Ok, usually I don’t blog off the top of my head, I usually try to plan what I blog…. Which I guess could explain why there are no blogs for the last month or so. Anyway, after reading the international papers and TV reports about all the problems in Dhaka I feel it necessary to detail the problems that we are currently experiencing here.
Firstly… a quick and basic political history of Bangladesh – Bengal was the capital of the East India Company when colonization was at its peak, it then took an almighty fall as the English pulled out and gave authoritarian rights to India who then split Bengal into East and West because they saw Bengal to be too strong as one state. In 1947 India created a separate state, Pakistan, as its own Muslim state. East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became part of Pakistan where West Bengal remained part of India. Pakistan was an absolute failure, all decisions were made in West Pakistan even though there was 2000kms separating them from Bangladesh (East Pakistan). In 1971 there was a civil war that brought about the split of West Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 1975 the father of the nation was gunned down with his family by operatives of the govt, few years later another great leader of the liberation was assassinated. The following decade was lead by a western backed dictator, in 1991 another civilian uprising saw the return of democracy. Unfortunately this did not lead to true democracy, rather the political model was referred as “the famine and the feast” – government party would feast for 4 years whilst it was in power and then famine for the next 4 years as the other party feasted. This model lead to a great deal of corruption, such corruption led to the failed election of early of this year where neither party trusted that the election would be held fairly both claiming that the other had rigged it. So now we are in a “State of Emergency” where the country is governed by a group of advisers backed by the Military.
So on Monday all of the current problems started, a soccer match was being played at Dhaka Uni (who like to refer to themselves as the “Oxford of the East”) between two departments. Unfortunately, as the match headed to a shoot out a student mistakenly stood in front of some army officers, who have been occupying the campus since the State of Emergency. The student along with 2 of his friends were then badly beaten by the army personnel and hospitialised.
As I have been informed by a Bengali friend of mine, you don’t mess with DU students as DU students have been the first voice in many of the civilian uprisings in the past. This was a perfect point in case as on Monday it took the students less than an hour for stones to be thrown and demands issued. They requested for a public apology to be made and for the army to be removed off campus immediately (app. not the first problem the army had caused). But unfortunately the army had taken too long to react and the rioting against police and armed forces broke out across the city.
Living in Dhanmondi we are fortunate to live in the centre of the city and also get the benefits of the open green areas of the university nearby, unfortunately when situations as describe above happen we are in very close proximity to where the action is likely to overflow into. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, it was just that. Students and their fellow revelers (mostly hawkers and the unemployed) went on a rampage through the streets of Dhaka as well as other cities where students had also started to protest.
On Wednesday afternoon a curfew was imposed and students were told to vacate their dorms as all public universities were shut down, I decided to walk home from work (~30mins) it was relatively quiet on the streets along the way home, but I arrived to the busiest road in Dhaka (a road only 3 blocks from my house)and there was burning cars, tear gas and thousands of rioting students and even a greater number of onlookers. I joined the onlookers for a while and got a
few snaps from a 100m’s away. Decided to back track and make my way home the safe way. I went passed the cricket field where I joked around with the head coaches for a bit. They told me I should pick up some food because, as they predicted, we will be locked up for a while.
I was off the main road now, but instinct, intrigue and this advice of collecting food led me partially back towards the trouble, and towards my favourite local kebab hotel/restaurant – ‘Star Kebab’. I am not sure why I gave up on the idea of getting some kebab and nan, but fortunately for me I had decided that I didn’t need food and had only walked 50m’s from the hotel before there was a massive onrush of rioters towards the restaurant wielding their battens, bricks and rocks. I joined the other onlookers in a quick 30 m dash to get away from scene as for the next 2 and a
half hours Star Kebab was smashed, looted and burnt. A sad act of brutality on what is a favourite restaurant of not just mine but many a student from the area.
This behaviour recurred to many similar institutions around the city, behaviour far from the initial targets of the army and armed forces. This lead me think to why such an incident can lead to such chaos, rioting and civil unrest? Currently the Bangladesh population, in general, aren’t all well off, flooding is in 40 of the 64 districts which has dramatically pushed up the price of essentials; many of the poor hawkers have lost their shops through the anti-corruption drive by the military backed interim government; democratic polls are over a year away and party politics has been banned under the state of emergency rules, which leaves many highly political citizens frustrated.
I could understand how the above points lead to a nation getting frustrated, but the level of their frustrations was not sufficient to explain the extremes of their actions against their innocent brothers who owned the torched cars and looted businesses. But I thought further, the nation has been depressed by autocratic leadership for so long that they didn’t know any other method of expressing their opinions and inciting change. They were not beneficial like me to have grown up in a true democratic society where leaders were responsible to their constituents. Rather they had been oppressed by the East India Company, then an India that didn’t want them, then Western Pakistan that abused their rights whilst governing from afar, then they had their 2 heroes of their independence war politically assassinated, then years of a dictator that was overthrown for corruption based politics.
With this history you can understand why the nation reacted the way it did to the current unelected government, the only way that these men and their fathers and their grandfathers have had a voice has been through violent means.
Firstly… a quick and basic political history of Bangladesh – Bengal was the capital of the East India Company when colonization was at its peak, it then took an almighty fall as the English pulled out and gave authoritarian rights to India who then split Bengal into East and West because they saw Bengal to be too strong as one state. In 1947 India created a separate state, Pakistan, as its own Muslim state. East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became part of Pakistan where West Bengal remained part of India. Pakistan was an absolute failure, all decisions were made in West Pakistan even though there was 2000kms separating them from Bangladesh (East Pakistan). In 1971 there was a civil war that brought about the split of West Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 1975 the father of the nation was gunned down with his family by operatives of the govt, few years later another great leader of the liberation was assassinated. The following decade was lead by a western backed dictator, in 1991 another civilian uprising saw the return of democracy. Unfortunately this did not lead to true democracy, rather the political model was referred as “the famine and the feast” – government party would feast for 4 years whilst it was in power and then famine for the next 4 years as the other party feasted. This model lead to a great deal of corruption, such corruption led to the failed election of early of this year where neither party trusted that the election would be held fairly both claiming that the other had rigged it. So now we are in a “State of Emergency” where the country is governed by a group of advisers backed by the Military.
So on Monday all of the current problems started, a soccer match was being played at Dhaka Uni (who like to refer to themselves as the “Oxford of the East”) between two departments. Unfortunately, as the match headed to a shoot out a student mistakenly stood in front of some army officers, who have been occupying the campus since the State of Emergency. The student along with 2 of his friends were then badly beaten by the army personnel and hospitialised.
As I have been informed by a Bengali friend of mine, you don’t mess with DU students as DU students have been the first voice in many of the civilian uprisings in the past. This was a perfect point in case as on Monday it took the students less than an hour for stones to be thrown and demands issued. They requested for a public apology to be made and for the army to be removed off campus immediately (app. not the first problem the army had caused). But unfortunately the army had taken too long to react and the rioting against police and armed forces broke out across the city.
Living in Dhanmondi we are fortunate to live in the centre of the city and also get the benefits of the open green areas of the university nearby, unfortunately when situations as describe above happen we are in very close proximity to where the action is likely to overflow into. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, it was just that. Students and their fellow revelers (mostly hawkers and the unemployed) went on a rampage through the streets of Dhaka as well as other cities where students had also started to protest.
On Wednesday afternoon a curfew was imposed and students were told to vacate their dorms as all public universities were shut down, I decided to walk home from work (~30mins) it was relatively quiet on the streets along the way home, but I arrived to the busiest road in Dhaka (a road only 3 blocks from my house)and there was burning cars, tear gas and thousands of rioting students and even a greater number of onlookers. I joined the onlookers for a while and got a
few snaps from a 100m’s away. Decided to back track and make my way home the safe way. I went passed the cricket field where I joked around with the head coaches for a bit. They told me I should pick up some food because, as they predicted, we will be locked up for a while.I was off the main road now, but instinct, intrigue and this advice of collecting food led me partially back towards the trouble, and towards my favourite local kebab hotel/restaurant – ‘Star Kebab’. I am not sure why I gave up on the idea of getting some kebab and nan, but fortunately for me I had decided that I didn’t need food and had only walked 50m’s from the hotel before there was a massive onrush of rioters towards the restaurant wielding their battens, bricks and rocks. I joined the other onlookers in a quick 30 m dash to get away from scene as for the next 2 and a
half hours Star Kebab was smashed, looted and burnt. A sad act of brutality on what is a favourite restaurant of not just mine but many a student from the area.This behaviour recurred to many similar institutions around the city, behaviour far from the initial targets of the army and armed forces. This lead me think to why such an incident can lead to such chaos, rioting and civil unrest? Currently the Bangladesh population, in general, aren’t all well off, flooding is in 40 of the 64 districts which has dramatically pushed up the price of essentials; many of the poor hawkers have lost their shops through the anti-corruption drive by the military backed interim government; democratic polls are over a year away and party politics has been banned under the state of emergency rules, which leaves many highly political citizens frustrated.
I could understand how the above points lead to a nation getting frustrated, but the level of their frustrations was not sufficient to explain the extremes of their actions against their innocent brothers who owned the torched cars and looted businesses. But I thought further, the nation has been depressed by autocratic leadership for so long that they didn’t know any other method of expressing their opinions and inciting change. They were not beneficial like me to have grown up in a true democratic society where leaders were responsible to their constituents. Rather they had been oppressed by the East India Company, then an India that didn’t want them, then Western Pakistan that abused their rights whilst governing from afar, then they had their 2 heroes of their independence war politically assassinated, then years of a dictator that was overthrown for corruption based politics.
With this history you can understand why the nation reacted the way it did to the current unelected government, the only way that these men and their fathers and their grandfathers have had a voice has been through violent means.
