Home

Follow Countercurrents on Twitter 

Google+ 

Support Us

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

CounterSolutions

CounterImages

CounterVideos

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About Us

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Search Our Archive

 



Our Site

Web

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name: E-mail:

 

Printer Friendly Version

 The politics Of Deception And The Spirit Of Shahbagh Movement

By Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan

25 February, 2013
Countercurrents.org

There is now a tendency, emerging among legal and social analysts, to play safe with the Shahbag movement. The reason for this is because they won't support capital punishment in solidarity with the movement.

I argue that the Shahbag Movement should not be identified or categorized by its call for capital punishment. Those who do this are failing to read the minds of the young bloggers who launched the Shahbag Movement, and are putting the movement at the risk of further misinterpretation.

We need to look past the call for capital punishment to judge the Shahbag Movement in its true spirit.

The motivation of those bloggers – launching the movement, risking their lives – isn't really about the judicial killing of the Kader Molla (though why not? It was there, at Nuremburg). The killing demand is not new, nor has it erupted all of a sudden. For two decades the Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and other likeminded organisations have been campaigning to bring war criminals to justice. But – because of the hegemonic role played by Awami League (AL) over them especially after the death of Shahid Jononi Jahanara Imam – they failed to mobilise the country's anti-war crime movement as the little known bloggers successfully did at Shahbag. Their appeal could not transcend partisan politics.

To understand what is going on we must look at those notable political events that preceded the International Crime Tribunal's (ICT's) judgment on Kader Molla, and the emergence of the Shahbag movement in protest.

First, we had the murder of Bishshojit in broad day light by activists of student wing of the ruling party, and the controversial use of pepper spray for the first time in Bangladesh . Poor primary school teachers had to confront the brutal baton-charges and random pepper spraying. The law enforcing agencies refused to allow anti-government demonstrations in Dhaka or elsewhere in the country, and by any means.

The government did not miss an opportunity to bring the individuals to book, even for posting “anti-government” or “anti-PM” status in the Face Book pages. It's policing and law enforcement was heavy handed on any issue of political and social significance as the government saw it. And with it the growing incidence of “disappearance” and extra-judicial killing of political activists and the otherwise unfavourably noticed.

The dominant powers intolerantly and repressively attacked "opponents", whoever they were. The space to express political and social grievances was narrowing by the day…

In this politically suffocating environment, the government played a double role when it came to confronting Jamaat-e-Islami, especially in the aftermath of the ICT's verdict on “Bachchu Razakar ” case. All of a sudden “leniency” towards the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing was the order of the day. The government gave permission for them to hold political meetings and processions. In those meetings, Jamaat-e-Islami and Shibir leaders called upon its activists to wage a “civil war” in the country if the ICT handed down a verdict of capital punishment on Kader Molla.

So here was a call for civil war, and what happened? What did the ruling party do? Well, even Shamsul Haque Tuku, the minister for home affairs, openly praised the youth leadership of Jamaat-e-Islami in response to the questions, asked by the journalists at the Secretariat (see the Daily Prothom Alo , dated 5 February 2013 , available at http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2013-02-05/news/326963)! As a result, when the ICT announced life-imprisonment for Jamaat's publicity secretary, Kader Molla, the recently emerged rumor – that the ruling party had been in tacit political collusion with the ICT – found a foothold in the public sphere.

And the opposition party? Its traditional demand for freeing its and Jamaat's arrested leaders conveyed the message that the two major political parties would not bring the war criminals to justice, and would continue hobnobbing with anti-Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami if they saw any political advantage in doing so.

The young bloggers exposing Jamaat's constant denial of the Liberation War, did not waste the opportunity to galvanise the emotion of people against the deceptive politics of the mainstream political parties. They responded by coming down to Shahbag in protest under the banner of Blogger and Online Activist Network (BOAN), immediately after the announcement of the judgment on Kader Molla.

The radical position of the bloggers in demanding the highest punishment available, rather than life imprisonment for the “ Koshai Kader” reflects and expresses the grievance and frustration the public feels at the state and its political leaders for their 42 year failure to bring war criminals to justice.

Being the self-promoted “pro-liberation” force, the ruling party had little choice but to tolerate this Shahbag movement, unlike with other “anti-government” political and social movements and processions.

The nature of this movement, its non-partisan character and its lack of any central leadership, resembles the recent Occupy Wall Street movement of the USA whose We are the 99%! rhetoric has pushed the ruling and opposition parties into a zone of political discomfort.

The moral stand of the Shahbag movement, with its demand for justice, and for all the justice that is available (here, in Bangladesh ), is what is behind the call for judicial killing, and it is a righteous call. Yet the very justice and power of the call and of those calling for it has strengthened the possibility that the Awami League (AL) and Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP ) will not side with Jamaaat-e-Islami, either on the ploy of some election strategy, or on the grounds of ideological affiliation in the name of religion.

The Shahbag movement has put all the major political parties to a double edged sword.

The ruling elites fear that the Shahbag movement might evolve into anti-government agitation, and so try to co-opt and control it by mobilizing their own supporter-network of cultural and blogger activists.

Similarly, the demand of the Shahbag movement to ban Jamaat-e-Islami, along with its call for capital punishment for convicted criminals, would not only deprive BNP of a political and ideological ally, its much propagated ideological tool of Islamic identity-based “Bangladeshi” nationalism would also be in jeopardy. The position of Jamaat-e-Islami is more precarious than that of the AL and BNP for an obvious reason. Losing its political power would threaten its economic enterprises. Because of these risks, the BNP and Jamaaat-e-Islami are trying hard to give the Shahbag movement a colour of "illegitimacy", of “fascism”, or of a battle for existence between “atheists” and “believers”.

The recent killing of Rajib Haider, an atheist and blogger, was a calculated move on the part of whoever committed this heinous crime. The simultaneous smear campaign launched by some in the pro-Jamat/Shibir media to portray the deceased as a “non-believer” confirms two things. It confirms that the anti-Shahbag movement forces are out to kill political opponents, even if the assassin wears religious garb, and second it shouts that we should care for each other , rather than offer a corrupt fealty to an oppressive history.

Even the poor liftman Zafar Munshi was not spared by the Jamaat-Shibir activists.

If the killing of Shahbag's bloggers and supporters goes on, the government must know it cannot relax, if only because killing is not relaxing and systematic killing is tyranny. They must know and fear that Bangladeshi's sentiment will turn against them for their failure to protect citizens' lives.

The lives of the bloggers who launched this movement are at risk.

For the longer it takes the ICT to finish its task, the stronger the possibility the movement will transform into an anti-government uprising, given the enormous support and solidarity it is receiving within and outside the country. In that case, the ruling elites might choose violence, and already they have made moves in this direction. Our elites will only continue to tolerate the movement as long as it remains an anti-Jamaat/Shibir movement, and presents itself as a single issue movement concerned only with the legitimacy of capital punishment.

Then there is the fact that the sustenance and success of this movement would mean the end of the political and financial strength of Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh . It would have serious political implications for the BNP as well. It would no longer be so easy or attractive for the BNP to use religion to mobilise political support. One can see why they may resort to anarchy and the killing of more bloggers and of people supporting the movement.

Given the multiple risks for the politically inexperienced bloggers, it is not the right moment to judge the Shahbag movement in the single framework of capital punishment. The young bloggers have dared to put their lives in the line of fire, not for their personal interest, or (a version of the same thing) for becoming MPs in the next election. They are ready to sacrifice their lives for the good cause of the country they love. The demand for justice, and so for capital punishment, has given them the opportunity to come out on the street to express their grievances against the state; something not been easily imaginable few months back.

The beauty of this movement is that it is the only movement that has emerged after 1971 which points firmly to the hypocritical stand of all the major political parties towards war criminals and the misuses of religion in politics. It leaves no room for the AL or the BNP to remain smug, or to hope that this maverick movement will benefit them in the long run.

The success of Shahbag movement so far lies in the fact that our history can no longer remain “apolitical”. The supporters and the participants of this movement take no false pride in the statement that they do not like politics and political leaders .

We “apolitical” citizens are learning to hold and take part in political demonstrations and processions, and are exercising a new form of politics amidst multiple threats. The future of Bangladesh is taking a new route, for it has unblocked a 42 year old repression. History can begin (again). What changes this seed brings depends on how we, the ordinary people, water it and bring it up.

We should view the Shahbag movement as a movement against a traditional politics that abused and exploited religious sentiment for political gain. And we must not forget that the weaker our commitment to justice becomes, the stronger the anti-Shahbag movement forces become, putting the lives of the bloggers and other supporters of the movement in an ever more dangerous situation.

Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan is a PhD candidate at the University of New England, Australia and Assistant Professor (on study leave) at the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka

(Grateful to Dr. Tony Lynch, my PhD superviser, at the University of New England, Australia for editing the write up)

 

 

 




 

 


Comments are moderated