Bangladesh PM Hasina has resigned and left the country, media reports say
reuters.com
reuters.com
A very clear A/B test which shows mixing governance and religion is a terrible idea. So it is strange that India is now moving towards religion and more importantly we are doing this here in the US?
Did Christopher Hitchens teach us nothing?
Of course, that was before the recent crisis. I don’t know what that is going to do to GDP per capita figures, but I’d be surprised if Bangladesh didn’t go backwards as a result of this.
Also, calling Bangladesh a “religious nation” ignores that Sheikh Hasina’s rule was fundamentally secular, even though she never sought to change the religious provisions in the national constitution, she largely governed as if they weren’t there.
Every leader of independent Bangladesh was an islamist, dictator or both. Sheikh Hasina was the exception.
I hope this transition is peaceful and democratic.But looking at the opposition, I'm not optimistic.
Between Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Srilanka....that's a lot of recent instability in the subcontinent.
Hasina is the worse dictator Bangladesh has ever seen!
Yes she came through a election initially, but quickly converted to a autocrat in matter of few years, after the pillkhana massacre happened.
She murdered 400+ in a matter of week, and intended to continue if the official had not rejected. And in the first week she killed 216+ of which 75% had no political affiliation, and most if them was aged between 17 to 25.
Ershad, the first dictator killed 300+ in span of a year. We don't even know how much she killed in her total regime
It depends on what your criteria for "worse dictator" is.
Compare a secular dictator who kills many political opponents, but leaves those who don't oppose them politically free to live their lives mostly in peace, to a religious dictator who kills significantly less people, but tries hard to force everyone to follow strict religious law. Some people will say the religious one is worst than the secular one, despite having killed more people.
Or compare a dictator who kills many political opponents, but is tolerant of ethnic and religious minorities so long as they don't politically oppose the regime, to a dictator who kills fewer people overall, but subjects ethnic and religious minorities to harsh (but mostly non-lethal) oppression.
It reminds me of the debate over Bashar al-Assad.
I'd rather be ruled by Sheikh Hasina than Ali Khamenei, even if it somehow turned out that she killed more people than he has.
And definitely not under a child murderer.
She didn't just kill political opponents, she killed students, and general people, or anyone that goes against her.
And she have few hundreds of political prisoners.
And how do you know you are not her enemy? You don't have to do much to be her enemy. And she's a enabler of corrupted goons.
And also no freedom of speech. Simple, one of her goons think he needs to punish you, he just say this person said something offensive against her or her daddy or any of her family, ta-da you land in the jail. And congrats, it's a hell on earth, enjoy your stay.
Have you lived the way we lived last 3 weeks? You surely haven't.
She destroyed our education sector, and financial institution. So no, we don't want her, nor any dictator.
For the protests, my understanding is that most deaths came from rubber bullets and fairly violent fights between police and protestors. The line between protestor and revolutionary was fairly thin. I don't mean to minimize what was clearly a non-democratic act. But, almost every violent riot involves the deaths of 17-25 year olds. That is the primary demographic for all violent acts everywhere. It is grim but not unique. Similarly, political affiliations deliberately difficult to identify.
I know emotions are high, so I'll limit my cynicism.
I hope Bangladesh is able to find a stable & secular democratic alternative.
Here's one for you, "rubber" bullets.
Here's some toy guns for you https://www.facebook.com/saerzulkarnain/videos/2782749641879...
There are many other videos available in Facebook.
Students were peaceful, from the beginning, and the were still peaceful throughout, things only went violent when police and the government goons started attacking them
Otherwise, going from autocracy to military rule is like hating the frying pan and jumping into the fire.
People don’t just rise up. They rise up to combat injustice. You want peace? Don’t push people past their breaking point. When they have legitimate concerns listen to them. When they assemble to shout don’t escalate to violence. Because governments are fragile and rule only so long as the people let them.