The very first thought that entered my mind exactly a year ago to this day, right after sheer disbelief at the events unfolding in front of us all, was “boy, journalists and newsmen all across Bangladesh are about to let out one heck of an exhale.”
As someone who falls within that demographic, watching the downfall of a government which had, over the years, mutated into an autocracy, was tantamount to feeling a ball-gag being withdrawn in slow-motion -- not an improper metaphor when you consider just how servile the entire press landscape had become during the Awami League’s tenure.
Of course, a lot can happen in a year, and the initial promise of a Bangladesh free from the sins of the past regime has now given way to cautious pessimism. Which is why today I write this not as a news professional but as an individual who has been living under the new arrangement for 12 whole months, evaluating our nation’s current state of affairs not through the lens of a news analyst but through the less incisive and a bit more fearful eyes of an average citizen.
There is no doubt that the formation of the incumbent interim government was met with widespread applause from much of the country -- headed by a pre-eminent citizen in the form of Professor Muhammad Yunus, a cabinet of luminaries both known and unknown, the promise of a reformed Bangladesh felt real and attainable.
The Awami League government under Sheikh Hasina had successfully influenced practically each and every institution in the country meant to hold power accountable, spreading the rot of corruption in a way that ensured the party’s will would never be questioned, much less challenged, which is why, after the disgraced autocrat eventually turned tail and sought refuge in neighbouring India, the interim administration’s recognition of our hemorrhaging institutions signaled a cabinet which understood what was wrong with our country.
A year has passed, and it seems that promise only stretches farther and farther away.
It absolutely did not help that the newly liberated Bangladesh was followed by a wave of criminal activity which, while thankfully under much better control now, still persists to some degree. Citizens being assaulted and murdered in broad daylight, institutional negligence affecting civilians in the worst possible ways, and, most disappointingly, a return to the politics of retribution -- a fundamental flaw of our political culture which should have been the first element we should have cut off as soon as the new administration was formed.
Without going into unnecessary details, the past 12 months have seen the previous government’s knack for litigiousness be adopted by the current administration. Due process be damned, the amount of incarcerations and cases being lodged against political figures verges on becoming a parody of the kind of culture which defined the Awami League in the past 15 years, and it does not look like the practice is going to come to an end anytime soon.
Exactly how are we, as citizens, supposed to feel any hope for the future of our nation?
Where we were all feeling a sense of vigorous revolt and open defiance in the face of a state which had decided that killing its own citizens was a price it was willing to pay to stay in power in perpetuity, the following 12 months have been defined by anger. Anger at our political system’s unwillingness to put us -- the people -- at the centre, anger at the interim administration for failing to live up to its promises, and, perhaps most of all, anger at ourselves for believing that true change could be so easily won.
I guess time just makes fools of us all.
Rubaiyat Kabir is Joint Editor, Editorial and Op-Ed, Dhaka Tribune.
