Bangladesh: A GenZ revolution that bestowed freedom and a new future

We have been trying out different catchy nomenclatures for the movement that toppled Sheikh Hasina and forced her to flee the country on August 5 – I have seen Monsoon Revolution, July Revolution (with August 5 referred to as 36 July), and others – but the thing that strikes me most strongly about the revolution is how it was led and primarily fought by the young men and women of Generation Z.

This is not to say that people from all ages did not come out in support of the revolution – by early August the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement had transformed into a mass movement including people of all ages and all walks of life united in their own-point demand that Hasina step down from power and face justice for her crimes.

But it is inescapably true and I would suggest therefore almost uniquely inspiring and uplifting that it was young people who were and remain the heart and soul of this movement.

For the rest of the world watching and trying to make sense of what is happening in Bangladesh today, it is this aspect of the revolution that I think is most worthy of note and remark.

Across the globe all we hear about is the supposed apathy and entitlement of young people, unwilling to sacrifice and work hard to better their lives. I don’t know how accurate this critique is anywhere – one suspects perhaps not very, see for instance the protests the length and breadth of US university campuses in recent months – but it is crystal clear that it does not apply to young people in Bangladesh, and the freedom all Bangladeshis enjoy today, have enjoyed for the last one month, has been a benediction bestowed upon us by our children.

The simple truth of the matter is that Gen Z succeeded in doing for the nation what we older generations were unable to do, to free us from the yoke of tyranny.

And the reason for their success and our failure is not hard to locate: at the end of the day the rest of us were resigned to our fates. There is a sad little phrase that is in vogue among people of my generation: “TIB. This is Bangladesh.” Meaning that in Bangladesh we cannot expect any better.

For 15 years and indeed in many ways for 52 years – with brief glimmers of hope here and there, quickly extinguished – we simply made our uneasy peace with the world around us. We accepted the unacceptable: corruption great and small, prisons filled with innocent men and women, government being the primary source of our misery, being ruled by the absolute worst amongst us, indeed believing that it was impossible for good people to ever ascend to power in Bangladesh, such was the grim nature of our existence.

Speaking to both the coordinators of the student movement as well as the foot soldiers, what quickly became apparent to me was the moral core of the revolution and how the movement to topple Hasina and replace her misrule with a dispensation that puts the well-being of the Bangladeshi people first has been propelled largely by an appeal to morality and basic principles and understandings of right and wrong.

Gen Z understands that Bangladesh was not doing more or less OK and only required a little tweaking or adjustment. They understand that everything was wrong. They understand that we were living in a moral black hole and that everything had to and still must change if we were to ever escape from the trauma of our everyday existence and the spiritual violence that had been done to us by living in such a dystopia for so long.

Their question – the question that is at the heart of the Gen Z Revolution – is why must it be this way? Why do we have to live in a country where corruption is endemic, where graft, dishonesty, cruelty, and venality reign supreme?

Why can we not simply have a government that is focused on the well-being of its citizens and not exploiting its position to extract everything it can from the country while it can. Why is it so hard to have a country that simply functions effectively, as a country is meant to? Are Bangladeshis somehow so uniquely benighted that we cannot have the things other people around the world take for granted and demand as their birthright?

If we’re being honest, for the older generations, that was the unspoken premise behind how we lived our lives, what we were willing to put up with. We felt in our bones that fundamentally this was as good as it was going to get and that the Bangladeshi society and polity could never be reformed sufficiently to transform Bangladesh into an honest and upright country, where basic norms and expectations of decency and virtue prevailed.

Gen Z said no. Gen Z refused to believe or accept this. Gen Z stood tall and proud and said: Bangladesh is better than this.

With each passing day I now sense increasing scepticism among many Bangladeshis about this brave new world into which we have stepped. And while scepticism and caution are indispensable tools at a time like this, it is also worth keeping in mind the enormity of what has been achieved here and how that achievement was rooted in a generation’s refusal to accept the unacceptable, and the power behind such an idea.

That refusal to accept what no one should accept, that insistence on standing up and fighting for what had been denied them since their birth – the simple dignity of being fully realised and fully actualised human beings who are permitted to think what they want, say what they want, and be what they want – is why we today live in a Bangladesh free from the tyranny of our past.

We do not yet know what the future will bring, but to have been freed from the chains that enslaved us all these years – at least for now – is no small thing.

Zafar Sobhan is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.

This article was first published on Dhaka Tribune.