I was living in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from 2006 into 2009. When I arrived, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was in power, active in rigging the scheduled elections. Facing opposition protests, the military took over, installing a military regime with a civilian face. The change was midwifed by numerous foreign powers. There were a lot of promises of reform but the reality on the ground was proving different.

In August 2007, students rose in protest when army soldiers humiliated and tortured them on campus. We lived under a curfew, governmental and military retaliation. I used to have an irregular blog and I would write a few comments at that time. I penned a longer post but in the atmosphere of state intimidation, I thought it prudent to keep it private. I had thought I had lost the article but recently discovered a copy. Given the changes in Dhaka after the downfall of the fascist regime of Hasina, I thought I would make it public. There are some lessons here that are worthwhile to remember. It was meant to be a rough draft and I’m keeping it that way. (Note: the unnamed man I mention visiting was the late novelist Mahmudul Haque who died the following year.)

Dhaka University students exploded in rebellion for three days. The protests spread across the country. Hawkers and others joined in to take over the streets and clashed with the police.

            Our shorkar is shocked. Where did this come from? Yes, there was a tiny incident on campus. But we met all the students’ demands. The army camp was withdrawn. Sadness was expressed for the original incident. A judicial inquiry has been ordered. The army will take action against its personnel. But the clashes continued. And then came anarchy.

            It must be a conspiracy. Vested quarters. We have information, lots of money came in. Any talk that such things are spontaneous is nonsense.

The very night the clashes began I was visiting a 66-year old man who lives with his wife in a small flat in a crowded neighborhood. Over tea-biscuit, we spent four hours in adda, sharing stories of Dhaka, life in Bangladesh, old friends of his, surprising events that boggled his mind. As it happens, the discussion sometimes touched on what was happening with the country today. He said, “A change is coming. I won’t say it will be necessarily a good change. But a turn is coming.”

            Now here’s a man who lives an almost reclusive life. He’s too ill to even take a walk on his own street. He doesn’t read the newspapers often. He watches only a bit of TV. None of his relatives visit. Some folks, some friends, some strangers, drop by now and then.

            He turned out to be prescient that night.

            Will our shorkar decide that this reclusive man is part of some conspiracy to upset the present regime?

            If not, how is it that even such a man could smell something in the air but our shorkar could not?

Like the rest of us, he has to eat. He has to pay for rice, oil, and vegetables. I don’t know if he can afford meat or fish. He knows how his money buys less and less each day.

            He lives on a fixed income, on interest from savings. He was distressed that the government has declared that anyone who earns more than 2,500 Taka a year will have to pay a 10% tax on savings.

            He lives in a rented flat. His landlord has raised his rent by 1,500 Tk a month.

            So he knows how things are tight, getting tighter each day. That alone of course does not explain that things could not stay the way they are. The weight on so many shoulders in our hapless country gets worse and worse, without any inkling of change.

            So what does?

            He has a sense of history. He came to Dhaka in 1950 as a 10 year old. He’s lived and worked in the heart of the city since then. He lived through momentous upheavals and changes in this land. He knows that people in this country don’t stand still. Something always snaps.

            And because he has that sense of history, he can also qualify, that the turn might not be positive. It could be a clampdown, it could be anarchy, and it could be reforms that don’t deliver.

            He’s been witness to all outcomes in the last 60 years.

            Why, if a recluse like him can sense what’s in the air, can’t our shorkar?

      The opposite of the reasons that my new friend can see.

            They live in a bubble. To them, the rise of the price of rice, oil, or vegetables does not affect their diet. They have enough money to continue to eat just as well as before. They have enough money for riding in cars. They are protected from load shedding. This is how one advisor can say the reason prices are going up is that incomes are increasing. And another can say the flood-affected people were doing quite well. And a third can say Allah’s goodness would not allow any of the laid off jute workers to starve.

            And while they have such faith in Allah’s goodness to deliver, they have no sense of human history. You would think that history starts on 11 January when they took office. They want to change this country, reform everything so that the people will be civilized. They will bring the corrupt to justice. They will clean up politics. They will fix the economy. All laudable goals, and most people hailed them for these declarations.

            But when it came time to deliver, it turned out the solutions were old ones, ignoring history. Use force to solve the deep social problems of our society. Force can do some things. It could haul in some of the worst corrupt elements to jail. But force cannot change culture and mindset.

            Then lo and behold, the goal of clean politics turned out to be first the minus two formula, imported from Pakistan, never mind that it’s backfired there and Nawaz Sharif is set to return as a hero and Musharraf is plotting with Benazir. Then the minus two became minus one, as the head not of the most recent government but the one before was taken to jail while Madame head of the most corrupt government in our history began huffing and puffing on teleconferences around the globe. And they allowed a few favored politicians to organize while others were banned. People can remember history. Each military regime has had its favorite sons launch parties: Ayub Khan’s Convention Muslim League, Zia’s Jagodal that became BNP, Ershad’s Jatiyo Party. When the new party’s musclemen drove in on motorcycles to distribute relief, people remembered that this scene as a familiar one from our goondafied politics of the last decades.

            The attempt to use force to straighten the economy only messed things up. Corporate activity is stalled in those corporations where the robber barons have been sent to jail. There have been layoffs, more in the offing. Other investors are jittery and staying put. There’s not enough food in the country and importers aren’t importing enough because they’re afraid. In the name of reform, four jute mills were shut down, laying off 14,000 workers. The workers haven’t been paid all that they’re owed. The Khalishpur industrial area is dying. The sugar industry is reeling in the face of cheap imported sugar.

            And a shorkar based on a military, used to solving problems with force, spread the boot and stick around the country. Military men here and there beat ordinary people, with some dying and tortured. For minimal offenses, people are jailed.

            And we know all this because one thing the shorkar did not do, though it’s kept threatening, it didn’t totally muzzle the press. There was intimidation for self-censorship, but word gets out. News of beatings and murder made it into the newspapers, even if it was often only once, not to be followed up. The obvious double standard in politics was too blatant to hide.  Even without press restrictions that would be obvious. Price hikes people felt every day and it was also continually reported. Even when editorials stayed circumspect, other columnists commented, criticized, brought out things. Now of course the law and information tsar Mainul is reminding the press that it might be muzzled. And it’s already happening.

            The late Humayun Azad made a sharp observation about Bangalis. He said, we are a people who know how to garland with both flowers and shoes. Each time a regime has come in after a situation turned intolerable, we welcomed it. It was true with Ayub, Zia, Ershad, and even the political governments. But each one received shoes later.

            This current government might win the record when it comes to the rapidity with which flowers were replaced with shoes. Eight months, that’s all it took. They squandered the people’s support and hopes in such a short period of time.

            All signs indicate the student rebellion was spontaneous and without organization or leadership. Of course there are political groups among them, but political slogans apparently did not find much support. The students greeted the government concessions by upping the ante. Why? Because it’s in the nature of movements. If they are based on deeper concerns, those concerns will come to the fore. And the heavy handedness of emergency and military rule is at the top of those concerns. The campus had been turned into a police state. Even to organize relief work, students had to get police approval. And the way the police attacked the students that first day was sufficient to up the ante.

            Hawkers and employees joined in at least in Nilkhet. They voiced their poverty and deprivation suffered since 1/11.

            What of the bhangchur, the burning of vehicles? Look at what was targeted. Police and military symbols, other government symbols. And there was an element of class hostility. This is unfocused here, mostly shows up as crime. But in the midst of fiery times, that resentment can go after the wealthy targets.

            Beyond that lies the issue of culture of protest. Bangladeshi students have not always gone for bhangchur, but there’s long been this tendency. People are trained to take their frustrations out by burning cars and buses. There is an element of nihilism deep within us.

            The shorkar responded with a curfew. The situation had gone out of their control. But the curfew was used not just to cool things down but also to escalate the repression. They turned off the mobile network and gave students three hours to leave their dorms. How were people to leave so fast? A witch hunt against students has been unleashed. The last time being a student automatically put you in danger was after March 25, 1971. Midnight raids are hauling in university faculty. They know the symbolism of this too, so they told one family, we’re not the Pakistan military.

            They are operating under the premise that this is an organized conspiracy to destroy their goals.

            They had two options. To review the reasons why there is disillusionment with them and rethink their actions. Or to see the people as the enemy and try the stick.

            Sadly they chose to go by formula. The country bleeds and cries.

There’s talk about civilization being bandied around. Tsar Mainul and Kamal Hossain both speak of civilization. That in no civilized society do people take to the streets and smash and burn cars and businesses. Depends on what they mean by civilized society. What are such places? They’re usually known as fascist states, though there too there are explosions. If they mean the West, there are plenty of examples of vandalism. France just two summers ago. It happens regularly in the U.S. In Britain. In urban riots when things turn intolerable. And it also happens on the edges of mass demonstrations. There it’s usually organized by anarchist groups who strangely believe that a new world will be ushered in by smashing a glass window here and there.

            But is it civilized to come after midnight and take people away? Without a warrant and charge? Is it civilized to go to private residences, separate students and beat them, tie them up and take them away? Is it civilized to beat up journalists on the streets? Is it civilized to abuse students and ordinary people with the filthiest of words?

            I despair of progress in this country, whether from the establishment or the streets, as long as rage is our defining emotion and sticks, bricks, and bullets are our preferred instruments of change.