The Great Wave
The Great Wave / What shapes the language and direction of successful movements?
My father used to tell a story about the book-buying behaviour of the nouveau riche from a certain region of the world. I don’t know how much of this is a reflection of reality, but here’s how it goes: a super-rich trader comes into a bookshop to order books for his drawing room cum library. He looks around the shop and then orders the bookseller to give him 100 yards of green books, 80 yards of red books, 60 yards of yellow… so on and so forth. He needs to fill the space of the few metres-long mahogany shelves built in his palace with colours of his choice—trying to get urban, modern, and earn some prestige.
The Great Wave / The Tyranny of Tagging: Dismantling the fascist, discursive weapon of labelling
Tagging a group of people with a derogatory name and thereby erasing the individuality of its members is one of the most effective ideological tools used by fascists. It is the starting point of the process of racialisation, leading to the construction of labels that are often associated with stereotypes, discrimination, and social hierarchies. Labelling a group of people with a derogatory name is also the first step to denying their humanity.
The Great Wave / Addressing the crisis of confidence in the judiciary
The judiciary is one of the three organs of the state and serves as the guardian of the Constitution. Its role is to keep the executive and Parliament in check. For a long time, the judiciary in Bangladesh fulfilled this role sufficiently well, earning the utmost confidence of the people.
The Great Wave / Hijacking History: 1971 narratives in the Awami League's reign
Writing the history of the 1971 Liberation War, the most pivotal event in the region, remains a complex task. This war continues to shape the present, deeply influencing our understanding of the past.
The Great Wave / Mediating the July massacre
It was unquestionably the duty of the mainstream media—especially during the internet blackout when people had no other source of news to turn to—to provide people with actual, factual information about their country, their people, and their government. It was only because the people “took the media into their own hands” through social media that they were able to fulfil the role of the media to inform, to educate, and to persuade.
The Great Wave / The politics of the 'clash' between Bangalees and Paharis
The term “Bangalee-pahari conflict” is used as a contextual term for the English “ethnic conflict.” The rhetoric of ethnic conflict or ethnic violence views ethnic identity as an immutable feature of human nature. Or, in other words, these terms create the assumption that violence along ethnic lines is “primordial” or inherent to ethnic or cultural differences. This is seriously problematic because such assumptions normalise violence. In reality, both pahari/Indigenous people and the settler Bangalees are victims of state experimentation.
How we go about the Bangla Spring now will define its future
Between “July 34-36”, Bangladesh saw the explosion of a united democratic desire among people of all classes and professions. The demand for democracy was the revolutionary desire then. Following on from that, establishing meaningful democracy is going to be the true revolutionary programme now. The world is now calling it the Bangla Spring—the spring whose graffiti has adorned the walls of Dhaka.
The Great Wave / Fascism, self-censorship, and the 'new Bangladesh'
No other government in this country's political history has been labelled “fascist” with such intensity, despite similar tendencies having existed before—at times to the same extent. The current context is unique in that it reflects the 15-year-long authoritarian rule of Awami League and its trickle-down oppression. Yet, understanding fascism is crucial if we seek to avoid the rise of another such regime.
A chronicle of the July uprising
When students took to the streets on July 1, 2024, demanding reforms of the quota system, they did not imagine that this movement was about to rewrite the history of Bangladesh.
How the Hasina regime became so unpopular
Although efforts were made to hide Hasina regime's bad governance by gagging the media and free speech and using fake statistics of economic growth and various visible infrastructure development projects, her downfall could not be prevented. It is important to learn from the history of the Hasina regime so that such incidents can be prevented in the future.
A nation's need for soul searching
We have done the unthinkable—bring down a dictator—only to realise that the fascism within the body politic—and within ourselves—is much harder to dislodge than a once-invincible regime. If we are to do better as a nation than we have in the past, we must do the hard work of looking inwards and collectively figuring out the root causes of our dispossession and deprivation.