Twenty-five-year-old Abu Sayed, the son of a farmer and considered one of 9 youngsters, was a profitable scholarship scholar at considered one of Bangladesh’s most interesting universities. He dreamed of at some point securing a authorities job that will assure financial stability, and maybe propel his household into upward mobility. However when the federal government launched a brand new quota system that awarded the descendants of “freedom fighters” – the individuals who liberated Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 – a stunning 30 p.c of those extremely coveted authorities jobs, his desires had been dashed.
Sayed knew that there are 18 million unemployed younger individuals in Bangladesh for the time being, and he didn’t need to be a part of this damning statistic as soon as he graduated. So he turned a lead coordinator in a national motion to reform the quota system, which got here to be often called “College students In opposition to Discrimination”.
At one protest, he stood some 15 metres (50 ft) away from the Bangladesh police and stretched his arms out in defiance.
They shot him dead.
The video of this blatant extrajudicial killing was shared like wildfire on-line, igniting a hearth that introduced a whole lot and hundreds of scholars throughout the nation into the streets. Educators, legal professionals, dad and mom and rickshaw pullers joined them in solidarity, in anger and mourning over the loss of life of Sayed and greater than 200 different protesters who died by the hands of government-aligned scholar activists and armed forces.
Their efforts, and the actual dangers they took, weren’t in useless.
The Excessive Courtroom revised the quota system, assigning simply seven p.c of the roles to the descendants of freedom fighters.
However even this large concession didn’t show sufficient to finish the unrest.
The violence inflicted on it had drastically modified the scholar motion. The scholars now wished to realize rather more than merely fixing the quota system. They wished significant, systemic change. They wished a brand new authorities, they usually wished Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign.
To the shock of a lot of the world, their calls for had been met earlier right this moment.
Recognising that she wouldn’t have the ability to break the resolve of the scholar motion – a motion that represents the very way forward for Bangladesh – Sheikh Hasina resigned from her put up and rapidly left the nation in a navy plane.
A scholar motion, led by idealistic youths like Abu Sayed, managed to get an autocrat who dominated the nation with an iron fist for 15 years to flee with out wanting again after 5 brief weeks.
The success of this motion is the strongest proof that Bangladeshi individuals are not content material with financial progress at the price of human rights, free speech and democracy.
Certainly, up to now decade, Bangladesh beneath the management of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League flourished economically. However because the economic system went from success to success, the federal government assumed that this meant it might trample on the civil rights and freedoms of the inhabitants with impunity, ban opposition events and rule because it wished, with no respect or consideration for the nation’s legal guidelines and world democratic norms.
Certainly, for 15 years, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina boasted at each probability she acquired about how she had slashed poverty in half in the least developing country, and used the nation’s financial successes to divert consideration from the massive variety of journalists and activists who had been killed, jailed or disappeared for the only real crime of daring to criticise her authorities.
However Hasina’s try to current human rights abuses, oppression, corruption and inequality as an inevitable value that must be paid for financial prosperity was an try that massively backfired. Within the final decade or so, as a brand new era got here of age in what’s repeatedly described as a “affluent nation that’s on the rise”, one thing began to vary within the psyche of the nation.
Since Bangladesh secured its independence from Pakistan in 1971, youths within the nation, traumatised by the violence inflicted on them and their elders by the Pakistani military, have largely been responding to the political imbalances and injustices that took maintain within the newly based republic in two methods: by attempting to work inside the system, or leaving.
Certainly, numerous Bangladeshis in my dad and mom’ era left the nation in droves within the 80s and 90s for america, United Kingdom, Europe and even the Center East seeking higher futures. Those who remained largely stored their heads low and avoided resisting the federal government’s excesses.
However in recent times, Gen Z Bangladeshis coming of age started to gravitate in direction of a 3rd possibility. Not like their dad and mom, their dream and ambition was to not go away for the West, or keep and work the system. Their dream was to remain and reform the nation. They weren’t keen to simply accept the human rights abuses of a corrupt authorities as the worth they wanted to pay for financial progress.
Between 2018 and 2020, I interviewed dozens of younger individuals whereas working as a international correspondent in Bangladesh. Virtually all of them had been extremely pleased with the nation’s speedy financial and technological progress, however had been in despair over the declines in human rights and democracy. They liked their nation, they usually wished to indicate their love by making issues higher, not staying silent.
At first look, it appears the scholars miraculously toppled Hasina’s omnipotent authorities in 5 brief weeks, however this revolution was years within the making. Those that participated within the scholar protests this 12 months – those that gave up their lives – grew up watching the nation prosper as the federal government turned an increasing number of authoritarian and abusive.
Many had spent virtually all their younger lives searching for methods to decouple financial progress from democratic degradation. In 2018, after a bus misplaced management and killed two youngsters, the street security motion was born. College students demanded safer streets by taking on the streets for 5 days, checking licenses and directing visitors which is notoriously tough to navigate in Bangladesh. That very same 12 months, a scholar motion efficiently led to the overturn of the quota system. In 2019, they took to the streets in droves after a student was killed by pro-government activists for his Fb put up criticising the federal government.
All through all these actions, college students noticed for themselves how the federal government usually blamed opposition events for the violence perpetrated in opposition to protesters, despite the fact that authorities’s personal scholar wing was usually accountable for it. In addition they noticed how their elders and people in energy pointed to financial successes of the nation as a purpose to be supportive of the present authorities’s actions and insurance policies.
Repeatedly, their revolutionary spirits had been disheartened. But as they went from youngsters to younger individuals of their mid 20s, they expanded their information and maturity whereas managing to maintain their ardour alive. They wished to free Bangladesh from its suffocating authorities and assist it attain its true potential – as a democratic nation that respects and protects the rights of all its residents.
Right this moment, after 5 weeks of bloodshed, ache, worry and heartache, they achieved their dream. Younger Bangladeshis at the moment are answerable for the nation and maybe for the primary time of their lives, they’ve purpose to be longing for the long run.
Positive, there’ll now be a caretaker authorities overseen by the Bangladeshi military. Some individuals are frightened about this prospect, as up to now, such governments proved not ultimate for shielding human rights and furthering democracy. However scholar leaders, who introduced us to this second, have already vowed that they’ll be sure that this interim authorities is not going to be like several the nation has seen earlier than. They promised they’ll be sure that this new authorities doesn’t step out of line and doesn’t take energy away from the individuals. And I do know they’ll maintain to their phrase, as a result of that is their nation, their future, and their lifelong dream that they risked all they ever needed to obtain.
This revolution is a transparent message from youths to those that have lengthy held on to and abused energy, not solely in Bangladesh, however internationally. Your time is over. Members of a brand new era – not keen to surrender on their rights, and able to struggle for justice at nice private value – at the moment are in cost. Change is now inevitable. We should all get on board, or get off the prepare.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.