During the last nine months, I have felt a strong urge to pick up a pen, a number of times I might add, because I sensed the need to raise my voice, express my rage, and rise in solidarity despite my limitations due to being thousand miles away from Bangladesh -- the country I was born in.
The systematic, brutal attacks on bloggers, writers, publishers, and non-Bangladeshi aid workers broke my nerve. The repeated negligence of the government in bringing the perpetrators to justice made me furious. The tolerance of Bangladeshi citizens towards these attacks saddened me.
I lost my faith in the Bangladesh government long ago. Both main political parties in Bangladesh have given me ample reason to believe that they lack basics of “civilised” politics and the know-how to govern a state. None of them seem to have the capacity to empathise with the struggles of the average citizen … or maybe they are simply not willing to do so.
In these crucial times, what worries me the most is the lack of solidarity among citizens. We seem to be getting used to this level of brutality.
The frequent occurrence of such attacks have made us very familiar with the trend -- we can almost predict when to expect the next attack, and know who will be the next victim(s). After all, we have been handed-out a list of names of those who are in death row by the militants themselves.
We all wait for the next episode. We are curious to hear the news, but nothing shocks us or shakes us at the core. The morning after every such attack, a handful of concerned citizens condemn the brutal attacks, some activists get on the streets to protest, and the larger society plays the silent observer.
So, why would these militant groups fear anything? Why would the government -- the so-called “democratically-elected” entity -- feel threatened to be thrown off, despite it continuously failing to safe-guard the constitutional rights of the citizens? The government knows in its heart that it can get away with this.
Many of us tend to blame fate for all such occurrences. But “fate” is shaped by us, and it is the very consequence of our own deeds, or of our doing nothing, to prevent something terrible. Fate is not something fixed or absolute, it is not, like it is popularly expressed in our culture “written on our foreheads.” In this “people’s republic,” the people seem to have turned passive instead of being inspired and empowered in actively determining their fate. We have failed in essence, and we have pathetically gotten used to our failure.
What Bangladesh essentially needs is shock-therapy. But when the tolerance level of its society is so high that the citizens don’t even flinch seeing a pool of blood from human slaughter, and have developed thick skin in tolerating real human violence, any hope for a wake-up call will be in vain.
It goes against my nature to sound so pessimistic, but I can feel my hope being drained, about to hit rock bottom.
I am clutching at straws, trying to remain hopeful.
The government is a lost case, but I can still hope that people will feel the harsh lashes on their backs each and every time a fellow citizen is deprived from her/his right to life and personal liberty, and consequently will sense the urge to rise up.
When one of us is attacked, none of us is essentially safe.
Solidarity among citizens is crucial. The more we are, the better, in order to put an end to this brutality and the incompetence of the government.
In fact, we all have our own share of the responsibility to overcome this quagmire Bangladesh is currently in.
We all have the power to do something. As Albert Einstein once said: “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
We desperately need to straighten our priorities. We have to prioritise the need to uphold the fundamental rights of each and every citizen above all.
No ideology or opinion is supreme over the basic rights we have inherited as humans.
A zero tolerance attitude to violence against any citizen is what is needed to be bred and nurtured in our society.
We should not fear to make proper use of the democratic power assigned by the constitution. I can lay my hope only on my fellow citizens.
