I wrote this for a Facebook post from Philadelphia, Monday morning, August 5, 2024. I’d woken up an hour earlier to the news that Hasina had fled Bangladesh.
My wishful thinking yesterday: If the police/army say we won’t shoot, this could end. Today I’m happy to celebrate the end of a regime that killed more people in a single week than any other in our history — outside of the war. The students of Bangladesh have pulled off a powerful change. Ending a regime that bought up and corrupted everything, that established a nightmare of repression, that believed it had the mandate of 1971 to rule forever. Bangladesh is delta land, the silt is not as stable as would be rulers for life might think.
I am not surprised that the midwife of change comes from the military. The regime could have cracked, there could have been internal dissenters who called this to an end weeks ago, but Hasina had created such a monolithic regime of yes-men and yes-women no one was left to tell her it was time to go. In East Pakistan/Bangladesh, the midwife of turnover has come from cracks in the ruling establishment: inside the opaque military (1969/1975), breaks in the ruling apparatus (1990), or international diplomacy from big brothers abroad (2007). Popular movements provided the impetus.
Things were clearly shifting beneath the soil. What comes next though is another thing. The opaque powers — the military, the big brothers abroad who work behind the scenes — will try to resume business as usual. But there is a powerful movement that will not stand aside just because they’re told, let the seniors take over. The seniors in Bangladesh have been a disgrace.
The new interim government will be judged by careful eyes from everyone. Those in the jails must be released. Those killed need to have their families provided for. Those jailed in earlier rounds of repression need to be freed. Those disappeared have to be brought out or accounted for. The media needs freedom and no more telephone calls. Institutionally the role of military intelligence as a power behind the scenes must end.
Let the people enjoy a freedom they’ve been deprived of for a long time. Time to exhale, time to celebrate, time to consider what the future should bring.