a bonobo humanity?

Muhammad Yunus

Bangladesh is in a mesh at the moment, and it’s no joke. The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, resigned today (August 5 2024) after 15.5 years in office. She’d previously been in office from 1996 to 2001, so, more than 20 years as Prime Minister. Now, the term Prime Minister has a very Westminster-type resonance, and sounds very ‘first among equals’-like, but having heard some quite disturbing things about this leader in the past, and having heard about the recent events leading up to her resignation, I’m minded to take a closer look.

Bangladesh has been an independent nation since 1971, before which it was known as East Pakistan. This wasn’t a peaceful transition, and of course the region has a history going back thousands of years, long before the present, hopefully passing, obsession with nationhood and sovereignty became a thing. That region, above the Bay of Bengal, was itself known as Bengal, or Bangla, and is covered essentially by Bangladesh and the Indian Province of West Bengal. 

So, as I write Sheikh Hasina has, it seems, fled to India, and large numbers of young Bangladeshis (commentators are saying they are students) are in the streets of Dhaka, apparently carrying away loot from the Prime Ministerial residence. It seems that we’re witnessing the end of a very long dictatorship. Hasina is the daughter of the first Bangladeshi Prime Minister, which gives it all a bit of a North Korean feel (oh but I’ve just learned he was assassinated in a military coup, along with other members of Hasina’s family). So, like her father, Hasina doesn’t seem to have managed to keep control at the end, as apparently the police have chosen not to take action against the present student protesters (though many have been killed in recent times). So, given the family history, she’s chosen to decamp to India.

So of course there are now some big questions due to the power vacuum. What will be the role of the military, and can all this be succeeded by something more seriously democratic?

So, okay things are happening quickly… the nations’s military has promised to form an interim government and has promised to fulfil student demands and ‘bring peace back to the country’. Reporters are saying that over 90 people were killed the day before Hasina’s departure. The word autocracy is being used – Hasina ‘won’ an election earlier this year, after a boycott by opposition parties. 

Protestors, on being interviewed, are inveighing against military rule and demanding civilian-style government. An articulate student protestor has expressed concern about the ongoing treatment of minorities in the country, and has severe reservations about an interim military government, though I suppose there has to be some peace-keeping force to fill the vacuum, at least for a short while. An important point, raised by the DW reporter, and further commented on by the student, is that Hasina fled on a military aircraft, which raises questions about the military’s neutrality. However, there are obvious questions about what would have happened if the students and protesters (hundreds of whom have been killed in recent weeks, according to reports) had gotten their hands on this former Prime Minister. 

And the fact is that, despite the perhaps well-meaning promises currently being made by the military, these student-type revolutions rarely turn out well in the end. Democracy is, of course, a Euro-American import to this region, as is the concept of nationhood itself. There is so much religious and ethnic conflict – an online Indian report on the upheaval comes with a baggage of commentary, Indians (especially Hindus) worrying about an influx of refugees (especially non-Hindus), as well as weird commentary about a perfectly functioning democratic state being over-run by the military… You get the impression that the situation is being deliberately misunderstood. 

So the latest news is that Muhammed Yunus, apparently a very important figure in Bangladeshi politics and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (I’m on a steep learning curve here!), has returned to the country from Paris and has been sworn in as the interim leader, much to the relief and jubilation of student protestors. Considering that hundreds of students have been killed recently, Yunus, who’s 84 years old, and has no political experience, has his work cut out for him, and the obvious key to his success will be his connections with the right people, those who are invested in democracy, human rights and poverty alleviation. He was awarded the Peace Prize for his highly successful micro-financing systems designed to help the country’s poorest. Hasina’s regime rewarded him by charging him with a vast list of crimes, presumably because he was highly critical of the government’s behaviour. 

So, just listening to a student activist being interviewed about Younis and the general political situation – and she points out that the two main political parties, that of Hasina and the main opposition, have great credibility problems, being based on dynastic families who have served themselves rather than the nation, so it may be that, with popular support, Younis will be encouraged to remain until the political corruption is dealt with. At his age, that would be a big ask. The country is very polarised, with no doubt religious as well as political divisions. 

So, just gathering more info – students, and the public generally, have been incensed by the former government’s quota system for jobs and benefits. They were particularly outraged by Hasina’s apparently sarcastic comments some time ago about extending the quota to the pro-Pakistan families – that’s to say those who fought against and killed Bangladeshi freedom fighters in large numbers. Protesters had also been activated by the military’s shoot-to-kill behaviour recently, which killed more than 100 students in one day. 

So, peace has been restored for the time being, and the arrival of Younis will presumably mean that the Hindus of India will be less concerned about a huge refugee influx (the Indian government has sent a large military force to the border). As to Sheikh Hasina, she has sought asylum in the UK (her niece is a British Labour politician). Her US visa has been revoked, a turnaround from previous friendly relations due to her crackdown on religious extremism and her welcoming of Rohingya refugees into the country in 2007. Hasina’s family background is Moslem – and no matter what her personal beliefs, she would probably have to be seen to be practising in order to retain any credibility in the region. Anyway, it seems that Hasina is currently holed up in India, and Bangladeshi authorities (whoever they may be?) are demanding that she be handed over to them. Interestingly, she has younger relatives in relatively high places in the US, India and Finland as well as in the UK. To quote other commentators, asylum in India (a country that has refused asylum for Afghani and Sri Lankan leaders in recent times) would compromise India’s relationship with a new Bangladeshi government (there have already been requests from the Supreme Court Bar Association in Bangladesh to have Hasina sent back). 

So – many issues facing a new administration. How to deal with the massive destruction of buildings and other infrastructure. How to deal with agitprop coming out of Pakistan and India. How to deal with what appears to be the collapse of the banking system, with the mass resignation of high-level staff of the Bangladesh bank, the country’s biggest bank, after protestors stormed their offices. Unsurprisingly there has been a run on bank withdrawals throughout the country. 

And Sheikh Hasina has very recently stated that she wishes to return to Bangladesh ‘once democracy has returned’! Her son, who lives in the US, is blaming the Pakistani government and its spy agencies for the unrest, and he too identifies his mother as the person to restore democracy in the country. That’s family for you. 

Needless to say, there wouldn’t have been many other women in Hasina’s government, if any. When I talk about ‘a world turned upside-down’ in terms of gender relations I must admit I’m talking about the world I know, the so-called ‘WEIRD world’. There are so many other factors, ethnic, religious, dynastic and so on, that make female dominance unlikely in so many parts of the world at this juncture. Even in Thatcher’s government, in the heart of the WEIRD world, there were no other women in her cabinet. Too much power in the hands of too few, that’s always a bad sign, regardless of gender. As primatologists have pointed out, the most successful alpha males/females are generally those that build alliances and trust – to keep everyone in the same tent, so to speak. Females are better at it, I think, but plenty of males are good at it too. So it isn’t just a matter of gender, it’s about how best to benefit the whole community, to recognise their rights and needs, and to always consider government in terms of help. I’ll be watching this space.