Inquilaab Zindabad
In solidarity with Bangladeshi people in their uprising
Bangladesh is in a flux. So much so that I redacted the previous post, from 10 hours ago, to republish this. Before going to sleep, I was part of a discussion about the mechanics of deploying the army. By the time I woke up, curfew has been announced — though it remains to be seen if it will be enforced when images like this are floating around the social media.
As I write this, the country is effectively disconnected from the world. This post is neither an update on what’s happening, nor an analysis let alone a prediction. For the first, Netra News is your best source of news (as opposed to rumours, speculations, misinformation and disinformation — all of which are rife). As for the last, I believe we are at the end game stage, and when I write next it could well be in a free Bangladesh. That would also be the time for analysis.
This post is simply a record for posteriority that I stood in solidarity with the Bangladeshi people as they rose up against a corrupt, brutal dictatorship.
This image has gone viral in the social media. This unnamed girl, ready to defend her rights, is a symbol of the resistance.
A STATEMENT CONDEMNING VIOLENCE BY THE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES AND RULING PARTY STUDENT THUGS AGAINST STUDENT PROTESTS IN BANGLADESH
Against the backdrop of galloping cost of living, widening inequality, and worsening opportunities, university students in Bangladesh had been waging a peaceful movement demanding reform of quotas for public sector employment. Instead of addressing the students’ concerns through dialogue and consultation, the government has chosen a path of escalation and violence, starting with condescending and insulting remarks from the highest echelons of the ruling regime to the use of violence by the ruling party’s cadres and various law enforcement agencies. At the time of writing (at 7 pm BDT on 18th July 2024), at least 32 individuals have been killed, and several hundred injured, by the regime. The government has reportedly closed various educational institutions across the country – reminiscent of tactics deployed by military regimes in the 1960s and the 1980s to quell protests and dissent.
As members of the global Bangladeshi diaspora, we are extremely concerned with the events unfolding in Bangladesh and the gross human rights violation by the law-enforcement agencies and security forces.
We condemn the use of violence against the students and demand the reform of the quota system, and demand independent inquiries into these violent incidents, with appropriate punishment for those responsible.
Further, we express our solidarity with the students in their constitutionally enshrined right to express their freedom of speech and make their demands heard, as all citizens of Bangladesh should have the right to do.
Finally, we urge the government to open all educational institutions immediately, and enter into a dialogue with the students.
The students are our future. If we brutalise and traumatise them, the future of our nation, as an independent polity and a functional republic, may never recover.
We believe the freedom fighters of 1971 would have recoiled in horror to see their name and ideology being used to suppress the current youth of Bangladesh. The youth of Bangladesh, the students of Bangladesh, and the people of Bangladesh, all deserve better.
The statement has been signed by nearly 150 individiuals from the global Bangladeshi diaspora community. It has been widely shared in the mainstream and social media.
A short documentary on the cold-blooded murder of a protester. History will record him as a Shaheed.
Summary of what’s happening in Bangladesh
The government fucked with three elections, the youth didn't care. They jailed our sole Nobel Prize Winner who helped millions, the youth didn't care. But making it harder to get a public sector job where you get to be a tax funded parasite, this is what motivated the youth.
BTW I am against the government. I am pro the right of the citizen to protest. But the fact that our countrymen care more about government handouts than freedom, rule of law and democracy should really make you pessimistic about the future of the nation.