Dummying Down Bangladesh: Three In a Row

In the history of our political culture, which is longer than the Awami League, there is pattern of abuse of comparative advantage and an ever debasing pursuit of said advantage, whether from political patrons close or far from home. Proximity to power, colonial, before or after has always brought advantages and distortion. We hunger for social mobility with reformative not degenerative quality.

This societal distortion affects education, the ability to learn, make, share and refine knowledge in close quarters to texts, teachers and an accountable reality. It affects access to economic resources, land, employment and finance. And of course political and legal rights, to life, family, organisation, access to publishing platforms and social movements. They are all correlated when you  visualise the demeanour, discourse and social trajectory of Homo Bangladeshi fronting the government, a newspaper, NGO or factory owners lobby group.

Cumulatively speaking the 'People's' Moronarchy of Bangladesh is kept thus by the wrong people in all of these spheres, reproducing each other with little or no social corrective. The redeeming features of the society are the resolve and steadfastness of men and women who resist the selfish, materialist call, who bear witness to truth, do not exploit others or take what does not belong to them. 

2024 is 'election' season in Bangladesh, the wider region and around the colonial cores. We know that the pieces will not fall in a golden place, but we are not without the faculties to prepare. The courage and resilience of those Palestinians under genocidal attack from Zionist forces for over a hundred years, and coming onto 100 days in Gaza are not without instructional and inspirational value. 

I would not bet my life on any of the elections of Bangladesh and preBangladesh being fair, but the Dummy Election that will play out on 7th January 2024 will really take the toast biscuit. 

So....Turquoise Salam, Decolonial Duas and Solidarity to all suffering, surviving and dying under our Firaunic bleadership. From the secret prison of Aynaghar, to the overcrowded official prisons, to the hideouts and hospitals, schools and colleges, dwellings, drains, embankments and chars, in exile and in plain sight. In the grave.

 For those of us who can eat, see, care and speak, even from a distance, the minimum we can do is to make it harder for tyrants, their supporters and beneficiaries to escape the truth. The minimum we can do is to make the conditions for speaking about and acting upon the truth easier. Be present for the deshis. Be present like those Anti Zionist Jews standing up against the political commitments and idols of their parents and grandparents. Our adherence to Islamic teachings and virtues should be a seen as moral and existential commitments, less as flag, team, and decontextualised practices.

Pick up your pebbles and throw them with vigour, direction and wisdom, inshAllah they will transform their targets and ourselves.