Munir Zaman
The so called youth movement at Shahabag has come to an end despite the life support administered to it from time to time. The vengeful movement, as long as it lasted was sad, and its end patently farcical. What began with bawdy bombast demanding legalized execution of Jamaat leaders, morphed, with the lifting of the veil of subterfuge, into a wily ploy to divert public attention from massive corruption at the high level and secure political dividend.
The investment in organizing and sustaining ‘Shahabag youth movement’ was evidently substantial. The crowd was drawn from different walks of life the – the youthful members of the student and youth wings of the ruling party, hired day labourers brought in to pose as active participants, curious on-lookers straying from the nearby book exhibition, anxious patients and their relatives seeking entry into the two major hospitals near by and so on. Clever placement of movable barricades and traffic handling by the policemen, in addition to protecting the participants from possible injury that might be caused by the mischievous outsiders or insiders, further added to the general congestion in the area. Some newspapers including a few major ones, shedding their commitment to fair and truthful reporting, printed for weeks large photographs together with news reports which were pleasing to the establishment and organizers of the rally but had little indication of serious investigative journalism.
A most shocking sight was the truckload of school-children of tender age shouting, parrot fashion, demands for death of the ‘Razakars’. They were shouting as tutored. It is most unlikely that they understood fully what they were shouting about. Using children to further the sadistic impulse of some individuals pretending to be the leaders of the present generation of youths was indeed an example of gross child abuse.
It may not be an idle exercise to briefly review a few explosions of youth movements in recent decades elsewhere in the world. The earliest is easily recognizable; it took place in Paris in May 1968, when the students of the universities rose in protest against the university administration. The protest speedily burgeoned to a major anti- government movement. The police used force to disperse the protestors; the incensed mob retaliated with brickbats, Molotov cocktails and by burning cars. As the violence mounted, de Gaulle left the Elycee palace to spend a few days in the French military base at Baden-Baden, saying, “nobody attacks an empty place.” He resolutely refused to shed French blood “for my personal protection.”
What was it exactly that the French youths were angry with? The speeches of some of the youth leaders and graffiti-stricken walls, full of rhythmic and witty comments, pointed to a wide range of perceptions and objectives. Often one contradicted the other. One freshly coined phrase read, “We want structures that serve the people, not people serving structures.” Then, another almost next to it declared, “society has abolished all adventures—only adventure left is to abolish the society”-an anarchist perception in clear opposition to welfare society ideal implicit in the former. The heterogeneous elements in the movement had only one strain in common – they were all against authority whatever might be its manifestation – government, university and even the institution of family – seen as seeking to impose some sort of moral or value-based restraint. One graffiti read: “it is forbidden to forbid – Il est interdit d’interdire.”
De Gaulle after his short stay in the French base in Baden – Baden returned to Paris, declared emergency, dissolved the National Assembly, and announced a date for general election. The election returned the Gaullists with almost 73% of the total number of seats, the largest ever electoral margin in the history the National Assembly of France. The youth movement had already evaporated. The Paris movement produced ripple effects in Berlin, Rome, London and even in far away Mexico city. All of them soon came to an abrupt end.
In more recent years, the examples of youth activism are the mass rally at Cairo’s Tahrir Square and ‘Occupy Wall Street’ (OWS) movement in New York. The Tahrir Square rally with its call for democracy and the end of autocratic rule swept the entire Arab world. It brought down the elected Governments in Egypt and Tunisia, and political crises in a number of countries compelling the traditional rulers to come to terms with popular aspirations released by what came to be known as the Arab Spring.
Occupy Wall Street began in September, 2011 and at a time when youth unemployment was high, and tuition fees and youth debt were skyrocketing thus creating an environment of general frustration. The main issues voiced by the protestors were corruption, corporate influence on the Government, and social and economic inequality. The slogan – we are the 99% — highlighted the aspect of income inequality between the majority (99%) and the wealthiest 1%. Although Obama’s policy agenda would embrace some of the areas of these and allied issues (except the bank bail-out package), the youths were impatient for quicker results.
As the movement proceeded, different groups and civic organizations joined the on-going protests with their own agenda to secure a broader support base. One important group represented the Death Penalty Abolitionists. Their cause received a large measure of instant support due to a widely held perception of probable miscarriage of justice in a recent case where death sentence was awarded to the accused though several witnesses had retracted or substantially modified their earlier version of the crime. President Jimmy Carter wrote: “If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.”
On 22 September 2011, a day after the sentence had been carried out in a Georgia prison, the OWS Assembly released a list of Demands. It contained the following: “On September 21, 2011, Troy Davis, an innocent man, was murdered by the State of Georgia. Troy Davis was one of the 99%. Ending capital punishment is our one demand”.
In the preceding paragraphs, I have tried to review very briefly a few important Youth Movements elsewhere in the world in recent times. It may be worthwhile to reflect on the nature of Shahabag and extent to which it was in tune with the general aspirations and visions of the youths in modern times.
Some of the issues addressed in most of youth movements are, human freedom within the framework of a tolerant and democratic society, limiting the authority, value of human life, corruption and economic ills, and inequality. Let us assess the approach of Shahabag on each of them.
Virtually everywhere the Youth movements had to deal with a diversity of issues. So it should be, as the protesters are drawn from different interests and different agenda. As we have seen in Paris, and also at Wall Street sometimes the demands of one group run in contradiction to those of another. The differences are tolerated or ignored. In Shahabg however, there was to be only one demand and no other – death to the Razakars. Not a single loud voice against corruption at high places was heard.
In every youth movement, most impressively at Tahrir Square, human freedom and ideals of a democratic and tolerant society were given a place of honour. Not so in Shahabag. The society was neatly divided into Razakars, freedom Fighters, real or assumed, and others with no quarters to be given to the Razakars – so read a few banners. The organizers were planting the seeds of an intolerant society.
High cost of education and youth unemployment had been a major issue in all youth movements.
The movements in Paris and the United States began first in the universities. In the Wall Street, economic issues and youth unemployment were major areas of concern Shahabag participants were least bothered with such simple minded issues. However, a few perfectly respectable university scholars were insulted and threatened with dire consequences when they publicly registered their dissent.
With the facts as presented, the readers may make their own assessment of Shahabag. As the readers have realized by now, I have my own.
Source: Weekly Holiday
