Being an esteemed artist celebrated worldwide, incarcerated photojournalist Shahidul Alam has managed to scrape off a rare piece of luck that could work wonders should you find yourself antagonized by the authorities in Bangladesh. This luck -- aided significantly by his distinguished allies in the international intelligentsia -- is one that could even save a man from a potential loss of career, reputation, and perhaps even life.
But how do you take down a man like Shahidul on account of the words he used in that interview which have been deemed treasonous? Beyond the culprit that is being made out of him, what do these recent developments say about the lines which distinguish valid from invalid, opinion from propaganda, truth from falsehood. It’s important to take note of the narratives being presented -- for they help paint a vivid picture of where the conversation is right now.
If anything, this arrest -- as well as the recent crackdown on left-leaning scholars in India -- signals a disturbing reality: Intellectuals, like the rest of us, have access to freedom of expression only until they begin to speak not-so-fondly of the administration. In a country marked by its ruling class’s historic knack for seeing its subjects as nothing more than mere vote banks, how do we define this “line” that they so vehemently warn us not to cross?
Understand the problem in the unbridled use of the narrative of “protecting the spirit of the independence war against those who oppose it” for every issue, every single time. Not only have the authorities casually thrown around allegations of “treason” and “calls for armed insurgency” for most, if not all, recent skirmishes -- members of the Bangladeshi administration have gone as far as reincarnating popular nicknames for war criminals in order to smear a youth-led uprising back in April.
The dangers of such reckless narratives are beyond measure. Not only is it a terribly clumsy approach at handling what seems to be increasingly frequent public protests, it also serves as a direct handover of validation to otherwise obsolete reactionary pockets, accelerating the religious and political right’s attempts to get unsuspecting citizens to normalize and even empathize with them and their cause.
And no one wants the religious right to come to power.
In theory, under an administration that prides itself for being aligned with the ideals of the Liberation War, the emergence of these blocs shouldn’t have been anything more than fable. Yet, when we look back, there’s hardly anything to convince us that our fears of the state buckling under reactionary dominance aren’t true.
Our national curriculums altered as per fundamentalist demands, sculptures removed, political candidates explicitly displaying their comradeship with leaders of ultra-conservative quarters -- one does not need to look too far to find traces of this abhorrent courtship of the right and how much it has established itself in the political arena.
Bangladeshi politics and its lax policies, aided by the influence of money and populist principles, have long facilitated both the influx and the proliferation of controversial figures within the power structure. Owing to a mode of operation that dictates every administrational and political interaction, the same political identities our government urges us to be paranoid about just so happens to have known sympathizers of their cause casually holding some of the highest offices within the administration itself.
In a political culture where power and individual interests trump ethics and ideology, regardless of any specific political parties, to expect justice and transparency from those that hold power is foolish. The oppressed neither comprehend nor care about the political left or the political right. They merely seek assurances of a “good” life, however one defines it, and would lend support to whoever is willing to provide it.
Perhaps that’s where the distinction between “terrorism” and “insurgency” lies.
But if democracy in its purest form did exist, why would the opinions of an individual be deemed treasonous simply because it rattled a few cages, given that rattling cages is, perhaps, the whole point?
Democracy and constitutional rights seem to be turning into fantasies, while extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and police brutality are becoming the norm, and fundamentalist quarters have been coaxed all the way back into the spotlight.
And It doesn’t stop there.
In 2021, only three years from now, the country turns half a century old. One cannot help but wonder what it is that Bangladeshis should be celebrating upon hitting 50.
Sayrat Salekin is a freelance contributor.
