Occupy Dhaka: Joining The Global Movement Against The 1%

Posted on | oktober 23, 2011 | 1 Comment

Activists chant and wave placards and banners supporting the global movement against the banks, and corruption. Image By Safin Ahmed

Occupy Wall Street, the peaceful protest against financial corruption and capitalism that started last month in the New York City’s financial capital, has already spread in many countries of the world. People have joined under the motto: “We are the 99% who will not tolerate the greed and corruption of the remaining 1%.” And the statement is also being resonated in some streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

In a photo essay in Demotix Safin Ahmed reports about a protest in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street Movement in Dhaka on October 19, 2011 :

The People Solidarity Movement from Bangladesh gives solidarity to the global occupy Wall Street movement by holding a protest.


Blogger Rasel Parvez writes [bn] about the need of such protest and asserts that the movement should be non-violent:

We have to agree on the fact that the government should be more active and earnest in ensuring our livelihoods. We, the 99%, are outraged by the the long negligence and ignorance by the state and we are now building awareness.

We have to avert violence. The greatest asset of the occupy wall street movement is their discipline, they have not resorted to violence in the past month.

Soon more organizations joined the cause and planned a “Occupy Dhaka” [bn] movement on October 22, 2011 at Teacher and Student Center (TSC) square inside Dhaka University Campus which was promulgated using Facebook and Twitter. 

The Poster for We Are 99% (Occupy Dhaka)

Renowned teacher, economist and activist Anu Muhammad urged everybody [bn] to join the protests to take back Bangladesh:

In every nation people are coming out in the streets chanting the same words. The slogan has two parts; one, identify ourselves: ‘We are 99%’. The other part; set the goal of the movement: ‘Occupy..’ Occupy what? Occupy the center of power, occupy your own country, occupy your own lives. In reality your lives, natural resources and country are being controlled by 1% looters, acquirers and war mongers. Our goal is to free those because we are pressed back at the wall.

Changing the government keeping the power centers intact will not change anything. This is the learning from the US, This is the learning from Bangladesh, too. So people want to occupy the center of power. If the Bangladeshis want to live, build a new future, get themselves free from the two feuding, corrupt and occupier political alliances then they have to re-polarize the politics. This struggle in Bangladesh is not new, if the citizens want that their country and the resources will be controlled by them then the slogan of the movement is applicable to them: We are the 99%, free Bangladesh from occupation.

Kowshik Ahmed posts pictures of the protests in BDNews24blog and in a Facebook Album. He also posts a video showing the rally. An anonymous blogger at Sachalayatan describes about today’s protest in Dhaka: 

Thousands of people gathered in Wall Street to protest against Corporatism. Today Saturday a few hundreds of vocal Bangladeshi citizens expressed solidarity with that protest. [..] Today the left leaning politicians are in the fore front of this protest. But this place is not even theirs. This place is ours. This place is for those who are becoming aware by sharing the news and expressing themselves using the alternative media – blogs and Facebook. We do not share the ideology of the left, but we see the awareness in them. So we are with them in solidarity with the “Occupy Bangladesh” movement.

We cannot tell whether these protests, these slogans and rallies will be successful. We do not know whether this movement of the new generation generating Godspeed by posting in Facebook or blogs will bring success in the coming days. But we believe in one thing. One day, the sleeping citizens will be awake. One day everybody will be in the streets. One day, instead of being a puppet of the 1%, the 99% will be on their own. That day they will rise and realize that we were before them. Our responsibility is to carry this movement till they wake up.

AUTHOR: Rezwan
URL: http://rezwanul.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: i_rezwan [at] hotmail.com

Comments

One Response to “Occupy Dhaka: Joining The Global Movement Against The 1%”

  1. Dr. Sultan Ahmad
    oktober 25th, 2011 @ 17:34

    What else left for the silent majority of the people to do. Nothing. The two ladies, in the guise of democracy, are engaged in helping corruption, extortion, land grabbing, Hijacking, looting money from the share market and above all granting immunity to the party activists. There is no other way but to drive them and their close associates out of politics for ever.

Leave a Reply





  • agriculture (29)
    book (3)
    briefing (16)
    business & trade (21)
    child (92)
    consumption (3)
    corruption (20)
    crime (152)
    culture (30)
    defence (15)
    deforestation (6)
    democratization (54)
    demography (6)
    Discovery (5)
    drugs (73)
    Dutch foreign policy (3)
    economic (105)
    education (28)
    effectiveness (3)
    election (64)
    embassy news (1)
    emergency (8)
    energy (42)
    environment (144)
    Eurasia (36)
    Europe (36)
    fair trade (5)
    flora & fauna (24)
    foreign aid (28)
    foreign embassy in the Netherlands (2)
    foreign policy (56)
    gender (17)
    global (270)
    globalization (5)
    health (95)
    history (19)
    homosexuality (4)
    human rights (309)
    hunger & food (20)
    immigration (3)
    infrastructure (28)
    intelligence (7)
    interview (26)
    Latin America (214)
    list (5)
    media (64)
    Middle East (358)
    Millennium Development Goals (21)
    minorities (41)
    movement (38)
    multilateral organizations (40)
    narration (5)
    natural disasters (9)
    Netherlands (31)
    NGO (20)
    NL-Aid (9)
    Northern Africa (187)
    Northern America (130)
    nuclear (4)
    opinion (37)
    Pacific (2)
    peacekeeping (1)
    politics (129)
    poverty (27)
    racism (2)
    raw material (30)
    reconstruction (1)
    refugees (20)
    religion (23)
    remembrance (3)
    research (11)
    revolt (186)
    Royal Dutch Embassy (1)
    sanitation (16)
    slums (2)
    South Asia (451)
    South-east Asia (112)
    study (19)
    Sub-Saharan Africa (446)
    technology (14)
    terrorism (90)
    tourism (6)
    trade (11)
    transport (6)
    Updaid (1)
    war & conflicts (145)
    war crimes (36)
    water (40)
    whistleblower (8)
    women (54)

    WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.

Page 1 of 11