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print version[http://alalodulal.org/2013/04/23/boomerang/] 23 April 2013
[An edited version of this was published in Dhaka Tribune]
When you ask an already powerful state to expand their powers further, so as to pummel those you oppose, don’t be surprised if the state also decides to use that power against you.
Don’t be surprised when that state, whom you gave a “free pass†on anti-people activity of the past few years (because this one time you liked their activity) uses that support of yours to machete both you and your opponent.
When you make enemies lists, tag family connections, wage individualized wars against bloggers, don’t be surprised when the state decides to do the same– only this time, against your own people.
When you burn newspapers because of a story, you lose the ground to oppose a future where Islamists (or someone else) may burn your newspapers.
Actually, they already did– remember that cat cartoon from a few years back? Now, next time something like that happens, our movements against such “offensensitivity†will have to come with a but.
I protest, but…
You forgot, for the sake of Shahbag, that only two months ago, this same government was authorizing the use of deadly pepper spray on a Communist party strike, and on a teachers’ rally at Shaheed Minar.
You forgot that this same government presided over new encroachment by Asia Energy.
You blanked out that this same apparatus engineered a forced-ouster from the Grameen Bank.
This same managerial incompetence-arrogance produced endless financial scandals– Padma Bridge, Hallmark, stock market.
You especially forgot that this same government rode roughshod over the courts for four years. Using that same method, they are now making war crimes trials a fiasco, leeching away international legitimacy from an honorable project– justice for 1971.
You forgave all that because, just this once, they were doing something you wanted.
As a political orphan, you are hungry for any sign of affection. Ektu mathaye haat buliye din (just rub my head a little), please.
What if the demands to ban a party, to ban their blogs, to ban their newspapers, results in the state using those same powers to ban your party (small as it may be), your blogs, your newspapers?
One last thought. Remember those CCTV cameras that the government installed for “our protection†? A kind and generous state, making sure our Shahbag nights are peaceful. Now that the crush of crowds has shrunk, those CCTV cameras are unnecessary, right?
They will stay on, watching every breath we take.
Shahbag’s repercussion, so far, has not been a more robust war crimes process, nor a weakened Jamaat-e-Islami. Instead, we have been gifted a heavily fortified, ruthless panopticon.
Increased state power is Leviathan. It is a Hobbesian beast that is no one’s friend except its own.
This is boomerang.
Naeem Mohaiemen’s essay “We wish to inform you: a history of censorship in Bangladesh (1972-2012)†will appear in the anthology ‘Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape’ (Intellect Books/University of Chicago press, 2013). [alalodulal.org]
