The conviction of youth

As the size of Shahbagh protest continues to grow and spill over the city and beyond, one fact has been overtly made clear. The youth has spoken. It is evidently clear that the urban youth of Bangladesh wants to ensure that those accused of war crimes in 1971 are uncompromisingly handed the highest punishment of death and nothing less upon proven guilty. In other words, there cannot be any scope of immunity for these individuals who committed heinous atrocities against their fellow citizens in order to stop the birth of a nation.

The protests seem to have spilt over to the port city of Chittagong as well, which means that these protests have the potential to become a nationwide movement initiated simply by the youth and not by institutions. In other words, this movement is spontaneous and have gained enough momentum to force the government into accountability and propagate change.

Even a few weeks ago not a lot of people had questioned the intention of the current government in bringing these alleged perpetrators to justice. With the verdict of life imprisonment for Quader Mollah, the feeling of doubt and mistrust seem to have crept in. While there might be attempts to gain political mileage out of the Shahbagh phenomenon, the fact of the matter is, it is well beyond politics. The ruling party seems to have projected the issue of war crimes to be of utter graveness and of sole national importance but with the last verdict has visibly under delivered.

What makes the Shahbagh phenomenon unique apart from its sheer size is the message it carries. While the protests in its surface are about a particular verdict, in essence it embodies outright rejection of all anti-nationalist forces that exist in this country. There is a lesson to be learned by our political parties from this occurrence. The lesson simply requires our politicians to realize the fact that our youth of today still has the capacity to build consensus, mobilise and be vigilant on issues of national importance. There have been questions regarding the transparency of the war crimes tribunal with underlying political agenda. However, despite questions, it is safe to say that the country stands united in its demand to see those accused duly punished.

The demand of the protestors appears to be twofold. Apart from the demand of capital punishment for the accused war criminals there has been a call for ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and boycotting Jamaat-run institutions. However, let us not forget that the Jamaat-e-Islami is an organized political outfit and an overnight ban on a party which has a hierarchical structure and established succession plan cannot be deemed to be wise. On the contrary, exemplary punishment of Razakars associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami will also go a long way in cleansing this party and enable the youth within this party to take a fresh outlook and develop a pro-nationalist leadership. Furthermore, banning of Jamaat as a political party runs a risk of this organization turning into an armed wing, which will further destabilise the country. However, the call for ban on Jamaat-e-Islami should serve as a warning for the party members that majority of the youth do not agree with their activities and ideology. The Shahbagh protests also clearly shows that democracy is the ultimate saviour of Bangladesh and the youth of Bangladesh is willing to fight for its preservation.

The onus yet again lies on the government. In the fifth year of its tenure, it is safe to say that the government has failed in delivering on a number of issues of national interest and also the one thing it was promising to deliver on has been compromised. Cynics might argue that the war crimes tribunal simply served as a diversion tactic by the government to deter public attention from its failures. Assuming that it was in fact the government's intention to divert attention, there is no denying the fact that the issue is real and resonates with the public. It is unclear as to what led to the waning of the government's conviction on delivering on a sensitive matter like this. There seems to be an established feeling among the public that any verdict short of capital punishment allows these individuals who committed crimes against humanity to go scot free in near future. Sadly, our political environment and culture are to blame for such mistrust. In essence, the Shahbagh protests can also be deemed a clarion call, although implicitly, for a change in such political culture.

In short, the Shahbagh protests stand for more than a call for the hanging of war criminals. If anything, it is multi-dimensional in its nature. The ability of our youth to mobilize signifies hope and existence of that undying spirit to bring about change. The protests are also a call for justice and a message of warning to the forces within the country that question our sovereignty. Lastly, it signifies that our great nation can rely on its future generation to take it forward with vigour and conscience.

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Israfil Khosru is a businessman and runs a youth-led think tank called 'The Bangladeshi'.