A time to write 3
Yes, we have to write. And we need to be cautious and sensible, which is easier said than done. The question, however, still remains — where to write?
Back in December, an editor friend told me in December 2018 to write in Facebook — you’ll get many more readers there! He is still right, insofaras numbers are concerned. Facebook would easily garner a large readership. And size does matter if the primary objective is to shape the daily news cycle.
However, the longer term impact of the running-commentary-on-the-news-of-the-day is about as high as the bitter personality feuds that pervade the social media. For any kind of longer form writing, Facebook is simply not all that useful. If nothing else, as Zia Hassan experienced recently, it is quite easy for the regime’s trolls to disable or delete or erase the analysis posted in Facebook.
Ideally, there would be a multi-media platform where:
- short, rapid-fire posts from Facebook are archived;
- videos — including live ones — are posted or streamed;
- long form writings are published and followed up with contrasting views;
- TED-talk style videos are shared on relevant topics; and
- all of these are publicized.
Incidentally, that was roughly the vision I had for the Unheard Voices blog in about a decade ago. And I had suggested something similar to the editors of Nuraldeen blog in 2013-14. If anything, there is perhaps a greater need / appetite for such a platform now.
Of course, just because there is demand does not necessarily mean supply is forthcoming, because this is not a well-functioning market. You have to be incredibly idealistic (to the point of perhaps being naïve!) and energetic to try something like this in today’s Bangladesh.
The point about idealism is perhaps self-evident. Let me stress the bit about hard work. Running a platform like above is a full-time job — three people put 20-25 hours each a week on average on UV back in the day. And much of the work is unglamorous chore — chasing people to meet deadline, proof reading, managing ego clashes and such like. This is not for someone who treats writing as a glorified hobby.
I have been following two individuals with tremendous potential — Anupam Debashis Roy and Asif Shibgat Bhuiyan. The former has started a platform that shares with this blog not just the name, but also a commitment to liberal democracy. The latter’s experiments on youtube and publications on Islam show that a liberal future is still possible.
In solidarity with both.
A time to write 2
It’s a time to write because, to put it bluntly, there is a moral imperative to write while we still can, before it’s too late. But even if we accept that as a self-evident, axiomatic truth, questions still remain about what to write, for whom, and where? There are, of course, many possible answers — let a hundred flowers bloom I say!
A time to write
Back in January, Facebook encouraged users to post their 10-year old photos against a current one. Being rather inactive in social media, I didn’t partake. As it happened, I was in Dhaka at that time, just as I was a decade earlier. I couldn’t help but sketch out a long essay in my head — ‘Bangladesh: the 10-year challenge’. Unsurprisingly, the unwritten piece would have covered how things had changed since January 2009 — unprecedented prosperity, previously unimaginable political repression, mutually contradictory social changes…. you get the idea, the piece practically writes itself. Perhaps it would have been too cut and dry with numbers and factlets, so I would likely have peppered with personal anecdotes — ups and downs, trials, tribulations, and let’s not be ungrateful, the occasional triumphs, the vicissitudes of life… Or perhaps not — that kind of writing was never my natural, and I don’t think I would have started now.
In the event, of course, nothing got written.
Why not?
Ostensibly because I was busy. But let’s be honest. When we say we are too busy to do something — write, or call someone once near and dear, or play with our kids — what we really mean is that we don’t consider that something to be valuable. In the current context, the answer to why wasn’t this written comes in the form of a counter question — what’s the point of writing?
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All my hope is (not) gone
It was over a decade ago, before smartphones, at the dawn of the Facebook age. Most online communication still involved sitting with a laptop, or even desktop. And daily routine involved checking a few googlegroups and blogsites over morning caffeine. That morning, the big news was that Tasneem Khalil had been picked up by the army. Over the next 24 hours, online activists and offline negotiators, from Dhaka to DC and a dozen other places. worked hard to secure his release. CNN was involved, as was Bangladesh-related big wigs in the American foreign policy establishment. And it was impressed upon the big wigs of the 1/11 regime that releasing Tasneem was in the best interest of everybody.
Deshe jacchi, kintu nervous lagcche, Caesar re kara niye gelo…. (Going to Dhaka, but feeling nervous, who took Caesar….) — someone was saying at a social event recently. Caesar is the nickname of Mubashar Hasan, of Dhaka’s North South University.
Tasneem ke jokhon dhorsilo, ke, keno, kothaye, ei gula toh jana chilo….. (When they took Tasneem, we knew the who, why and where)…. — Tasneem got in trouble for publishing a piece linking Tarique Rahman, the DGFI and radical Islamists in North Bengal. Mubashar has been missing for a week and half, and no one seems to know who has taken him or why.
His research involved globalisation and Islamisation — could be heavy stuff, sure. But he wasn’t an investigative journalist or an avenging activist. He was focussed on synthesis, and practical, policy-oriented research. Still, he might have come across things that could upset people in Dhaka.
Do you notice I write in the past tense? Have I given up on the possibility of Mubashar returning?
When you say it’s gonna happen “now” / Well when exactly do you mean? / See I’ve already waited too long / And all my hope is gone
Maybe not all hope is gone. After all, his near and dear ones have been pleading, begging, from divine and Prime Ministerial intervention for Mubashar’s safe return. If there was no hope, would they have supplicated thus?
But then again, in a decade, we have gone from defiant activism and applying pressure to quiet submission and passive acceptance — collective despair, you be the judge.
Mubashar was — what’s the point of not using the past tense — hopeful. Unlike so many others — yours truly included — he did finish his PhD. He started blogging after the glory days of Bangla blogosphere. He worked within the system, because he knew that’s the only way to make change.
Most importantly, he overcame issues in personal life to give his daughter a better tomorrow. We had bonded over not just the stupidity of Shahbagh, but also about co-parenting. There is a little girl out there hoping his Baba will return with some My Little Pony gift.
I too submit, submit to the Almighty — please don’t let that girl grow up without hope.
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Shahbag to Shapla Chattar — songs of water and fire
The blog went into a hiatus about year ago. The reasons for that extended absence are, unfortunately, still relevant. That’s why the blog has been far less frequent than was the case in the past. However, it is what it is. I am not sure when the blog can be fully operational again. For now, pieces will come infrequently, and the blog will often be an archive for material published elsewhere. Also, the comments section will be off —it is disrespectful to not respond to comments, but since I can sometime be offline for days, if not weeks, it’s better to have the comments off.
This means no direct interaction with the reader. But this also means the blog will become what blogs originally were — an online diary, a weblog, where one records one’s own thoughts and observations. I guess it’s somewhat fitting that the first post in the new format is on the set of events that rocked Bangladesh as the blog went into hiatus.
These events, according to the contemporaneous analyses, were going to change everything forever. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that the contemporaneous analyses were mostly wrong. This is a for-the-record post summarising my evolving thoughts as the events unfolded between 5 Feb and 5 May 2013. It is important to note what this is not. This is not analysis — I am not trying to offer an explanation of what happened, nor provide any insight into what they mean for our past, present or future. This is not activism either — I am not arguing any particular case. Rather, this is an extremely self-indulgent post, the target here is really myself years down the track. If anyone else reads it, that’s just bonus.
Arrest warrants have started, the youth must awake
AKM Wahiduzzaman, a BNP-leaning online activist, may become the first casualty of the draconian new ICT Act — see here for detail. Guest-post by Shafquat Rabbee Anik.
I know AKM Wahidizzuman, Apollo bhai, reasonably well. He used to be involved in the Chhatra Dal politics. During the Shahbag Awakening, multiple voices from the young generation of BNP, Jamaat, Awami League and left organisations sprung up in the internet. Thousands tuned into the net to hear these voices. No one forced anyone to do so. People befriended or followed these voices because of their own curiosity or interest. Among the nationalist voices, Apollo bhai is the most popular (in terms of readership count).
Professionally he teaches at a public university. There is a youtube video of Apollo bhai where, as a geography teacher, he correctly predicted on TV the path of a recent cyclone. At that time, other experts failed to correctly predict that path. As far as I know, he is the author of the most popular and best-informed online article protesting the Rampal power plant project. He was also vocal about the Tipaimukh project. He used to participate in some TV talk shows as well. But his popularity was mainly due to his razor sharp facebook statuses on daily political events. He could say in hundred words what many others couldn’t manage in a thousand.
The process that has led to the issue of arrest warrant against Apollo bhai, and if he is indeed arrested as a result —the whole thing will be extremely shameful for online activists of all ideologies, whether they are nationalists, secularists, Islamists, Awamis, Shahbagis or leftists. For everyone, this development will give birth to many worries.
A time for grown ups?
Something curious has been happening in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours. After the jumma prayers yesterday, groups belonging to a dozen or so small Islamist parties took out processions against ‘atheists’ and ‘apostates’ of Shahbagh. Apparently these defenders of Islam were joined by Jamaat as well. There were scuffles with police. Shaheed Minar was attacked in Sylhet, and the national flag was burnt. And then there were some counterattacks against Jamaat-owned businesses. By nightfall, things were under control.
That’s what I get from the mainstream media (or the parts I can access — Prothom Alo and Daily Star aren’t safe for my iPad), and that’s not the curious thing. If that’s all there was to it, it would be hardly different from the occasional rampage some of the more ‘pious’ and excitable fellows get up to every time any government wants to give women equal rights of inheritance.
The curious thing is what I see in facebook and blogs. Judging by their account, Bangladesh stood on the brink of civil war. Religious fanatics had openly declared war on the country as it exists. On the other side, a large crowd had returned to Shahbagh in the evening, demanding that unless the government acts, there will be a revolution.
As explained earlier, on Shahbagh I’ve preferred to keep my mouth shut and eyes open. That remains my general approach. I have little factual understanding of what exactly is happening in Bangladesh. It may be that my facebook friends are an alarmist bunch (bloggers of all types in all countries are usually a hyperventilating lot — Andrew Sullivan felt suicidal when Obama did poorly in a debate!), and the mainstream media had it right: nothing of consequence happened yesterday. Or, it may be that there are complicated games at play — not being privy to any palace intrigues, I’ll leave conspiracy theorising to others.
If those scenarios happen, then what follows should be discarded. But as long as there is a non-trivial probability that the more alarmist version is right — that Bangladesh was/is close to civil war — then I believe it’s time for the grown ups to calm things down. (more…)
Shahbagh ramblings
I had not been following the war crimes trial in much detail. Like many, I was surprised by the sentencing of the Abdul Quader Mollah. He was convicted, but not given the maximum penalty (death sentence) — what gives, I wondered. I saw some facebook chatters about a behind-the-scene understanding between Awami League and Jamaat-e-Islami — the alleged war criminals don’t hang, and Jamaat abandons BNP and participates in the coming election, the speculation went. I saw some facebook messages about a gathering in Shahbagh protesting the ‘farcical verdict’.
Here is a video of the gathering.*
I didn’t pay much attention. I was wrong. I was wrong not to pay attention. By the time I took notice, Shahbagh turned into a sea of people. I saw and heard and read of people of several generations going to Shahbagh. Some dismissed them as hujugey Bangali. But I think that’s insulting the sincerity and passion of large number of people from all walks of life. Clearly this was something we have not seen in Bangladesh for a long while. And having been wrong in my decision to not pay attention, I decided to keep my mouth shut, and eyes open.
In general, my reading of history and politics is that spontaneous, leaderless uprisings tend to eventually yield to organised forces. I didn’t expect much from the Occupy or Anna Hazare movements. Even in Egypt, I expected the much better organised Muslim Brotherhood to gain ahead of liberal forces. The initial surprise and the large crowd in Shahbagh notwithstanding, I see no reason to change my view of history and politics when it comes to Shahbagh. If Shahbagh changes Bangladesh, it will have to do so through the organised, mainstream politics of Awami League and BNP.
This is not to say Shahbagh has no impact. It clearly does. Awami League has already changed the law governing the trial process, while BNP has explicitly stated that it will continue the trial. Neither would have happened without Shahbagh. Even if the movement stopped tomorrow, these are already concrete achievements.
And there may well be further ramifications, including the AL capitalising on the nationalistic sentiment for its re-election campaigns. It’s just that whatever fundamental change we might be hoping for, I think the avenue for them is through organised politics. If Shahbagh is to replace AL and BNP, then it has to eventually create organisation(s). And by the same token, I don’t take seriously talks of fascism or fear of civil war. Fascism requires a fascist party. If AL is a fascist party, then it has been so without Shahbagh. And a few renegade Jamaati vandalism or terrorist act a civil war does not make.
That’s about as much as what I have got on Shahbagh’s big picture as it enters the third week. Over the fold, couple of specific issues that I’ve found interesting.
Mukti 
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