Shahbagh and bloggers: From allies to enemies?

Afsan Chowdhury
Published : 3 April 2013, 12:10 PM
Updated : 3 April 2013, 12:10 PM

Shahbagh will be remembered as the great emotional outburst of several generations for a cause that stirred many. It came about as a result of dissatisfaction with the verdict of the ICT which was seen by most as a formality for declaring death sentences on accused war criminals rather than a trying court. The agitation seeking death sentence for such alleged criminals took a shape and size that began to be seen as a national politics changing movement. But two months after the event, that is not just there but a sense of confusion and soul searching on what the relationship is amongst the politicians, the activists and their enemies. If Shahbagh looks less imposing than it did when it began, that's largely because too much was expected from it and nobody looked into the structure of the political system which ultimately took over. However, a more definite by-product of the movement is also the most scary, the return of religion as a major factor in national politics.

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Shahbagh was not just a movement but also an indicator of what has gone wrong with politics in Bangladesh. It was not just youthful enthusiasm that played a role but what triggered it is also significant, which is a lack of confidence in the formal judicial system. The prajanma was happy with the death sentence of Bacchu Razakar but not the life sentence of Quader Mollah so the issue was not the trial but the verdict. The slogan was "hang for the criminal" not "proper trial of the war criminal" and this identified the status perception of the state. Many have argued that they wanted a hanging because usually political criminals get away with it with a regime change and so hanging was a quick ending of the matter that they sought.

It showed that the justice delivery system was perceived as partisan and the judiciary was not thought of as fully independent. Shahbagh didn't imperil the judicial system, it merely exposed its inadequacies.

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The Shahbagh movement came as a surprise to the AL who thought it would benefit from the trials without having to pay too high a political price by holding them. In fact, many say that some pro-AL bloggers were in fact against the movement initially but saw that it was too big to be contested and rightly identified the potential early on. So the main activities of the AL once Shahbagh began were to control the movement using public emotions. By making legal adjustments including the right to appeal and promises to ban Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliates and try the party for war crimes as demanded by Shahbagh they were not left behind. Next, by taking over the Shahbagh leadership and ensuring that the AL was seen as pro-Shahbagh, the government did excellent damage control. Soon the government supporters took over Shahbagh and in the end, pushed others out from the main scene.

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But as the initial enthusiasm fades along with the high level of intolerance as hyper-nationalist movements do, it may be safe enough to ask about the nature of the movement which was defined by the urban youth and the very tool that takes credit for generating it, blogging. To do that requires a laptop which is within the reach of the upper middle or the middle class. And it was their energy which took it forward. Blogging itself implies no restraint but also a world of exclusion since the tool is available to very few outside this class.

It is fundamentally an urban movement on an issue that was not resolved for the middle class in Bangladesh. But 1971 has different resonances for the villagers and the poor where closure was significantly achieved by killing most of the village Razakars who were guilty of criminal acts. For the poor, the notion of 'liberation' doesn't have much to do with the trial. In essence the movement itself was a marker of the privileged as a class and the denied as another. Shahbagh never moved out of Shahbagh and that perhaps is an indication of its scope and appeal. It was in picking 'secularism' as a cause that showed how naïve it was and if anything alienated from understanding the psychological framework of the ordinary people.

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'Secularism' in Bangladesh means non-religious and anti-religious and even Sheikh Mujib learnt at a high political cost that one sure way to become unpopular in Bangladesh is to espouse anything 'negative' about religion which is the integral part of life particularly of the ordinary millions. It's not a political matter which is why any mention in the political space causes problems. Not only did Shahbagh initially wear the secularism tag proudly but some of the bloggers at least were critical of religion. And now a few have been arrested on such charges. In Bangladesh, to declare one as an 'atheist' is to say one is not with the majority of the ordinary people. It's an unnecessary declaration and in the end, a damaging one. What seemed very positive in the urban, educated interneted space may not do so in the non-laptop world and that has created political repercussions. To give credit to Jamaat for this is absurd because they would have done it long ago after their return. They are taking advantage of the secularism crisis but they are not its creators. It's unfortunately a self creation.

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The Awami League is into damage control while seeking to gain advantage of the situation. For the moment it has absorbed the Shahbagh momentum for its political advantage and looks in charge. But it now has to deal with the negative fallout of the image issue of a "secular Shahbagh". The AL has no option but to go against the bloggers for their own political survival. Obviously, they are a political baggage which the party wants to jettison now because in Bangladesh the kind of position some of the bloggers held have resulted in a public interpretation particularly by those who don't read blogs that they are outsiders and unbelievers and the AL can't be seen too close to such a lot.

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It seems that Bangladesh has been split into several Bangladesh and they are not in conversation with each other. The Shahbagh phenomenon is far away from the peasantry's world and while claims of being 'national' may be made there is nothing national as yet. Rather than bringing together our acts seem to disperse us in many directions.

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Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist, activist and writer.