Finally, we see the government. Not in any way close to the way we want to see them. On the other hand, the points I fret upon last time, came out in an article today (more than a week later) in the Daily Star, titled Silver Linings Generation. The tone is a bit different, praising the youth for its contributions to the rescue effort. Some young groups are still active and taken on ways to contribute to the rehabilitation of the survivors and the families who has lost their sole bread winners. Some of these are
As for how we recently saw the government, it was in a shady tone of suspicious. They allowed a group to declare and carry on with a blockade of Dhaka city, and to hold a meeting and rally in the same day in the center of the old commercial area of Motijheel. They spent the whole day there doing their thing, one guy carrying a board with a message "Want an Atheist Free Bangladesh", and carried on till night time. Just after darkness fell, something somewhere went wrong, no one seems to know what exactly. Our media reported that apparently someone was trying to burn a car, when police tried to stop them, and then clashes broke out. Any party who is in opposition will tell you burning cars is a democratic right, so is the occasional death or deaths of random people on the street, but anyhow, hell did break loose. We saw on TV lots of fires, lots of stones being thrown, lots of gunshots. Now if you think we all know how it started and ended - there are two versions to that story. Its anyone's guess what those versions may sound like. But if you consider that Diganta TV was unplugged (TV sympathetic to the Islamic cause) in the middle of the night, you were bound to see some channels interviewing Police personality with questions like - "Everyones in awe of how you guys handled this situation, how did you do it?" Meanwhile, Facebook and other social channels are flooding with pictures of dead protestors from the Hefazot-e Islam (Protectors of Islam, remember He-Man?) which definitely points towards more deaths than the uncensored papers and TV channels would admit to.
Now, with the way things are, the definition of "death from natural causes" have expanded almost, to include:
Road Accidents/Treatment Errors/Political Assassinations/Death at the hands of Extortionists with Political Clout/Others ... as you can see, we're pretty open about how we die, no hullabaloo required in the form of protests or actions. This was almost the case, but its noticeable that some are outraged by this recent thing, even though the real version of the story is still not verified. Either way, I hope we can agree one day on one point - our government is (governments are) shady.
I feel that most of our youth activism is holding parallel actions to the government, like the rescue of trapped workers, followed by rehabilitation. I can sense their lack of faith in the government, but I am still convinced that sooner than later, we should come together to point our fingers at Them, and demand they do their jobs properly.
As for how we recently saw the government, it was in a shady tone of suspicious. They allowed a group to declare and carry on with a blockade of Dhaka city, and to hold a meeting and rally in the same day in the center of the old commercial area of Motijheel. They spent the whole day there doing their thing, one guy carrying a board with a message "Want an Atheist Free Bangladesh", and carried on till night time. Just after darkness fell, something somewhere went wrong, no one seems to know what exactly. Our media reported that apparently someone was trying to burn a car, when police tried to stop them, and then clashes broke out. Any party who is in opposition will tell you burning cars is a democratic right, so is the occasional death or deaths of random people on the street, but anyhow, hell did break loose. We saw on TV lots of fires, lots of stones being thrown, lots of gunshots. Now if you think we all know how it started and ended - there are two versions to that story. Its anyone's guess what those versions may sound like. But if you consider that Diganta TV was unplugged (TV sympathetic to the Islamic cause) in the middle of the night, you were bound to see some channels interviewing Police personality with questions like - "Everyones in awe of how you guys handled this situation, how did you do it?" Meanwhile, Facebook and other social channels are flooding with pictures of dead protestors from the Hefazot-e Islam (Protectors of Islam, remember He-Man?) which definitely points towards more deaths than the uncensored papers and TV channels would admit to.
Now, with the way things are, the definition of "death from natural causes" have expanded almost, to include:
Road Accidents/Treatment Errors/Political Assassinations/Death at the hands of Extortionists with Political Clout/Others ... as you can see, we're pretty open about how we die, no hullabaloo required in the form of protests or actions. This was almost the case, but its noticeable that some are outraged by this recent thing, even though the real version of the story is still not verified. Either way, I hope we can agree one day on one point - our government is (governments are) shady.
I feel that most of our youth activism is holding parallel actions to the government, like the rescue of trapped workers, followed by rehabilitation. I can sense their lack of faith in the government, but I am still convinced that sooner than later, we should come together to point our fingers at Them, and demand they do their jobs properly.
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