We sit pat in August, in what is likely to be a set of hazier days, than the hot set just recently passed. But seven day out July is still fresh in our minds. Is it not?
The month just passed in Bangladesh might strike anyone as a set of strides in the direction toward secularism and equitable moral and economic rights for all.
The War Crimes trial is the big, international piece of news here. An election pledge, that the Awami League set out to fulfil, the war crimes trial, has taken up the Jamaat-e-Islami and its top-rung leaders. The fall-out for the BNP has yet to be measured, though they are swinging up for another massive protest.
At the same time Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh seems to have been successfully and permanently routed. The first set of arrests of JMB leadership yielded a second round of arrests. The broad and popular leadership took down the temporary, acting leaders, who failed in their respective positions to act like leaders.
The sanctity of democracy was upheld in the month of July. The 5th amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh was struck down recently, and last month the letter of the law in the ruling was made public. More to the point, perhaps, the warm aura of legitimacy that the 5th amendment has purchased for a series of dictatorships burned away in a flash. Democracy, it seems is now the only legitimate form of government in Bangladesh.
Garment industry workers were offered a monthly minimum wage of 3000 taka to be gradually phased in. The first raise of sorts will be much higher than the meager 1200 taka or so that garments workers now take home a month, to their open sewer hovels.
The garments factory workers are mostly women and, happily, on top of this good news, women have other news to celebrate. Fatwas, or religious judgments in village justice and arbitration has been deemed illegal. Under threat of civil punishment, women can no longer be threatened with religiously derived judgments that invariably ill-serve their best physical and emotional interests.
Finally, Bangladesh made strong moves in the international arena, striking a deal with Nepal that would afford her access to Bangladesh’s ports. The foreign ministry is working out a similar deal with India. This is all welcome news and, hopefully, a promise of even better things to come.
