Mein Kampf a hit on Dhaka streets Hitler Finds an Audience in Turkey THE WORLD By Alastair Lawson BBC News, Dhaka Mabul generally sells six copies of the book in a day Booksellers touting their wares amid the heavy traffic in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, have discovered an unusual best-seller. Adolf Hitlers autobiography manifesto Mein Kampf is selling as well as Dan Browns latest novel, The Lost Symbol. The street vendors in Dhaka are found at every major road junction and intersection. Most of the sellers are young boys and many compete with beggars to attract the attention of motorists. Last week, Mein Kampf did unusually well because many bought the book to give it away as an Eid present. All the rage Mabul, 15, is among many boys who risk the chaos of Dhakas roads to earn a living selling pirated copies of popular paperbacks. Among his offerings are The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, the 9/11 Commission Report - Omissions and Distortions by David Ray Griffin, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and copies of Mein Kampf (volumes one and two). For some reason Hitlers book is all the rage among educated people - on a typical day I can sell as many as five or six, Mabul told the BBC. Hitler is not as popular as Dan Brown or Amartya Sen among Dhakas motorists and their passengers, but there is a constant demand for his book. I think its because many people have seen Hitler in films and want to know more about him. Mabul earns up to 1,000 taka ($8) a day in his job, usually working eight hours a day for six days a week. He says that the best time to sell books is when traffic is at its heaviest, in the morning and evening rush hours. When it is gridlocked, some people appear to buy his books because they are bored and there is nothing else to do. Career path Nearly all the books Mabul sells are photocopies of books he has bought from dealers - and in some cases the photocopying is not of the highest quality. The maps in his Lonely Planet guide to Bangladesh, for example, are difficult to read and of poor quality. Yet despite the dubious legality of his career path, Mabul and his friend Aminul - who has the use of only one arm - typify the entrepreneurial spirit for which many Bangladeshis are renowned. If I didnt do this job I would have no income - its as simple as that, said Aminul, as he proffers a copy of Monica Alis latest novel. Its not easy being disabled and selling books in a Dhaka traffic jam. Several times we come close to getting run over. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8382132.stm \ More Amazon Search Results for photo mein kampf sale Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler(327) List Price: $22.00 Price: $15.99 FREE Shipping on orders over $25. You Save: $6.01 (27%) In Stock Ships from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available. Want it Tuesday, Oct 22? Order in the next 40hr 27min and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details amazon/gp/aw/d/0395925037 Hitler Finds an Audience in Turkey THE WORLD Speculation about why his Mein Kampf is on bestseller lists includes anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism or maybe just the piddling price. March 16, 2005|Amberin Zaman | Special to The Times Email Share ANKARA, Turkey — Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitlers notorious work outlining his anti-Semitic world view, has become a bestseller in this officially secular but mostly Muslim nation. Its sudden rebirth has alarmed the countrys small Jewish community and raised concern among officials in the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join. Remzi and D & R, Turkeys two largest bookstore chains, rank the work among the top 10 on their bestseller lists this month, as they did in February. At the Ada bookshop in a popular Ankara shopping strip, Mein Kampf, or Kavgam as it is called in Turkish, has sold out. Its our fifth-highest-selling book, said Serkan Oznur, the store manager. Though nationwide sales numbers are not available, the number of publishers releasing editions of Mein Kampf in Turkey has grown to 13. One of them, Manifesto, announced a press run of 50,000 for its version, which jockeys for shelf space with such titles as Hitlers Secretary and The Unknown Hitler. The German dictators work appears prominently in most bookstore displays here. Silvio Ovadyo, a spokesman for Turkeys 20,000-member Jewish community, said he couldnt explain why publishers had decided to promote Hitler as an author. Its anti-Jewish propaganda. Naturally, we are very concerned, he said in a telephone interview. Turkey is our country, our home. Why this nation -- which welcomed millions of Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and was the first Muslim country to recognize the state of Israel -- now appears so fascinated with Hitler is a question that sparks heated debate. Booksellers said buyers tended to be men between the ages of 18 and 30. Like several other vendors here, Oznur insisted that the newfound popularity of Mein Kampf was a factor mostly of price. Sales soared after several new translations were published at the beginning of the year and priced at about $3.50 a copy. Most books of a similar length cost nearly double that. Some analysts say the appeal of Mein Kampf probably has to do with the rising anti-Americanism here, a result of the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq. Among the works chief rivals on the bestseller lists is Metal Storm, a gory thriller that depicts a U.S. invasion of Turkey. The hero, a Turkish spy whose training includes shooting his puppy, avenges his homeland by leveling Washington with a nuclear device. In a country where conspiracy theories are commonly used to explain international politics, it is accepted wisdom in some circles that Israel dictates U.S. policy, said Dogu Ergil, a Middle East expert at Ankara University. Thus, his theory goes, anti-Americanism morphs into a hybrid strain of anti-Semitism that in turn arouses curiosity about Hitler. Others say Turks are drawn more by the books nationalistic message than its anti-Semitic rants. Nationalist sensitivities have been sharpened by European Union demands that Turkey ensure greater freedom for the countrys religious minorities and restive Kurds as conditions for its membership in the alliance. Nationalist reflexes have been triggered, there are fears the country will be dismembered, said Nilufer Narli, an Istanbul-based sociologist. Though Ovadyo said members of the Jewish community were not yet planning legal action against the book, German officials said they would like to see it withdrawn. The German state of Bavaria, which controls the copyright, has long fought the publication of Mein Kampf around the world, and officials there reportedly plan to take the campaign to Turkey. The books wide availability and popularity ought to be a matter of serious concern, said a German Embassy official here who requested anonymity. Oznur, the bookstore manager, disagrees. Anyone who reads Mein Kampf realizes what a psychopath Hitler was, he said. If more people had read it, there might have been no [Second] World War. articles.latimes/2005/mar/16/world/fg-hitler16
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 04:43:49 +0000
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