History of violence
Vigilantism continues to be endemic in our society. We refuse to learn from our mistakes and inevitably tragedy repeats itself
Tahsin Farid
A thirteen-year-old was tied up and beaten to death while onlookers stood and watched. A young man mercilessly beat his supposed friend and brazenly recorded it on video. A headmaster was humiliated and beaten in public by his pupils. Twenty three gunned down in a restaurant in broad daylight. On the surface, these are three unrelated incidents that occurred in Bangladesh over the space of the last few months. They can easily be brushed of as sporadic instances of unwarranted violence. However, there seemed to be a vague familiarity about them. As if they were different iterations of a plot that was tied together by an underlying theme. After some deliberation, it came to me that these were all symptoms of a more terrifying and disheartening disease these are reflections of the violence that has become deeply embedded in our society.
Not very long ago a video of a young man by the name of Xunayed assaulting his friend, Nurullah, went viral on social media. In the video, Xunayed accuses Nurullah of slandering a girl Xunayed had feelings for. It becomes apparent in the course of the video that Xunayed was acting on hearsay and was incensed by what he believed Nurullah had done. So, he proceeded to hand out what, in his view, Nurullah deserved. As an act of further humiliating Nurullah and proving his own bravado, Xunayed uploaded the video to social media.
If our reaction to the video was anything to go by, then most everyone felt that way because we responded to Xunayed by threatening him and his family with violence on social media and through phone calls as repercussions for his actions.
Xunayeds solution to what he perceived as a transgression was violence and instead of condemning the violence our reaction was to threaten more violence as payback for what we thought was offensive. In truth, we did not condemn Xunayeds violence; we only ridiculed the stupidity of his on screen performance and felt the need to remind him that he isnt as powerful as he thinks he is. We needed to express that we were stronger and could easily squash him. In the end, we were just trying to flaunt our strength and justifying it with a sense of righteousness.
Incidents like this arent isolated, in fact they are so common place that we ignore them until something tragic happens. Take public floggings for example. They are quite popular in our country. Think back to every time we heard the news of a thief or burglars being caught and beaten (sometimes to death) by the mob. Very rarely are we outraged, on the contrary, most times we feel a sense of righteousness; that justice has been served. But in the absence of legal procedure eventually, tragedy will strike, like the fate of Samiul Alam Rajan last year.
This thirteen year old was beaten to death in public by six men because they thought that he had stolen a rickshaw. No doubt, the whole nation was in uproar but it took the video of a poor child chained to a wall and begging for his life while his assailants laughed to realise the atrocity of what was happening. This incident should prove that taking it upon ourselves to be judge jury and executioner is not justice, it is in fact frontier justice, an act of self-righteousness. By engaging in it we are only saying that whoever has physical strength to over power the opposition will win. That everything can be resolved by violence and subliminally, we acknowledge that in our society, might is right.
Vigilantism continues to be endemic in our society. We refuse to learn from our mistakes and inevitably tragedy repeats itself. Like when six students were mistaken for burglars by villagers in Aminbazaar and beaten to death. This incident gave us pause; we felt saddened for the victim and bemoaned the case of mistaken identity but still we did not condemn the violence. We only noted this as a tragic misunderstanding because the victims did not deserve the violence in this case. Yet, ultimately, we dismiss it as some systemic error that we accept because we do not see anything wrong with the nature of the act. We failed to identify that the underlying problem was our predilection for and acceptance of violence as a justifiable solution to almost everything.
I believe that it becomes ever more undeniable that our culture harbours and even encourages violence in the form of vigilante justice. This may seem farfetched but one need only recall how often we see skirmishes break out on the roadsides. Its quite common to see individuals squabbling on the roadside over petty issues like who should give way to whom at a traffic junction or if the Rickshaw puller is asking for too much money. Invariably, violence will be threatened and some will come down to throwing fists and a crowd will gather to watch the spectacle in front of them. Or think of the numerous times teenagers and young adults will gather with their squads at a prearranged location to fight in order to resolve slights or trivial matters like why someone did not give proper salutation to a senior.
Shyamal Kanti Bakta, the headmaster at a local Naryanganj school was publicly made to hold his own ears and then beaten by his own pupils. His alleged crime was that he apparently disparaged religion. Regardless of validity of the allegations, it was deeply worrying that in a culture that is built on respecting elders these students had the audacity to go through judge and act out their form of retribution on their very own headmaster. Unfortunately, this glorification of violence in the media and our society in general has resulted in very sinister practices becoming ingrained in our culture. Domestic violence, for instance, is widespread to a staggering extent. It is almost taken for granted that husbands beat their wives, even in the cities where people are supposedly more educated and therefore assumed to be less violent. Many husbands believe that it is their right to receive dowry from their spouses families and be granted their every wish. If they are denied then it is unfair, even wrong, in their eyes. Since they have been wronged they feel the need to exact their justice. This will take the form of lashes from the belt and has been known to sometimes escalate to extremes of burning ones wife alive.
This culture of violence also bears responsibility for the string of blogger killings that have been taking place. Between January 2013 and now there have been no less than ten incidents where atheist bloggers have been hacked to death by religious extremists. It should have been cause for concern that in a democracy like ours people were being brutally hacked to death for stating their views and while we acknowledged that the killings were wrong we also iterated that the bloggers should not have said anything against Islam. So, in our tolerance of violence, we indirectly justified the attackers violent behaviour.
We find ourselves asking how we got here? Unfortunately, we are still unable to realise that subliminally, it is our acceptance of vigilantism and affinity for violence that is at least partly responsible. Our indifference and some times tacit acceptance of violence against atheist bloggers and other dissenters is culpable. Our silence to the violence that went before gave encouragement to the extremists to continue what they believe are righteous acts. Regrettably, this latest catastrophe may yet pass by as an isolated incident without us ever realising our collective culpability.
We must ask ourselves if this is the society we want to be? A society that harbours and encourages violence that at times borders barbarism? I sincerely hope the answer is an empatic NO. No doubt, the picture appears bleak. I for one was deeply aggrieved when I came to the epiphany that the country and people that I love so dearly are so insistent on vigilantism and violence. Yet, we cannot afford to be disheartened and simply accept this as the status quo.
First, we must acknowledge that this is who we are and not simply shrug the issue under the rug. Secondly, we must look to the positives, like how the nation protested Xunayed and Rajans assailants, resulting in them both being behind bars, and how we are protesting the fate of headmaster Shyamal Kanti or how we are actively fighting against intolerance; proving that we have an indomitable moral compass which, with some introspection can lead us away from violence and towards a path of peace and tolerance.
The writer is a freelancer
