Fear. One of the most primal of emotions -- yet after thousands of years of civilization, fear remains deeply tethered to the human mind.
In individual lives, more often than not, fear can lead to submission. When we’re afraid, we are susceptible to exhibiting docile behaviour. Imagine the cowering of a new intern next to the giant, forbearing, authority-wielding supervisor.
But it isn’t always a tool for docility. Fear certainly has the power to multiply strength. According to criminologists and Master Yoda, fear gives birth to anger. From interviews conducted with violent criminals, studies have confirmed that violence by adults stem from the feeling of injustice, and the need for punishment.
As a nation not yet half a century old, Bangladesh has been on the other side of that violence. Stemmed from fear and a whole lot of pettiness, that violence was intended to set the tone of the nation’s future for years to come.
West Pakistan’s hail mary
As our victory became apparent late 1971, as the war for identity and independence neared its end, Bangladesh experienced the blow that many deem to be the cause of its relatively slow rise. How slow has that been under the current leadership -- at least in terms of global numbers -- is an opinion of varying degrees.
The systematic annihilation of prominent artists, doctors, professors, journalists, writers, and more was a brutal indication of how the fear of losing a war to those the West Pakistan regime deemed inferior resulted in the anger and hatred towards its eastern counterpart.
It orchestrated a crafty and cunning massacre, by no longer targeting the foot soldiers -- West Pakistan’s prey was much higher on the pecking order, those who had already laid out institutions for the progress of the people.
These were the people who would be on the frontlines of steering the victor’s new economy forward, towards all the potential that it fought a bloody war for.
Picked up from their homes to be tortured, mutilated, killed, and flung into ditches of mass graves. All the potential. Gone. In a ditch.
The soldiers who carried out these acts may have been working under the instructions of their superiors, for in war, ideology gets passed down from the movement through its capillary. And a nation’s ideology -- as ours was of nationalism -- can easily be one of fear, anger, hatred.
The orchestrators of the assassinations probably had the notion that if they snip at the soon to be new nation’s Achilles tendons, it won’t matter that they were independent. How far could they go?
Grew from concrete
Yet, as I write 47 years later, that nation stands at 7.3% growth compared to Pakistan’s 5.7%. A steady growth, stable income from remittances, a thriving garments industry marking its territory in the global arena -- all this and more is what that then new country boasts of now.
All this, while Pakistan is just recovering from internal political disputes, an economy dependent on informal employment, and trying not to let its militants run loose too visibly.
Perhaps they were right 47 years ago. The loss Bangladesh experienced on December 14 was one of paramount importance to its fate in the world. Proponents of the argument could easily point to the corruption, or the lack of structure, in carrying out basic civil duties, to name a few.
But their fear was justified. This country has come far. Even with tendons clipped. Crippled. It traversed territories far beyond what West Pakistan or the world could have ever imagined.
Picturing a Bangladesh with those who were killed on that night -- instead of their memories -- stirs grief of loss, and of what could have been. But we must not forget how far we’ve come. And how far we’ve got to go.
Luba Khalili is Deputy Manager, Communications, BRAC.