ups and downs for Bangladesh
the current fuel on the fire
Geography can be an incredible gift to any country as we in the United States ought be well aware (often, however, we aren’t because we take it for granted and no longer teach it in school). Geography contributes to having (or lacking) natural resources, offers boundaries, and provides many advantages for which the entitled country doesn’t have to do much, except protect it. A nation with merely two relatively peaceable neighbors, vast oceans along the east and west shorelines, and islands of the 50th state extending our territory by an additional 2,300 miles is a mighty fine geographic position. Even Britain, with the English Channel a mere 21 miles at its most narrow point, has splendid geographic isolation from the historically war-torn European continent.
Then again, geography can be a terrific curse as Taiwan knows: perpetually a hundred miles off from a people who claim they will remain undeterred in their determination to force the island to reunite with the “motherland” at some (unspecified) point. China itself has fourteen neighbors, each of which has a somewhat different relationship with the Middle Kingdom requiring some skill to prevent conflict, hubris and mythology in Beijing aside. Israel occupies territory historically central to the Jewish people but is also amid several states populated by by millions of Arabs and Islamic faithful who abhor the Jewish state on grounds this is not Jewish but Islamic Holy Land.
It’s hard to argue many places have a worse geographic location, however, than either Somalia or Bangladesh. I won’t spend a lot of effort on the Horn of Africa today but the history of repeated drought and famine cycles contributed to the debacle the United States encountered there thirty years ago when we tried providing humanitarian assistance but instead became enmeshed in a civil war. The cause of the famine underway in the east African land was lack of water which is still the case today, though both the warlords trying to rule and the 18.7 million people eeking out survival are a newer generation. I don’t hold much hope for better conditions as geography doesn’t change.
Bangladesh similarly is in a wretched location, confronting rising sea levels on land that is already primarily flood plain because its elevation averages just a smidge over 500 feet (a third the height of the skyscrapers built roughly the time the nation won its independence in 1971), although the less densely populated northeastern portion of the country does have considerably higher elevation. The bulk of the 170 million Bangladeshis concentrate in the complex river delta born of the Ganges and Bramaputra Rivers constituting so much of this land between India and Myanmar. Any cyclone or disruption of the water level due to a tsunami, for instance, becomes a major challenge for people’s day-to-day activities and not infrequently becomes yet one more burden on the government as people.
Recent political upheaval, however, results not from Mother Nature’s wrath but from human choice. The country has long had strong women in political leadership, a peculiarity in a Muslim country. Perhaps the mere fifty-three years of its independence meant women had advanced enough in the world to open the newly constituted Bangladesh to better gender equity in politics.
In any case, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in place through four elections since 2008, rules with a strong hand. A determined administrator, the Prime Minister imposed a new quota system for government jobs earlier this year. This “protected status” originally provided 30% of the government jobs to families of veterans of the 1971 War for Independence. The Supreme Court lowered that commitment to merely 3% of the positions but that revision did not satisfy young Bangladeshis already confronting tough job prospects. The country reports 18% youth unemployment. Actions against her policy move began roughly two months ago, resulting in more than 200 deaths in confrontations with civil authorities. Protests against her decision have simmered all summer.
As so often occurs under ham-fisted regimes, the frustration on the part of the youth did not fade away but grew into more generalized opposition to Hasina’s rule. Protests went from the streets to bombing a police station. The Bangladesh National Party assumed the mantel of organized opposition to the Prime Minister and her Awami League. Gradually, protests have broadened to include rank and file protestors from the opposition battling the ruling League in eleven separate districts of the country. The violence in the streets appears spreading.
The government in Dhaka, of course, controls the levers of power so one of its primary responses has been to terminate protestors’ access to the internet, a method of coordinating activities. But, the genie is out of the bottle in that frustration with Hanisa’s Awami League multiple victories in Parliamentary elections means that calls for the her rule to end are beginning to proliferate. The other lever she has to address these increasingly irate demands is to use the police and armed forces. Situations where that instrument comes into place often result in at least a short term cycling upward in violence.
The irony for this nation is that Hasina’s policies actually achieved growth above 6% annually over her years in power, leading to the rate of poverty declining from 11% to 5% as of two years ago. Those are not insignificant numbers for a place challenged by its geography all of the time. While climate change is raising sea levels, the delta upon which most of the country sits results from the Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers merging as they empty into the Bay of Bengal. Those two rivers, ironically, are far lower than they were fifty years ago as China’s diverts water for its own use, critically affects the flow into South Asia. Whether Beijing meant to assist Hasina is doubtful but the unintended consequence of China’s insatiable water demands is that the rivers do not rise and fall quite as dramatically as in the past, thus relieving pressure on the government for response under the correct circumstances. But this is one of several simultaneous issues no regime in Dhaka can ignore altogether as it wrestles with job creation, Rohinga refugees along the border with Myanmar, and Bangladesh’s overall relationship with its behemoth Indian neighbor next door.
What will satisfy the protesters in the long run is unclear. All regimes leave power at some point but increasing public opposition rarely motivates governments to part ways with power. Hasina’s task will be finding a solution while upholding her party’s leadership for the country. Those two may be at odds or she may well have a solution up her sleeve. Our caution is seemingly always to advocate against violence on the part of anyone.
But the uproar in Bangladesh is a reminder that all governments, all leaders, and all individuals at that level can incite bigger problems with seemingly small decisions. Actions create consequences. This is not one where we in the United States play much of a role but we will wonder whether the protests somehow benefit Beijing or Moscow. We will wonder about the job creation alternatives for the young in this burgeoning country. We will wonder how a successor would do it differently and yet we don’t know.
The world is a dynamic place as easy as it may be to forget that most days. We in the west are far from having a monopoly about the uncertainty ahead. Let’s hope its as non-violent as possible, although that is far from clear now.
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Be well and be safe. FIN
“At least 70 killed as Bangladeshi protesters renew call for Hasina to quit”, Al-Jazeera.com, 4 August 2024, retrieved at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/4/more-than-20-killed-as-bangladesh-protesters-renew-call-for-hasina-to-quit