The year comes to an end.
Perhaps, we should say a stormy year finishes.
Every year is filled with events, some heartening, several heart wrenching and a few that trigger deeper reflection.
But the interesting part is when we talk of years gone by, maybe two to three incidents immediately come to mind, defining that specific time period.
For instance, in my case, if I randomly pick the year 1989, I remember the Bangladesh football team winning the President Gold Cup, the Neil Young Album Freedom, watching MacGyver, and buying export quality shirts from in front of Dhaka College.
In the same way, if several years down the line, someone talks about 2021, the malaise of post-Covid Bangladesh will come to mind.
When we cross over to 2026, the year we left behind will leave images of a very fraught time.
Stability was elusive
The year 2025 may be summed up in the line -- a prolonged period of inclement weather.
The country’s determination to find stability was repeatedly rocked by incidents that either triggered moments of profound grief or festering feelings of indignation.
For many people, 2025 will be remembered for the ghastly jet plane crash on a school which left us numb with shock and pain.
No county is perfect and there will be accidents where lives will tragically be lost but this one incident is hard to erase from the mind.
Images of children running desperately with their bodies scalded by the fire that engulfed the school building will haunt the nation.
All year long, protests, blockades, and taking over the Shahbagh intersection were regular incidents that featured one group or the other venting their grievances or giving voice to their pent-up resentment.
The year may as well be classified as the year of protests!
The domestic turmoil was compounded by a relentless campaign of disinformation from outside which aimed to sow discord and incite anger, leading to reckless actions.
At the year's end, the death of young firebrand leader Osman Hadi once again roiled Bangladesh.
It does not take an expert to see that the killing of the young icon was carried out with the sole purpose of taking the country over the edge into anarchy.
Fortunately, that did not happen.
The grief and the anger has turned to resolve.
Bangladesh has seen worse
There is a group who make it a habit to catastrophize the situation and use any tragedy or unrest to create a picture of absolute doom.
They even succeed for a bit but these people forget that Bangladesh, in her 54 years of roller coaster ride, has passed through far worse periods.
Actually, those who make doom mongering their preoccupation have either forgotten the 70s and 80s, were too young to remember that period, or, were not even born then.
Almost the whole of the 70s, Bangladesh, the state was almost always on the brink of implosion.
In the book, Legacy of Blood, late journalist Anthony Manscarenas writes of coups and counter coups all throughout the 70s, punctuated by intrigue and plots to overthrow the government.
This book is an extremely relevant read since it illustrates how efforts were made from various quarters to take over-power of the country by force, rebellion, and bloodshed.
Machinations, secret insurrections and conspiracy brewed at every corner, the hill tracts were restive while the economy struggled.
Yet, Bangladesh survived that turbulent time, along with the devastating famine of 1974, natural disasters, cyclones, and an eight-year long protracted movement against autocracy in the 80s.
Detractors were even vocal back then, asserting the future of Bangladesh was bleak and this would turn out to be another Biafra disaster.
In the late 70s, droves of young women came to Dhaka from the villages to work, not for a monthly salary but just for regular meals three times a day.
For millions a meal meant a bowl of rice, a piece of onion and, if lucky, some salt.
Hunger was pervasive, scavenging for food in the dustbins and rubbish dumps common while the movies of the time used the scarcity of food as a major underlying theme to showcase Bangladesh’s plight.
Looking forward to 2026
The point is Bangladesh never turned into a dystopia.
It was never a utopia either but the country managed to pass terribly dark hours with fortitude and stoicism to come this far.
No matter what the alarmists say or propagate, the country will not fall over the cliff and turn into a dysfunctional state, opined the late journalist Jamal Arsalan, during the 2007 “1/11” change of power.
The year 2025 that we’re all finishing has not been smooth at all and it certainly leaves deep scars in our souls.
But instead of losing heart, adversity can be treated as a lesson because it’s during times of crisis, a nation or an individual realizes who is a friend and who pretends to be a friend with an ulterior sinister purpose, observed Zahirul Islam, who works for an English daily.
The year end also marked an unsavoury incident when media houses came under attack.
“Any government which comes to power must ensure media pluralism and accept criticism as part of a healthy functioning democratic apparatus,” comments Abdullah Al Bake, a journalist.
As we move to a brand-new year, the first resolution should be to prove all denigrators wrong by holding a proper election and implementing the ideals and convictions that galvanized a country in July-August 2024.
“The path ahead will not be without impediments; Bangladesh has always weathered the storm to move ahead,” contends Taqir Hossain, a social analyst.
But, moving to 2026, leaving the hiccups behind, let’s keep Shakespeare’s line from As You Like It in mind: “Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears a precious jewel on its head.”
Towheed Feroze is a former journalist.
