[alephnerd]

> Now the fascist gov has closed all internet

I agree that Sheikh Hasina is extremely authoritarian and corrupt dictator but imo JeI are the actual fascists, and the BNP has absolutely been enabling them.

That said, I agree with you that Hasina's authoritarianism needs to end.

Ideally all these old fossils (Hasina, Zia, Rahman, etc) need to be purged and the actual youth (who are the majority of Bangladesh) get a chance to have their voice in power.

It's a handful of elite 70 year olds who have been running a country where the median age is 25 and are ruining it due to their own personal drama from the 70s and 80s.

[trompetenaccoun]

Independent of points for or against their rule, the ageist argument makes little sense. 25 year olds are generally politically naive and easily manipulated. The average person in their twenties has no idea about economics, geopolitics or other such topics that are important to understand for running a country. When you look at uprisings against ancient leaders in countries with very young populations, they regularly end up even worse then before, sadly. Take Sudan as an example.

[abdullahkhalids]

GP didn't say that 25 years should become the elected leaders. But Sheikh Hasina (the current PM since 2008) was the leader of the opposition in 1986 at 39 years old [1], and then first became PM in 1996 at 49 years old. The ones who were PM from 1986 to today were all born in the 1940s [2].

Same is the case in Pakistan. Every prime minister since 1988 was born in the 40s or early 50s [3]. India's PMs have, on the other hand, been from even an older generation [4].

This post-independence generation captured all the political power in their 40s, and refuse to give it up 40 years later. Is it not reasonable to demand that the PM and Cabinet today are largely in their 40s?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Hasina

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Ban...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Pak...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Ind...

[addicted]

Bangladesh is a democracy with free and fair elections.

If people wanted younger leaders they would have voted for them.

A revolution because you lost at the ballot box is ridiculous.

It’s not comparable to Pakistan where not a single Prime Minister has ever completed a full term and the country has been led explicitly by the military for decades and implicitly by the military for its entire existence.

[abdullahkhalids]

You should perhaps check what just happened in the January elections in Bangladesh. The opposition parties did not compete because they didn't think the elections were fair. The result was [1]

> The Awami League, led by incumbent Sheikh Hasina, won the election for the fourth consecutive time with less than 40% of the eligible voters voting according to an Election Commission, which is run by the ruling political party.[5][2][6][7] The party won 224 seats while independent candidates, most of whom were Awami League members propped up as dummy candidates to give a semblance of competition, won 62 seats.

You can click back to the last few elections on wiki, and see how much evidence there is of unfree/rigged elections in Bangladesh.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Bangladeshi_general_elect...

[unmole]

> Bangladesh is a democracy with free and fair elections.

[citation needed]

[Karrot_Kream]

If that's the lens you're looking at, the majority of uprisings in history have ended up worse than they started. Bangladesh is struggling with a democracy that has degraded into authoritarian gerontocracy. It's not as simple as young people dumb old people experienced, there's a lot of issues involved.

[alephnerd]

^^^ this.

Revolutions turn into civil wars.

We forget but this is the sad reality.

This doesn't mean the students in Gulistan Maidan are wrong, but "Allah, Suriya, y Bashar" and the converse means a 15 year civil war like in Syria or 15 miles away from Chittagong in Myanmar (aka Asian Syria/Libya)

Khuda ki kasm - please walk off this brink Bangladesh (if someone Hasina adjacent is reading).

[csomar]

I am not sure why you are being downvoted but a "youth" revolt will most certainly end up the country in a worst state than it is right now. Much more worse.

[SomeoneFromCA]

Revolutions are always made by young, are not they?

[trompetenaccoun]

Age profiles of countries are very different around the world. The median age in France is 41, in Sudan it's 18! Just think about what a median age of 18 means - half their population is even younger than that. So when you have Yellow Vests trying to shut down the government in Europe, those are a very different age group compared to Sudanese kids taking to the streets.

I think I can guess why the comment is controversial. Some may have taken it as an authoritarianism apology, which isn't the intention. It's rather a reminder that things are more complex than just rooting for what intuitively feels right, because the average Westerners has little understanding of how such countries work. Since my point is the average citizen doesn't even sufficiently understand, and surely you will agree you understand less about Bangladesh than a student who grew up there.

There are many such examples. Taking out Gaddafi has not proven to be positive for Libya. Sometimes the "old witch" is actually the lesser evil. I'm talking strictly about politics in terms of practical reality, not what we wish were true. Of course we all root for the people to win and then they live happily ever after.

[JumpCrisscross]

> agree that Sheikh Hasina is extremely authoritarian and corrupt dictator but imo JeI are the actual fascists

The challenge of escalating partisanship is self-reïnforcing polarisation. The worse the leadership, the worse the opposition.

The operant question, thus, is not who is good but who is less evil, in the hope that this ratchet, a few times turned, yields goodness.

[alephnerd]

I might be a few beers in, but I don't quite understand your thesis.

Politics in developing countries is a business, not ideological.

Ain't no good guys - only bad guys.

Everyone's in on making enough out of the grift to emigrate to the US or the UK (just like Sheikh Hasina and her opponent Khalida Zia's children)

[thisislife2]

> Politics in developing countries is a business, not ideological.

What a joke! Imperialism flourished due to corporates being allowed to own their own private armies. The US is the best example of a country that exists for, and is run by corporates - and that happened because the older European powers clamped down on corporates, and they fled to the US.

[JumpCrisscross]

> that happened because the older European powers clamped down on corporates, and they fled to the US

This comment is a lot of nonsense, but this takes the cake. America has always had more powerful private interests than Europe.

[Karrot_Kream]

Yeah I think "fascist" is too much for any actor not JeI but authoritarian is right. They've cut off Internet and telecom access after all, a dangerous game given how physically close they are to West Bengal.

[BadHumans]

> Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Source: Wikipedia

This sounds like the very definition of fascism to me.

[Karrot_Kream]

Which part sounds like fascism?

The Awami League is ideologically a center-left party, it's not far right. The quota system that's being protested offers employment quotas to descendants of revolutionaries and minorities. It was the party that founded Bangladesh. Protests are occurring because of the corruption and joblessness that results from these quotas and because the law was overturned earlier but reinstated.

Moreover there's no belief in a natural social hierarchy or belief in subordination to the State. If anything the Awami League has historically claimed to champion minorities in the country like Hindus instead of championing Muslim identities like JeI. There's no concept of regimemting society at all by the Awami League, again that's more JeI's domain with its belief in Sharia.

Awami League is authoritarian and corrupt yes but not fascist. The Middle East has plenty of authoritarian dictatorships that engage in varying levels of human rights abuses but that does not make them fascist countries.

I'm sorry but your comment just comes off as really uniformed about Bdesh and South Asian politics.

[BadHumans]

I'm very uninformed about Bangladeshi and South Asian politics but yes the violent suppression of protests and killing of protestors are the parts that sound a bit fascist to me.

[Karrot_Kream]

Look I realize on lefty parts of the internet that fascism has colloquially become the same as authoritarianism but they are not the same thing. Fascist movements are usually authoritarian but not all authoritarian regimes are fascist.

It's an especially bad lens when you look outside the West because the second and third world has had plenty of trouble with left authoritarian regimes and comparatively less trouble with fascism and authoritarian right regimes.

[Terr_]

> Fascist movements are usually authoritarian but not all authoritarian regimes are fascist.

A simple example would be hundreds of years of authoritarian monarchies and theocracies. Nobody wants to retroactively label them as Fascist, and for good reason.

I prefer the "Palingenetic Ultranationalism" definition [0], where fascism is largely distinguished by what myths and stories people are using to demand power.

Often along the lines of: "Not too long ago This Nation was the best, but not anymore. There is one and only one chance to fix it, which will require a destructive resurrection that only Pure People Leaders can do. You have to give them all the power right now or else everything will be bad forever because impure people somehow."

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalis...

[alephnerd]

^^^ THIS

If you're part of the minority Hindu and Christian community in Bangladesh you support Hasina, because the opposition made a coalition deal with hard-core Islamists (JeI) who are supporting the gold digger wife of the former (1980s) Military Dictator who was a puppet (like every other politician in Bangladesh sadly)

This does NOT mean Hasina is good.

Anything but.

Authoritarian quasi-secularism means the only organized opposition is fundamentalist, like in Central Asia like Tajikia, Uzbekia, Kyrgyzia, Afghanistan, Parts of Pakistan, etc, or the India my parents grew up in during the 1980s.

Sheikh Hasina (literally) based her public persona on Indira Gandhi. All the Desis on HN know what that implies.

Sheikh Hasina is a left-leaning autocratic. She protects the Hindu, Christian, and Buddhist minority, but her authoritarianism against the religious Islamic community of Bangladesh (plus Khalida Zia's and moreso Shaibur Rahman's Pakistani funded bullshit) means the only organized opposition are non-secular.

As a Koshur-Hindu American, Hasina (and her enabler across the border) are playing with fire.

Bangladesh has strong institutions , diaspora, and economic relations (most factories in WB moved to BD because of bad policies and the FTA). Hasina is squandering them because of her childhood traumas.

Please please please become a Indonesia instead of a Myanmar

[gverrilla]

> the second and third world has had plenty of trouble with left authoritarian regimes and comparatively less trouble with fascism and authoritarian right regimes.

fake news

[arrowsmith]

You're also very uninformed about what the word "fascist" means.

[alephnerd]

> The Middle East

If Bangladesh is the "Middle East" then so is Burma/Myanmar and Thailand (which is at most 200 miles from the Bangladesh border)

[Karrot_Kream]

Bangladesh is definitely not the Middle East. I just figured the kind of person who thinks of authoritarianism as fascism is more likely to be familiar with authoritarian governments in the Middle East because they're covered in Western mainstream news outlets and aren't treated as fascist regimes.

[Tomte]

In English, Bangladesh is not Middle East. In German, it is. Israel is Near East from our perspective.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittlerer_Osten

[arrowsmith]

Wow, I had no idea that "Middle East" referred to different regions in different languages - that's interesting.

Btw we say "Near East" in English too and it's vaguely defined but it usually includes Israel. But I don't think it's wrong to say that Israel is in the "Middle East" too - the two terms overlap somewhat.

[tdeck]

I didn't read this as OP saying Bangladesh is in the middle east, but rather an example of authoritarian countries they'd assume we have all heard bad things about but nobody calls them fascist.

[alan-hn]

Many people want to either tiptoe around or flat out ignore the far right leanings of fascism to avoid what it says about the US

[arrowsmith]

"Leanings"?

[alan-hn]

You're right, that's too gentle of phrasing. Fascism is a 100% far right ideology. Please excuse my Ameribrain, I'm continuously bathed in conservative capitalist and neoliberal propaganda

[rayiner]

That’s a terrible idea and would set Bangladesh back generations. Hasina is authoritarian, but Bangladeshis need someone like her to run such a disorderly population. She’s not Lee Kuan Yew, but she’s the best in that direction Bangladesh can hope for. And a third-rate copy of LKY is a hell of a lot better than whatever Islamic socialist would replace her.

[Karrot_Kream]

I don't disagree given the political situation in Bangladesh right now but if Hasina were LKY or even Erdogan this wouldn't be happening. The situation is as it is because Hasina couldn't govern it.

[alephnerd]

Idk why you're downvoted, but that aside I'm not sure about your thesis.

It's kinda tough following Desi politics tbh - you want to be honest about ideals, but the reality is everyone in the home country is "Chust".

Idk, if Sheikh Hasina was a LKY or even a Park Cheung He then the protests seen the past week wouldn't have happened.

I guess the BAP is now facing the Zhao question (or Indira in Tughlabad Distict in 1976) - to shoot or not shoot. Either way India, China, Russia, and the Gulf will continue to give her and the BAP sanction relief because she's built strong relations with everyone.

I'm not Muslim so I automatically lean more towards Hasina (Zia's enabling of the JeI is a dealbreaker and would automatically result in a civil war or even Indian intervention if she became PM), but if she decided to remain quasi-democratic she cannot find a middle ground. Either she becomes a full blown authoritarian or she has to cede power. A Hybrid Regime is inherently unstable.

[thisislife2]

> It's a handful of elite 70 year olds who have been running a country where the median age is 25 and are ruining it due to their own personal drama from the 70s and 80s.

Really? Are you going to totally ignore that it is those very 25+ years old that gave the current premiere of Bangladesh her massive majority? (See also https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/88356/why-are-m... ).

> That said, I agree with you that Hasina's authoritarianism needs to end. ...

Beware of what you wish for! It's all nice and easy to harp at "undemocratic" and "authoritarianism". But understand the political context and history of Bangladesh before passing such blanket judgement. The reality of Bangladesh politics is:

1. Political violence is a fact there - Mrs. Hasina's father, a hugely popular leader, was assassinated and 18 members of her family, including her 10-year-old brother, and relatives were massacred. She had to seek refuge abroad to survive.

2. Bangladesh has also seen many military coups.

3. Some opposition parties of Bangladesh are backed by the military.

4. Some of the opposition lean towards religious fundamentalism and, as you pointed out, also associate with extremist groups.

5. Foreign powers - USA (and other western countries acting in cohort with the US), China and India - often interfere in Bangladesh's internal affairs.

(Source: https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/80654/ )

Being a young democracy, amidst such a political environment necessarily requires an authoritarian streak in a politician to survive and to nurture a secular democracy. As an indian, I genuinely admire her commitment to create a democracy in an Islamic republic that is easily prone to religious fundamentalism and sectarianism - sometimes she reminds me of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who did the same with Turkiye. (Remember that Bangladesh is one of the few islamic Republics that has actually committed to democratic political values).

-----

All that said, it is very clear that the current protests were very poorly handled and will be politically damaging to her, and could be a turning point in Bangladesh politics. Whether it will be good for Bangladesh totally depends on how her government handles these protest. Even if the matter is sub-judice, and being examined by the Bangladesh Supreme Court, the government should have engaged more deeply with the protestors and anticipated the political violence.