Editorial

National days get stranger as you grow up. As a child, you are told what a certain day commemorates, you're told the stories, and what to feel about it. It's easy to celebrate Victory Day as a child. But the burden of knowing history, the politics behind that history, and the complexities of war, Victory Day as a 20-something can't just be about celebration.

The SHOUT team visited the Liberation War Museum for this week's cover story. We weren't sure what we were going to write even as we stood in the courtyard of the beautiful establishment located in Agargaon, Dhaka. But, it was clear the moment we looked at the first exhibits from 1971, that we wanted to explore our reactions, and the raw emotions behind them. And these emotions weren't straightforward, 50 years after the fact, we were still angry, still sad, still teary eyed, and finally relieved that it was over. December 16, 1971 was a glorious day, but it was also a sad time.

Thankfully, December 16, 2021 is by far a better time to exist in, and our Liberation War demands that we make sure every December 16 from hereon is better than the last.