for the best sound bites to cover the Presidential primaries, Bangladesh´s name came up repeatedly, each time in the unenviable role of a footnote to illustrate a single point: it is desperately poor, unwanted and godforsaken.
Pat Buchanan was particularly persuasive, as he theatrically warned his compatriots of the pitfalls of NAFTA and GATT and open-door immigration policies. 'Soon America will become just like Bangladesh,' he forecast. In a televised debate with Al Gore in the run-up to the last Presidential elections, Ross Perot maintained that if NAFTA were approved US products would fail to compete with Bangladesh. Garment workers there are paid peanuts and competition with them would kill American workers, the maverick millionaire thundered.