Bangladesh Wins, UK Rises Against Hate & Nigerians Protest Bad Governance

Editor's Note From Rivera Sun

This week, we celebrate the remarkable success of Bangladesh’s student-led movement to get their prime minister to resign. Facing discriminatory policies, economic hardship, and political corruption, the weeks-long mass protests finally forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country. The movement proposed Dr. Muhammad Yunus, a Noble Prize winner, to lead the interim government. It’s an impressive win for many reasons.

Globally, we’ve been seeing numerous movements struggle with military coups in the wake of a nonviolent campaign to oust a power holder. Egypt in 2011 and Sudan in 2019 are just two of many examples. So, Bangladesh’s ability to get Dr. Yunus in as the interim leader is significant … and even more significant is the powerful cabinet positions being filled by economic, climate, and social justice leaders, as well as two members of the student movement that led the protests. None of this was guaranteed and the movement showed a powerful grasp of strategy. Here are 3 things they got right.

Withstand repression. Maintain discipline. More than 300 people were killed by security forces and members of the former prime minister’s party amidst the unrest of the protests. Facing this, the movement could have collapsed or descended into widespread retaliatory street brawling. But overall, the primarily peaceful movement largely maintained nonviolent discipline even amidst deadly repression as they pushed for their prime minister to step down. (In the wake of the prime minister’s resignation, however, the country faces new challenges around violent attacks against members of the prime minister’s party. There are signs that the student movement and the interim government are working together to halt the retaliatory cycle. Stay tuned.)

Have a plan for the power vacuum. Bangladesh has seen many military coups since its independence from Pakistan in 1971. It could easily have had another one. But the movement had a clear choice for an interim leader: Muhammad Yunus, the nation’s Nobel Prize winner for his microlending program. Yunus will serve as the ‘chief advisor’ of the caretaker government between now and when elections can be held.

Keep the pressure up during the transition. Even as Yunus was sworn in, unrest continued. Police absconded from their duties, failing to even do basic things like traffic control. So the protest movement showed up to direct traffic … demonstrating to the nation that they care for civic life and their society in a deep and profound way. They have also formed nighttime patrols to protect people and property from rioting, looting, or targeted attacks. There is a lot we can learn from Bangladesh’s protest movement. Keep following this story to see how it unfolds in the next weeks. They are leading the way forward for social movements worldwide.

It’s been a wild week. In more Nonviolence News, Venezuela’s contested elections have seen dueling marches in support of each candidate, tens of thousands of Nigerians are protesting bad governance, China’s #MeToo Movement scored a rare win, and pro-Palestinian activists are blocking oil tankers, disrupting political rallies, marching and holding a host of other actions to stop Israel’s bombings of Gaza. In the United Kingdom, a horrific stabbing unleashed the far-right hatred of Muslims and migrants (despite the attacker being neither of those things), but tens of thousands of people flooded the streets in a show of support for minorities, swiftly outnumbering the far right in a powerful use of nonviolent action.

Find these stories and more in Nonviolence News>>

In solidarity,
Rivera Sun