When exactly did we get so touchy?
There’s so much in our history that could have helped open our minds. Not too many countries can boast having a month-long book fair. And it’s not like the Boi Mela is slowly dying out in the digital age either, as some might have predicted. It still gets overcrowded at times, and printed books show no sign of becoming extinct anytime soon.
We Bangalis are known to be a literary bunch. There is no shortage of writers, poets, and intellectuals in the country. We have a high number of newspapers, both English and Bangla, in circulation. Our addas taking on a philosophical nature is a national characteristic.
While folks in other countries make small talk about the weather or last night’s game, Bangladeshis have no qualms about diving headfirst into heated debates about politics or ideology with any random stranger.
Higher education seems omnipresent. Dhaka city alone has more universities than it is possible to count. From the looks of it, there’s a lot of learning going on everywhere. And now, with the Internet, and social media in particular, there’s hardly an idea out there we haven’t been exposed to.
Then how did we get to be like this? Sure, there’s an Ekushey book fair, ostensibly celebrating a freedom we earned many years ago, but publishers and booksellers are constantly on edge. Sure, the newspapers are still coming out, but not without editors getting harassed for simply doing their job. Somewhere underneath our pretend-love of free discourse, we have screwed it up badly.
Two recent events which most people are familiar with by now have brought to light how depressing it is to try to speak, write, or publish anything here.
The first is the unfortunate harassment of the publisher Rodela Prokashoni. Rodela had published a book that had offended the religious sentiments of some – namely folks of Hefazat-e-Islam – who, instead of countering the book with a civilised debate about what exactly it was that they found so unacceptable, threatened Rodela Prokashoni’s staff, and tried to shut down their offices.
It is worth noting that the allegedly offensive book was a translation of quite an old foreign book, the author of which was an Iranian madrasa-educated theological scholar who died 33 years ago. That didn’t matter. Hefazat’s threats were enough – Rodela had to shut down their stall at the book fair.
The second is the case against three senior journalists of The Daily Star. The newspaper had published a photo of a poster of Hizb ut-Tahrir. The poster and the group had been banned, and the newspaper had published the photo in order to portray the vile nature of the poster. There was no subversive intent in publishing this picture, as the caption had made clear.
And yet, action has been taken against the paper, and the courts will now deal with it as they see fit. Reporting the news can indeed be a dangerous game.
Those are just two very recent examples that show just how difficult it has become to publish, or even just speak. Arguments, words, or images can be taken out of context, bent, twisted, manipulated and made to look like whatever the aggressor wishes for them to look like. If you go looking for offense with a lantern, you are sure to find it. If you think everyone is out to get you, anything anyone says will sound like a threat.
Bangladeshis, as a people, have had more than their fair share of struggle. Just yesterday was Ekushey February – the day we make a big show of remembering martyrs who laid down their lives for our freedom to speak in our own language. But we seem to have forgotten those lessons.
One particular book at the book fair might be offensive to one person, but the closure of a whole stall and the atmosphere of fear surrounding it all might be seen as offensive towards the spirit of the Amar Ekushey book fair.
We’ve choked the freedom out of every aspect of life, especially when the freedom is a necessity for moving forward. In this year’s World Press Freedom Index, brought out by Reporters Without Borders, Bangladesh scored an abysmal 146th out of 180. A worse performer than even Afghanistan or Myanmar, Bangladesh has one of the least free environments in the world when it comes to news media.
There are bigger enemies out there than books and newspapers, but we’ve become desensitised to the things that are really objectionable. We walk by burning buses like it ain’t no thing. We go to work knowing our vehicle might be attacked at some point – no big deal. We tolerate things that are truly ugly.
But we’re scared to speak or publish freely – pictures or words might make somebody upset. Hello, Draconia.
