Two events have been making the rounds of social media lately and, in my opinion, both of them are connected.
One is the debacle with Hero Alom where he was called by the DB for his cover of a Tagore song -- a blatant disregard of freedom of speech and artistic freedom. The other is an incident involving Star Cineplex, where an elderly man was denied a ticket for a film just because he was wearing a lungi -- a blatant disregard for a person’s freedom and bodily autonomy.
And while the connections between these two disasters should be explicit, the ways in which they connect to an overarching, sinister fabric of our society is less so but certainly needs to be talked about.
For something like this does not happen in a day, the value of the individual has always been very low and, as recent events show, it is something that has dropped even lower. In a hierarchical society such as ours, archaic societal values -- as wrong as they may be -- persevere, and have an effect on the happiness of the individual. While this might seem detestable on a common sense basis, in reality that is how our society has functioned and this is what the majority of people feel to be what is right.
Consider, for example, the myriad cases of police and bureaucrats harassing school-going teenagers for having a non-conforming hairstyle or hanging out with a person of the opposite gender. As per my knowledge, filming someone without their consent is a blatant violation of the law and is considered to be harassment.
Even without the aid of legalities, scaring people at such an impressionable age with a digital record of their shaming, which is forever lost to the clutches of the internet, is, without a doubt, a form of bullying. And for a person who is of age and in a position of power to engage in such an act is nothing short of reprehensible. However, this is something that is seen as heroic and shared by the vast majority of the country, in the name of maintaining “order.”
What is “order” anyway? Why should the individual sit down to please others when it would make themselves unhappy? What do the tobacco-chewing elders get out of policing people? Consider a couple that is happy and are kissing in public. They are not harming anyone. As long as that is the case, why should other people care?
The conservative argument is that this will lead to imitations and the destruction of society. But if someone wants to imitate something as innocent as this, then there wouldn’t be any material harm on society. I wouldn’t be waking up to an empty bank account just because people kiss in public, nor would anyone else.
And if someone is afraid of what it would do to their children, it would teach them to be themselves. In a society that is plagued with stress and suicides, giving birth to kids out of nothingness just to make them do whatever we want is nothing but slavery. Perhaps what parents need are not kids but well-trained monkeys, beings without the burden of free will that will never feel crushed under a hypothetical boulder that they never chose.
And what is society anyway? At the end of the day, it is a cooperative of people where the needs of both the individual and the collective are met. This translates into the doctrine that while I live my life, I won’t harm you. A societal bond also gives us the chance to work together towards a common good.
But if that common good is the oppression of a few because of the whims of the many, then such a society is violating one of its basic tenets of existence. And if that is the case, then there is nothing more noble than the burning down of such an oppressive system.
I look forward to more Hero Alams. I look forward to seeing more men in lungis. More couples kissing in the rain. If you like it, fine. If you don’t, beat it. No one is obliged to cater to you. No one is obliged to dance to your tunes.
None of us are here by choice. The least we can do is try to not make people dance to our own tunes.
Nafis Shahriar is an Editorial Assistant at Dhaka Tribune.
