Youth write a new chapter of politics

Everyone is well aware of what has been happening in Bangladesh since the start of July. Those within the country have the harsh and tragic experience of the unfolding events.

As for those outside of Bangladesh who are not Bangla speakers, even those who generally do not keep tabs on what's going on in Bangladesh, have got to know from the mainstream media around the world, and even small town news media, about what has been happening in the county since 14 July.

They have even got to know the background of the events. They have heard how such a large number of people have lost their lives in such a short span of time in post-independence Bangladesh. They know of the mayhem and destruction that took place. A large section of them possibly know the questions that have also arisen in this context.

With the Internet blacked out in order to obstruct the free flow of information and telephonic communication near to impossible, the expatriate Bangladeshi's who slog hard to keep the wheels of Bangladesh's economy turning, who build the foundation of the development tale, spent days of angst. Their days were spent worrying on how their loved ones were doing, whether they were even alive. That worry continues.

Never before in the 35 years of my expatriate life have I seen or heard Bangladeshis here contacting each other so much, so distraught and alarmed. While many of them could watch Bangladeshi television channels at home, they were well aware of the insubstantiality of the news reports of these channels. After all, the news they get from the international news media tells a different story. Despite the difference in language, they people have managed to overcome these differences and scoop up the actual news, to discern between true and false.

The role of Bangladesh's news media, the television channels in particularly, from the standpoint of journalistic ethics, had been a matter of study for researchers and academics. But now not just the people of the country, but those abroad too understand this.

Those is power perhaps thought that if communication with the whole world could be severed, a single narrative would be accepted by the people around the globe, expatriate Bangladeshis included. But they were not familiar with the age of globalisation or VPN. They were able to shrink the availability of information by controlling the social media and safe channels of communication, but they cannot claim to have successfully kept Bangladesh away from the rest of the world in an information black hole. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

When meeting the prime minister a few editors of Bangladesh went as far as to commit, "We are prepared to do anything if needed." I have not seen such an example in my long studies as student of communication.

There still is no accurate account of exactly how many people were killed since 16 July. According to Prothom Alo, the number is 211. Other sources claim a higher number. Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Sunday put the number at 147. The number of injured has exceeded a few thousand. But it is known that the main victims of this killing spree are the youth.

In Prothom Alo's analytic report, details of 150 of the dead persons has been given. Of them, 113 are young (between 4 and 29 years of age). Of them, 63 per cent are aged between 18 and 29.

Any research method says that you can calculate your sample in proportion to the total number. That means, over the past few days for every 10 person that was killed, 7 were youth.

Human resources are the future of any country, the biggest asset of a country. The young workforce is Bangladesh's future. Now let's look at Prothom Alo's figures -- of 150 killed, 115 were youth, that is, over 76 per cent.

But now after all these incidents, who are the targets of the indiscriminate arrests being carried out? Curfew is imposed and in the dead of night, various localities are being raid and people picked up. Most of them are youth. 

The future potential of Bangladesh is being destroyed by killing and torturing the youth. What is happening today is not simply restricted to efforts to permanently establish an autocratic rule. It is an operation to shut the doors on a promising Bangladesh.

Over the last decade the looting of Bangladesh's economy, the kleptocratic rule that has built up, the burden of accumulated loans that all are snatching away Bangladesh future, is nothing isolated from the snatching of these young people's lives. Bangladesh will needed human resources to graduate and function as a middle income country, but the lives of youth that are to give shape to this dream, are being crushed.

One of the reasons that the quota reform movement took on proportions of a mass movement is the policies adopted in Bangladesh's economy could not generate jobs, could not create opportunity. Around 41 per cent of the country's youth are neither with studies, not with employment. The policies which are responsible for this predicament did not fall from the sky. They were not formulated without the knowledge of the policymakers.

Not only that, but did the torture cells in the halls of the Bangladesh institutions of higher education, the gono (mass) rooms where despicable acts were carried out, just create absolute dominance for the Chhatra League leaders? Or did this shut the paths for the general students to develop their merit and talents?

It would be hard to believe that those who were and are in the administration and teaching at the universities, could not perceive this process of the students being psychologically crippled.

Bangladesh's youth are being shoved into such a state that their creativity will be completely crippled. Just ponder, who will benefit from that, within the country and outside? Would it be unrealistic to perceive that a prosperous Bangladesh will be a thorn in the flesh for certain neighbours in the region?

From their words and reactions over the past few days, it is clear that the Bangladesh government is busier calculating losses of the economy than the loss of people's lives.

If you ask the youth about the damages done to the economy, they will tell you that the most irreparable loss has been done to the IT sector.

The losses in this sector over the past few days has been because of internet being shut down. The various expanding sectors -- from freelancing to call centres -- with which primarily youth are involved, have faced the biggest hit losing client confidence. It is only natural that the clients will turn to other sources. Had the growth of this sector become a threat, however little, to any particular quarter?

It can be said unhesitatingly that over the past few weeks Bangladesh's politics has entered a new chapter. The authors of this chapter are the youth.

The state machinery should have been their support, but the state and those who control the state identified them as the enemy, repressed them. But they would not be suppressed as is evident within Bangladesh.

Living abroad, the protests of Bangladeshi students I have seen in various universities around the world, has been unprecedented. They have taken up this stand, rejecting the narrative of Bangladesh's media and those who generative this narrative.

* Ali Riaz is distinguished professor of the Department of Politics and Government at the Illinois State University in the US, nonresident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, and president of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies.

* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir