Who are you? Who am I?

Reworking Shahbaghs slogans for the 99 per

cent

Activist, poet, writer, singer and composer Arup

Rahee
Arup Rahee in conversation withRahnuma
Ahmed
Rahnuma: Instead of Bangali, Bangali roared
by thousands at Projonmo Chattar in answer to the
lead slogan Who are you? Who am I? your
poem of February 20, 2013, Tumi Ke? Ami Ke?
reworks the popular Shahbagh slogans. You write
Chakma, Marma, Bangali, Garo, Santal, Bangali,
thereby rupturing the ethnic exclusivity of

established nationalist narratives, i.e. (only)

Bengalis
fought
the
Punjabis
in
1971.
You
go
on
to
write,
In Surya Sens Bengal/no space for racism
In Pritilatas Bengal/no space for ethnic hate
In Titumirs Bengal/no space for fascism
In Rokeyas Bengal/no space for patriarchy
In Lalan Fakirs Bengal/no space for fascism
In Freedom Fighters Bengal/no space for razakars
In Freedom Fighters Bengal/no space for looters
(Translated by Naeem Mohaiemen; the original
poem and its translation is posted on the Alal O
Dulal
website
http://alalodulal.org/2013/02/20/shahbagh-inclusiveslogan/)
Deeper into the poem, you declare that the struggle
for freedom is a continuing one for the minimum
conditions for ensuring social equality has not only
not been established, the gap between the rich and
poor has vastly increased. Your position, which you
have elaborated in several articles over the years
and also, post-Shahbagh, is that muktijuddho is not
fixed, that the politics of muktijuddho has to do with
gaining a critical appreciation of which forces are its
enemies, and who are its allies. The struggle for
freedom, muktijuddho, patriotism, war crimes,
razakars should be understood in the context of the
post-71 history, a closer analysis reveals that the

Awami League, BNP, Jamaat, Jatiya Party, the

civilian and military bureaucracy and corporate
forces equally belong to the ruling class. You call for
freeing the people, for freeing the 99 per cent.
And it is this, the idea that the majority have led
lives of un-freedom since independence, that I want
you to talk about. How were the dreams of the
workers betrayed after 1971, after 9 months of a
liberation struggle in which common people, men,
women and the young, belonging to different ethnic
communities, different religions and castes, took
part, for, muktijuddho was above all, a peoples
war?
Rahee: The language movement of 1952, the mass
uprising of 1969, these political events act as a
recent historical backdrop to the war of liberation.
What was basic to all these movements was the
yearning for freedom of large swathes of society:
poor peasants, workers and also the middle class,
who, all yearned to be free from the exploitation and
oppression of Pakistans ruling elite. One can trace
these aspirations for freedom in the Eleven Point
Programme laid down by the students and in the Six
Point programme of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Moulana Bhashanis NAP, those left political parties
opposed to US imperialism, and other political
parties as well, took up arms and fought for
liberation because they were inspired by peoples

aspirations for freedom. In a sense, the Awami

League was forced to include socialism as the
means for achieving its political and economic
objectives because that was what the people had
wanted. And the 1972 constitution, as we all know,
declares that one of the fundamental responsibilities
of the state is to emancipate the toiling masses,
the Awami League had added socialism because
economic emancipation was high on peoples
agenda. The constitution also declared that the
state was responsible for providing the basic
necessities of life food, clothing, shelter,
education and medical care to all citizens of the
country. What I would like to stress is that this was
the contract between the state and its citizens, soon
after
the
birth
of
the
nation.
But after independence, all governments competed
with one other to distance themselves from these
basic commitments of the liberation war.
And after Ziaur Rahman came to power he did away
with socialism as a means of ending exploitation, he
redefined socialism to mean economic and social
justice. Later, the Awami League, too, which claims
to have led the liberation struggle, erased socialism
from its party manifesto. General Ershad, Khaleda
Zia and Sheikh Hasinas government competed with
one other, each attempted to outdo the other in
redrawing the economy on the lines of the

imperialist
neoliberal
model.
And, as a consequence, instead of being
production-oriented, the tendency in the economic
sphere is toward ripping off, looting, impunity is
granted for bank defaults, there are all kinds of
scams etc. So, instead of the peasant receiving a
fair price for his produce, the worker being given fair
wages, we see the rise of a culture which
encourages
individual-oriented
thinking,
of
outwitting ones friend or neighbour as being the
smart
thing
to
do.
Rahnuma: What you say, Rahee, is a global
phenomenon, and somehow Im reminded of the
national competition state, a term coined by the
German political scientist Joachim Hirsch in the
mid-1990s. The government in the neoliberal state
represents the interests of capital at the expense of
the poor, its role is limited to administering poverty
and managing social discontent so that capital is left
undisturbed. Food, housing, education, health
services are left to market mechanisms; the shift to
the neoliberal model, which is dominant in the
present phase of capitalism, has meant that the
state has abandoned its social welfare-ist role in the
West, which historically was marginal anyway, it has
transformed into a neoliberal competition state.
Strong trade unions, national social security

systems and state interventionism to ensure full

employment
has
given
way
to
the
internationalisation of capital; the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the East European bloc meant
that the neoliberal project was successfully
completed. Multinational corporations now have
greater power and independence than national
governments, countries in the South produce cheap
industrial products for European and North
American consumers. Governments in the South
are complicit with this Washington consensus
model, those that are representative democracies
are actually controlled by national elites who ensure
that products are manufactured under extremely low
wages
and
inhumane
conditions.
Rahee: Yes, and it is because of the adoption of
neoliberal policies that movements for fair wages
are suppressed, that these movements are broken
up, trade union rights are denied, labour activists
are routinely harassed, or downright disappeared or
killed. It is because of looting that the demand for
the safety of workers lives, for the payment of fair
wages so that they can live decently, the demands
of women workers in the garment industry who form
the majority of the garment workforce are brushed
aside by the garment factory owners and the
government. The garment sector promises cheap
labour and unfettered looting. Factory fires leading

to the deaths of hundreds, maybe more than a

thousand since the growth of the garment industry
in Bangladesh, do not kindle human feelings in
those who formulate and implement the policy of
looting. The deaths of more than a hundred and
twelve workers in the Tazreen factory fire is a
frightening example of this. Its owner has not yet
been arrested, despite being responsible for the fire
he walks around free. As a matter of fact, the
organisation of the garment factory owners, the
BGMEA [Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and
Exporters Association] represents the interests of
the looters, all governments toe the BGMEA line.
Every government has mortgaged labour laws,
human rights and justice for workers to this
organisation.
The policy of looting which was instituted postindependence, which continues unabated in the
forty plus years since independence, is completely
contrary to the ideals and convictions of the
liberation struggle. The common people took part in
the freedom movement because they wanted to
rebuild a society where relations of exploitation did
not exist, one that was just, where all citizens were
equal. But this is still far from being real in the lives
of
the
99
per
cent.
And therefore, to realise the aspirations of the
muktijuddho, to change the nature of the state, we

need another muktijuddho. This muktijuddho must

be against the policy of looting, against exploitation
and repression, it must be for establishing a
substantive democracy for the 99 per cent the
struggle for freedom of the 99 per cent against the
exploitation, oppression and looting by the 1
percent. This struggle is a continuing struggle. We
must win this war. It is through this victory that we
will be able to truly acknowledge our debt to the
shaheeds
and
to
the
birangonas.
The common peoples victory in the fight for
freedom is inevitable!