Nationwide cyanide

Rubaiyat Kabir

Confine yourself to your homes, cut yourself off from the rest of the world

Look, there’s something I need you to do. There’s very little time to explain! Just listen to me! Go home (if you aren’t there already), bolt your doors shut, chuck your phone(s) out the window, sever your Internet connection (keep your television set though), and confine yourself.

Don’t worry about shopping for staples, this isn’t “preparation for nuclear winter 101” or anything, this is about taking back the one last thing that we as citizens of a nation have left: Control over our lives.

These are times of war, ladies and gentlemen – both the government and their immediate rivals are heavily invested in conducting some form of twisted experiment to see how much further they can push the envelope with us. There wasn’t much we could’ve done though.

The enemy was well-placed and funded well enough to have swept the rug right from under us without us even noticing. And so, there’s very little reason to fight for survival anymore. But there is one last thing we can do, which brings me back to the plan at hand.

Confine yourself to your homes, cut yourself off from the rest of the world, and just … do nothing. Do absolutely nothing. Rid yourself of worries about your (or your child’s) education, making money, yada yada yada, they matter little in death. Yes, death. Do nothing until you die. That’s the plan. I know this sounds stupendously stupid and more than a little crazy, but just go with me on this one.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not the opposition to our incumbent rulers who are the cornered rats. That title belongs to us, the average citizens. The combined forces of our current and would-be uneasy heads are hell-bent on suffocating us out of our holes and cleansing us in fire. I’m not using the word “genocide,” not yet, but it sure as hell feels like the next worst thing.

Why would they do this to their own countrymen? Could it be misanthropy taken to its extremes? Severe frustration at the very top of each respective hierarchy? I wish I had some answer to offer, but all I have are these loose theories. What I do know for certain is that this has been going on for years, decades in fact.

Also, that a disruption caused in the traditional game of political leapfrog indulged in by our two resident warring dynasties would ultimately damage the people, was expected … and yet they allowed it to happen. What does that tell us? That we are acceptable casualties in someone else’s war? No. We are active participants in this melee, and right now we are staring down the barrel of their muskets.

So, do the honorable thing: Confine yourself to a space of your choice – one that isolates you from another living soul – exhaust what little life-preserving resource you have left while watching the nation implode on your television screens (in 4K HD, for some of you lucky folks!), and waste away until you die. Let’s not give the enemy the satisfaction of landing the killing blow on us, and pull the trigger ourselves. 

Source: Dhaka Tribune