The Rise of Mahmudur Rahman: Bangladesh Politics & Game Theory
by Zia Hassan, translated from Bengali by AlalODulal.org (original Bengali at end)
Mahmudur Rahman. The country’s most divisive figure. And the country is clearly divided. Mahmudur Rahman is the unchallenged leader of one side of that division. BNP is now only a side-show. And I don’t think BNP realizes that yet. Continue reading
This was Ilias Ali’s Facebook Profile Picture
Update 1: Mahmudur Rahman remanded for 13 days. Usually CMM grants half of what police ask for. In this case, police asked for 24. So pretty much consistent.
Update 2: Police raid Amar Desh press. Raid being led by the great Biplob Kumar Sarkar.
I’m not going to begin by condemning Mahmudur Rahman’s arrest. As someone who has been campaigning for the arrest of others for exercising their rights to free speech, his own arrest, due to exactly the same reason, is more ironic than sad. It is also probably exactly what he wanted. But instead, let’s take a look at what’s next for the Bangladeshi political landscape.
Screenshot from Channel I
319 attacks on Hindu properties in 24 days © Prothom Alo
If you come to kill, I will say, I too am Hindu, I too am Minority, the land that is burning is my country
by Faruk Wasif, translated from Bengali by Naeem Mohaiemen
When the Tamil massacres were happening, we came to shahbag with slogans “we are all Tamil.” When the Rohingya massacres happened, we protested that too. We protested killings in Iraq, we said we were Kashmiri when youth were being killed in Kashmir. Bu what about today?
Continue reading
Deep Politics, Part 2: One-eyed world of the “civil war” roadmap
by Faruk Wasif; translated by Tibra Ali
©bdnews24
In boxing, fighters need to be alert of each other’s every move. The hunter too targets his prey using only one eye. He is not interested in widening his field of vision. But freedom fighters cannot afford to just focus on eliminating the enemy, they must also keep an eye on the political and ideological aspects of the situation. They need to widen their field of view of the world. The political chase is not the same as giving chase to a band of robbers. Continue reading
“How do we characterize or categorize the people of Shahbag? Who are the people of Shahbag? … What is the class character of this group, what excites or drives this group? Who they were during different periods of our history- how they were represented during different historical milestone of Bangladesh.”
© Arif Hafiz
During the first week of Shahbag Square Movement, when the momentum and public passion for the movement was at its peak, the biggest opposition political party BNP’s discomfort with the movement was very clear.
BNP’s reaction was initial rejection and dismissal to a very uncomfortable embracing of Shahbag one week into its movement. However BNP was happy to get out of the painful embrace in the earliest opportunity. This opportunity came with the discovery of atheist blogs reportedly of slain blogger thaba baba. Very quickly getting rid of any lost love; BNP started denouncing Shahbag as an anti-Islamic movement.
