The situation in Bangladesh is not good, it never was. We have striven long and hard to turn things around, but to no avail. The struggle has continued, sacrifices have been made, but the system hasn’t been changed, only steadily deteriorated.
Nothing is safe in our country now. Money in the bank is looted. Local miscreants loot and plunder, foreign miscreants also loot and plunder, aided and abetted by the local accomplices. Our brothers and sisters work hard overseas and send money home. That remittance is looted. Our garments workers earn their wages, that money is looted too. This is the blatant truth, a reality that is exemplified in the state of women.
In 1921 when Dhaka University was established, there was only one female student. Now there are over 17,000 girls studying in this university, but there is no improvement in their security. A string of events only highlights how bad the situation is, with rapes and murders one after the other.
The killing of Sohagi Jahan Tonu itself depicts the dire circumstances. Tonu was a young girl, raped and killed in the most protected area of the country. Had her fellow students and the entire country not rallied in protest, the matter would have remained under wraps. Investigations are faulty, the criminals remain at large. Justice remains uncertain.
This is not an isolated incident. This is just one of many incidents that reveal reality. We have seen the killing of the journalist couple Sagar and Runi. It had been said their killers would be caught in 48 hours. Days turned to months, and then to years. Nothing has been done. The killers have not even been caught, let alone tried.
The media was not united and the killers remain free. The only reason we can hope for justice in the case of Tonu, is that the students remain consolidated in protest. This protest is our only hope, the hope that allows us to dream of better days ahead.
The best way to describe the system in our country is to use the term capitalist. At one time the capitalist system had its good side. But we don’t see that good side here. Capitalism increases production, encourages investment, provides freedom of expression. We do not have this here. We only have the worst aspects of capitalism. We have isolation, consumerism, and oppression. This isolation is a serious matter.
In 1971 when the aggressors carried out genocide, they had hoped that the people would distance themselves from each other. But there was no isolation. We remained unified and drove them away. Our unity was our strength.
Isolation and solitude are not one and the same. There are two famous young characters in literature. One is Robinson Crusoe, the other was Hamlet. Robinson Crusoe’s ship had sunk and he found refuge on a deserted island. He was solitary but no isolated. He had managed to salvage some tools from the ship which he used to cultivate the land and catch fish. He reared goats, gathered fruit and made nature his friend. He even found another human eventually.
He had solitude, not isolation. He read the Bible to keep isolation at bay. Isolation is the main reason people turn to religion. Robinson Crusoe found solace in the Bible and managed to avoid isolation.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet was the opposite. He was not alone. He was a student of philosophy at a university par excellence. Hamlet had friends, he could write plays, could act, and could fence. He was creative, the most talented in his kingdom of Denmark. But he was isolated. There were people all around him, he was the prince, he had his supporters, yet he was alone. His father died, his uncle became king, his mother married his uncle, all these events disturbed Hamlet deeply.
In the meantime, the ghost of his father appears before Hamlet, telling him he was killed by his uncle. He asked Hamlet to avenge his death, but to give his mother no pain. His uncle had killed his father and married his mother and now Hamlet was to seek revenge. What was he to do? He found himself alone.
The circumstances we find ourselves in now are like the corrupt system of Hamlet’s Denmark. Justice is trampled upon. Oppression and exploitation reign. There is no security. If we want to change this system, we cannot do so alone. We must be united, we must have organisation. We have seen spontaneous movements, but what Bangladesh needs for social change is a well-organised movement, a continuous movement.
Our dream of freedom never materialised because we didn’t change the old system. We changed the state. We changed the state in 1947, we partitioned the country, we broke Pakistan into two in 1971 and emerged as an independent state. But the character of the state didn’t change. There was no revolutionary social change. The master-servant relationship remained, the equation between the rich and the poor remained the same. The poor remains downtrodden.
The development over the 45 years has been capitalistic. The lot of a few has been improved, the rest remain deprived. This development is like a hill, not a river. We want river-like development, flowing out to touch everyone. It must fertilise the soil, enrich nature. Bangladesh will never be developed unless there is social change. We must keep in mind that things will deteriorate unless we stand up against the downfall. We cannot stand up alone. The one who stands up alone will remain isolated.
But if we rise up in unity, we can carry out a feat as we did in defeating the 95 thousand Pakistani troops. The Pakistanis were defeated by the strength of unity. The farmers were part of this strength and we have failed in any revolution in this country so far as the middle class has not gone to the farmers. The fight for freedom was of the farmers. The majority of those who fought in the liberation war were farmers. The women who were oppressed, were the daughters, sisters and wives of farmers. We speak of 30 lakh people giving their lives, most of them were farmers.
We have failed to include farmers in the fight for social change. The Communist Party of China and the Communist Part of India were formed at the same time, but China carried out a revolution. India failed to do so. China had gone to the farmers who rebelled and took China to new heights.
It was the same in Vietnam. America was defeated by forces comprising farmers.
Today China is capitalist. The China which had risen up to free the world, is now on a downslide. It is rife with unemployment, environmental degeneration and pollution. All the evils of capitalism are now piling up on China.
The lesson learnt is that there is no emancipation in capitalism. The struggle for freedom is the struggle against capitalism. Those who speak about socialism must make their stand clear. Capitalism is not the alternative for capitalism. Socialism is the alternative for capitalism. The struggle for socialism is an organised and continuous one. It must be spontaneous. Spontaneity is important for the struggle, but not enough. It must be well-organised as well.
Source: Prothom Alo
