Bloggers (Asif and the likes): An emerging third force in politics?

A quiet revolution is taking place in Bangladesh. In the recent days, the blogosphere as a tried and tested weapon of the citizen not under the control of the state authorities or untrustworthy politicians has made its presence known. After many a summer, there is a definite whiff of optimism in the air as the footprints of a new future starts emerging.

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The person who at the moment seems to be at the centre of the 'new era' as a symbol of sort is Asif Mohiuddin, who used the blog to rally people around the cause of the Jagannath University. He did this along with his many other blogger friends. Asif is no fire ranting agitator of the street, so typical in Bangladesh whose existence lies in denying common sense or logic and total mindless loyalty to one political party or another. A university graduate who works for an IT firm, Asif's interest in the issue was triggered by the fact that he had faced great difficulties in paying for his own education at a private university. He didn't want JNU to go private and become an expensive affair for students.

In a quite unassuming way, Asif and his fellow bloggers contested the state and won a small victory. It wasn't that the decision to cut subsidies was suspended but that the state noticed them yet failed to shut them down. Though Asif may have been silenced for the moment, it is ridiculous to think digital activists can ever be shut.

A new form of political confrontation has arrived in Bangladesh and the authorities don't know much about how to handle it just as they don't know anywhere else in the world. They are stuck in an analogue world while the future has crept past them.

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The JNU affair became a contest between the people and the state. At the end of it, it is obvious that bloggers had played a major role in forcing the government to back down from its decision to cut subsidies. Asif and his fellow bloggers had become a symbol of the new generation of agitators.

Going by the bdnews24.com report, it is clear that this blogger type, largely unknown to the authorities till now created many ancient anxieties in a new form for the powers that be. Asif was detained for over 18 hours and subjected to the usual pressure tactics, intimidation and harassment and was told to stay away from politics and get married.

"According to Asif, ASP Rafiqul Islam had reportedly told him: "Don't write. You have a job, get married. No one's ever achieved anything by writing." "Freedom of speech, ethics — these things make no sense in life," Asif quoted the ASP as telling him.

"The ASP at first denied any comments to bdnews24.com. When asked why he had issued such advice to the blogger, he replied, "Well, it was good advice. I told him to stop offensive writing."  (bdnews24.com)

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The policeman of course was prescribing the oldest form of de-radicalisation methods as practiced by the authorities all the way back to the colonial British. Respectability, marriage, jobs, etc. the trappings of a middle-class life are considered cure alls for any opposition to the state. It is also possible to either coerce anyone or bribe them to give up political struggles too. Our political parties are full of people who have sold their souls many times and many new ones mostly join politics to find a counter where their principles can be traded in for some serious money.

What the policeman mentioned works largely for the older variety of politicians, the BNP-Al types but Asif and his fellow bloggers come from a new world, where politics is mostly principled, not driven by patronage and by its very definition intelligent. There are ugly spaces in the blog world too but those are children of the older politics.

Blogging doesn't require dishonesty and cynicism to be politically successful. The very temptations which were part of the advice like marriage, middle-class comfort, respectability needn't be an obstacle in the pursuit of social justice. One can do everything and still be a blogger activist. That is the big danger for the state.

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Asif said he was asked to sign a bond saying, 'I will not write anything in blog, Facebook or other social networking sites.' After much debate, he escaped with a bond saying 'I will not call rallies online on the Jagannath University movement issue in blogs or Facebook.'

Asif said the detective had told him that the state he lived in had no ethics. "The state will see whether you are on its side or against it. If you're against it, you'll be struck down." (bdnews24.com)

Our poor old scared state! It understands the old politics of Hasina and Khaleda and street agitations and bribery but not the new media. What is it to do if anyone with access to a computer becomes an agitator? The state sees everyone but suddenly it faces an enemy which also sees it. It is a wildly discomforting world for the powerful where the people opposed to it are more invisible than them, can hide better and can challenge its power in many areas where the state can't go too well. Even Facebook bans have a bad effect as Bangladesh found out and is subject to global scrutiny.

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There is much anxiety over the new form of digital activism in official quarters. Media reports say that an intelligence agency advised round the clock monitoring of social networks like Facebook and Twitter as well as the blogs 'so that no evil axis can hatch conspiracies by launching campaigns against the government on the sites'. At a meeting of the cabinet committee on law and order, the intelligence agencies suggested that the government should monitor web contents.

The actions and reactions are natural. But as the Arab leaders found out much to their pain, it is possible to tackle one blogger and shut her/him up but it is not possible to shut down the entire social media world. Traditional politicians are very much around but they are no longer the only one in charge and in times of agitation, blog power rivals that of conventional politics. That is why every non-democratic system is scared of the digital world and Bangladesh is no exception.

As blogger Kowshik wrote in reaction to Asif's protest, "The government seems to be unaware of the power of the alternative media. Asif Mohiuddin is just one name — there are thousands of Asifs vocal in the virtual world."

Welcome to the present and certainly welcome to a much more decent future where politics is finally liberated from the past and those who benefit from it. The bloggers, educated, articulate and not part of the scheming elite may well become part of the third force everyone has been hoping for. What better news can there be!

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Afsan Chowdhury is a Consulting Editor of bdnews24.com.