I crossed 60, engulfed by conventional thoughts built in me over five decades of an unwavering cycle of life. Richard Simpkin wrote in his book, Race to the Swift, that after every 50 years the wave of trend changes, transitioning from the high to the low or vice versa. My life as well as the life of my country are over 50, and thus I am bound to see changes that are not in my ordinary perception.
My heart is pumping fast but my brain is too blunt to see the visions that my entity fails to grasp. My divine soul looks for the temporal body, and my body eclipses in the bodies of thousands and millions on the road to freedom. My timid body joins my courageous soul following the courage my sons expressed bodily. I try to look for lights blindfolded, turn sound tranquil than silence, sail smoothly between the high and low tides, relinquish my long-known road to unfreedom.
A generation rose beyond any physical notice of me. Gen-Z, who feels high from the low tides, while I am confounded to decide how to descend from the high tides to the low, and figure out how August 5 could be 36th July.
A new class comprising both urban and un-urban bases of this generation enlightened of a time not based on voluminous books but of the open digital world, where decisions can be reached faster than what used to take me days paging through books and following theories.
I saw a nation building from its old identity and taking the nation state status on the conventional ethos of a flag, of a mind bound within the rigid geographic boundary, of national anthem or national identity in a rigid mindset. I grew up seeing heroes of the nation rising through long political and societal journeys or heroes like Tagore, Nazrul, Lalon, or looking for the perfection of man to idealize, socially, culturally and politically.
But Gen-Z didn’t see how the nation was created or how the state building occurred or what we thought the nation should feel proud of. They never confined themselves in the geographic boundaries, but made themselves a part of the global village for non-traditional ingress of thoughts. No space for ultra-nationalism occupies any space in them but an open mind to accommodate the whole world in them based on the international reality far or near in.
Stones are more powerful than bullets, wooden sticks are more lethal than guns, and death can be welcomed while the authority deploys forces to kill. This circumvents all my concepts of power
They, like us, don’t ignore ill practices or wait for a rise through conventional systems. They don’t follow only predecessors or stay glued to family trends, but invent and surrender their journey to a goal based upon their own convictions covered by self-skill.
They don’t watch BBC or CNN but collect self-assessed information from the open source and make decisions necessary for the set objectives. They don’t read heavy books of Kissinger to understand international relations, Amartya Sen or Adam Smith for economics, or Voltair or Kant to draw philosophical guidance.
There is a huge change in my perception and vision and passion after Gen-Z made the power-shift. All power accrued from people is no longer abstract, but a concrete and visible fact.
Revolution needs prominent leaders. But leadership can be shared among small clusters to hit the end state. This is my new discovery. Views of editorial posts can be outsmarted by on-the-spot journalists or a bold question of a young newscaster.
I don’t get thrilled anymore to watch Christiana Amanpur or Mehedi Hasan, but get glued to watch Nicole Anjuman or Manjur Matin. I don’t have to depend on social media only to find truth. I now have mainstream media like Jamuna TV or Channel 24 as an alternative to BBC or CNN.
A monstrous law enforcing agency can disappear in a day is an unimaginable episode to my conventional power concept. Stones are more powerful than bullets, wooden sticks are more lethal than guns, and death can be welcomed while the authority deploys forces to kill. This circumvents all my concepts of power.
Satire can be a more powerful game changer than national spirit acquired through bloodbath; ideals can stay stronger in heart rather than on louder mouth or in visible figure; symbols of mourning can take the colour of red rather than conventional black; a single facebook post can shake an impregnable force; a movement can sustain without external support and unnoticed by globally acclaimed efficient intelligence agencies to effect a change of this magnitude.
This awakens my divine soul to reunite with my temporal body rather than body losing its entity in search of the soul. The red in the skies attract me, the sun of the dusk looks brighter than the dawn, the sound of slogans amuses more than the sound of a musical concert, the speech of the protests inspires more than what Abraham Lincoln called for in Gettysburg. My soul frantically looks for my divine body to turn temporal.
Brigadier General (Retd) AF Jaglul Ahmed, ndc, psc, Phd is a regular contributor in national dailies.