You’ve seen them flying the banner of **’Shamm, Humanistic Morjada, and Inshaf’** \[Equality, Human Dignity, and Justice\], haven’t you? The spelling of those who fly this banner is a little different from mine, so mine might seem unfamiliar; they say it like this: **Samya, Manobik Morjada, ebong Samajik Nyaybichar** \[Equality, Human Dignity, and Social Justice\]. \[I had to write ‘Morjada’ because my alphabet lacks the letter ‘y’\!\]
The point is, they want these things—which is great\! But I’m a **cynic** or a **fault-finder**, so I see some flaws even in this\! How? Read below.
In Bengali, **’Obichar’** means the English **’Injustice,’** and **’Bichar’** is **’Justice.’** So why do they put **’Nyay’** \[Right/Just\] before **’Bichar’** \[Justice\]? God knows\! Thinking in their way, **’Bichar’** might actually mean **’Injustice,’** and its opposite is **’Nyaybichar’** \[Justice\]\!
No, I don’t care much about grammar or law; I’m trying to highlight their scorn for **’Aamjonotar Bangla’** \[the language of the common people\]. When the common people say, **’Deshe bichar-achar nai’** \[There is no justice/judgement in the country\], they might understand that the common people are saying, **’The country is full of Justice\!’** On the other hand, many are highly allergic to the word **’Inshaf’** \[Justice, derived from Arabic/Persian\].
And why say **’Shamajik Nyaybichar’** \[Social Justice\]? Did they think there was a possibility of this thing existing somewhere outside of society, and that’s why they needed to specify that they were talking about society’s **Inshaf/Nyaybichar**? Again, God knows\!
Moreover, why are **Shamm/Samya/Shomota** \[Equality\] and **Humanistic Morjada** \[Human Dignity\] needed on that banner? Their idea of **Shamm** seems to be only in the legal sense, not like they are talking about using Marx’s sickle to shave off the wealth of the rich and make everyone equal. Now, tell me, can **’Nyaybichar/Inshaf’** exist without legal **Shamm** and humanistic **Morjada**? I mean, can we say: **”There is no legal Shamm or humanistic Morjada in that society, but there is immense Inshaf\!”**? If we can’t, then it looks like what they are trying to say with all those words can actually be said in just one word: **’Inshaf/Nyaybichar\!’** Those are the conditions for **Inshaf**, the targets; if they don’t exist, **Inshaf** doesn’t exist either\!
But entirely apart from all this, the real reason for sorrow is that this whole discussion of mine is pointless, because by flying that banner, they aren’t talking about **Bichar** or **Obichar** or **Shamm** or **Humanistic Morjada**—none of that\! By flying that banner, they are actually sending a message to the **Awami/BAKSAL** \[referring to the Awami League and its one-party rule BAKSAL\]: **”We are supporters of the Liberation War\!”** And they are telling the common people: **”But we are not BAKSAL\!”** Think about it, what a massive deception\! That banner, they say, was in the manifesto/declaration of Bangladesh’s Liberation War; but BAKSAL doesn’t say that, maybe they don’t have time after saying ‘Joy Bangla’; so, by saying **’Shamm, Humanistic Morjada, ebong Shamajik Nyaybichar,’** they can very comfortably claim to be supporters of the Liberation War and claim not to be BAKSAL\!
Oh, sorry, this writing of mine is supposed to be about Putin, Russia, Ukraine, etc., but where am I wandering\!
However, the entire discussion above isn’t useless; the discussion about **Inshaf** will be needed again\! Why will it be needed? Let’s try to understand that with another question\!
You know the words **Civilization, Civil, Civilized, Shobhyo** \[Polite/Cultured\]—but what do you call **Civilization**? What do we understand by **Civilized people**?
You will find many definitions of **Civilization**; for instance, the hubbub called ‘Buddhir Mukti’ \[Liberation of Intellect\] that happened in Dhaka long ago was actually an attempt to become **Civilized**\! Or the superstitions, the middle ages that Science or Humayun Azad wanted to escape—those are also discussions of **Civilization**\! Or take the pyramids, or Roman concrete, or Mesopotamian cuneiform writing, or being able to count 1/2/3, or cooking meat instead of eating it raw, or liberal democracy—all these are attempts to become **Civilized**; people include them in the description or definition of **Civilization**\!
But in my view, the discussion of **Civilization** is actually the discussion of **Inshaf**\! Now consider: there are societies in the Andamans, or the Amazon, or Africa, where the very discussion of **Inshaf** is rejected\! That is, the discussion of **Inshaf** is only possible when the ideas of **Zulum** \[Oppression\] and **Golami** \[Slavery/Servitude\] have emerged in society\! And directly related to **Zulum** and **Golami** is the private ownership of land, surplus, and the plunder of it. The people can respond to that plunder, so **’Law and Order’** is necessary, and step by step, the **Rashto** \[State\] takes shape. This essentially means that the discussion of **Inshaf** in the world is a discussion that comes **after** the State is born. The people who are within **Zulum** and **Golami** are trying to keep the **Golami** and **Zulum** minimal through the system, unable to fight the State directly. The theoretical manifestation of that desire is perhaps what we know as **Inshaf**\! On the other hand, the **Rashto** also incorporated the idea of **Inshaf** within itself at some point in history. It did so because, by doing this, it could claim its legitimacy through the narrative of delivering **Inshaf** while concealing its original lust, and gaining the approval of the people became a little easier. Before the State, the idea of **Zulum** and **Golami** seems so minimal that the need for a discussion of **Inshaf** is not strongly felt\! What I mean is that after the State is born, people have to live amidst **Zulum** and massive **Golami**, and the struggle for freedom from this **Zulum** and **Golami** is called the discussion of **Inshaf**, and that is the discussion of **Civilization**.
Therefore, the society-state where there is more **Inshaf** is the more **Shobhyo** \[Civilized\] society-state; other indicators or meters of **Civilization** are not so necessary. I say not necessary because they, when presented alone, nearly abolish the discussion of **Inshaf** \[e.g., freedom of expression or the LGBTQ+ movement\]\! They can sometimes be considered meters of **Inshaf**.
Oppression (**Zulum**) is a bit tricky, though. Say I said, “So-and-so killed your cow,” and it sounded very much like **Zulum**; but the fact is, that so-and-so did the necessary job of slaughtering the cow for your mother’s death anniversary feast\! But if that so-and-so slaughtered and ate your cow, that *is* **Zulum**\! So the complication is a matter of **your acceptance or non-acceptance**; if it’s done for your need, of course, but at least whether it was done with your **Kubuliyot** \[acceptance/consent\], that makes it clear whether the slaughtering of your cow was **Zulum** or not\!
The entire matter can be understood like this: In all the aspects of your life, the less value your **Kubuliyot** has, the more your **Golami** is, meaning the more the **Zulum**, and the less the **Inshaf**. Suppose there is no room for your **Kubuliyot** regarding where you live, how you move, what you do, or what you eat—if the custodians of the State run you according to their whims, it means you are in massive **Golami**, and severe **Zulum** is occurring in that State.
So, **Civilization** means the fight to minimize that **Golami** of yours. The history of **Civilization** has been walking through the tension between **Golami** and **Kubuliyot** since the beginning of the State. The idea of **Kubuliyot** is not at all a modern event; the value of **Kubuliyot** in the State is not just a liberal democracy phenomenon, nor is it only a phenomenon of those old Greek-Roman democracies\!
And **Kubuliyot** is still partial; democracy doesn’t take the **Kubuliyot** of citizens under 18; the beginning of taking women’s **Kubuliyot** is only a 100-year-old event. So what was the matter of **Kubuliyot** like at the beginning of the State? Ayub Khan’s basic democracy in Pakistan is another type of that early State **Kubuliyot** collection\! Your clan head, for instance, would give **Kubuliyot** on your behalf \[in the time of the *Khulafa-e-Rashidin*, the form of **Kubuliyot** was taking *Bayat* (oath of allegiance); in my opinion, the word ‘Vote’ comes from the Arabic ‘Bayat’\]. Even now, the head of the family might make the decision, and the family members vote according to their decision.
This **Vote** or **Bayat** is, in my assessment, the taking of **Kubuliyot**; I have some objections to the ideas of liberal democracy, so I am not exactly a proponent of democracy. My political narrative is called **’Kubuliyoter Shason’** \[The Rule of Consent\]; I have a book by this name, you’ll find it if you search.
In two words, the matter is like this: The talk of **the rule of the people** is fake—even the rule of the **majority**—rule is done only by a few people. Any system of rule hires intellectuals who fool the citizens, presenting the rule of a few as the rule of the citizens, creating an illusion in a democratic State. But a more dangerous matter than this is that even if it were the rule of the people/majority, it would still be an attempt to dominate, and in that sense, one finds a shadow of the essence of the old monarchical rule here. On the other hand, those who want to be rulers will certainly want to dominate, but the political theory/narrative of the intellectuals is supposed to be about **what kind of rule the citizens want to live under\!** If the desire of those who want to dominate is the essence of political theory, then they are just hired intellectuals of those few, enemies of the citizens\!
\ **B.** Putin has a massive complaint against **NATO** on the world stage; he says NATO has provoked Ukraine and is moving further east without paying attention to Russia’s objections. However, Putin’s attack on Ukraine revealed that Ukraine was, conversely, provoking NATO to let it in\! NATO, in fact, didn’t accept Ukraine, giving more weight to Putin’s objection\! Russia has borders with NATO because a few NATO countries share a border with Russia: Estonia, Latvia, etc. When these countries joined NATO, Russia objected then; there are still objections to Sweden, Finland, or Ukraine joining NATO. The point is, Russia doesn’t want any border with NATO. The fact that NATO didn’t accept Ukraine even though Ukraine repeatedly wanted to join makes it clear that NATO also considers maintaining a border with Russia risky. On the other hand, although Russia’s claim is that NATO provokes, did NATO provoke Estonia and Latvia, or did these two countries want to join NATO? In the Ukraine case, one can guess that, like Ukraine, they also wanted to join NATO\! Finland and Sweden also want to join NATO now. The question is why? What are these countries afraid of? Why do they want to join NATO? In Ukraine, notice that a puppet government of Russia was in power, and the people of Ukraine drove it out; he is now in Russia’s shelter. The system Putin tried to implement in Ukraine was similar to what he has done in Belarus, where he directly supported Lukashenko to stay in power. You will find the same thing in Kazakhstan. Putin failed in Ukraine. The result of that was Putin’s occupation of Crimea. It seems Putin will eventually occupy some more parts of Eastern Ukraine. So the thing is simple. Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Finland, or Sweden don’t want a Lukashenko in their respective countries. They fear Russia will do something like that, and that’s why they want NATO’s shelter. Among NATO countries, only Turkey, under Erdogan, is run in Putin’s style, and NATO doesn’t want that. But we also need to think from another perspective. NATO has killed millions by attacking Iraq or Afghanistan, yet people don’t see NATO as a typical **Imperial Alliance**, not even the Bangladeshis who take Putin’s side in the attack on Ukraine\! Although they often say so, they don’t truly see it that way; they see it as a **Defensive Alliance**\! How so? Notice that Ukraine wants to join NATO because it fears Putin/Russia might occupy it; but does Ukraine fear NATO as well? There is no discussion on this point\! Suppose Poland or Germany wanted to occupy Ukraine, who would stop that? Why is the possibility that NATO could occupy Ukraine or Finland completely absent from the discussion of NATO-America’s imperialism? Putin will say, “I will save you, come to my side\!” But think about it, NATO can save you from Putin-Russia, and Russia can save you from NATO—what is the cost of each? The cost of saving yourself from NATO by joining Putin is a Lukashenko-like rule, who can kill thousands of citizens, jail them, discard elections as a worthless thing, steal billions of dollars from citizens, and the people will be able to do nothing; if they take to the streets, they will be shot by Russian guns\! Putin is unwilling to tolerate any election on his border, as it is a threat to Putin’s BAKSAL-like system in Russia\! So, the attack on Ukraine is a must for Putin; NATO’s provocation is not needed at all\! I guess that if Putin manages to install a left-wing Lukashenko in Sweden, the world’s leftists will heavily support him\! Even critics of American imperialism in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh will support it. And what is the cost of saving yourself from Putin with NATO? It is so low that Trump said America was providing free security and was asking for money from European countries. Moreover, NATO security has two layers\! Suppose Ukraine joined NATO, and then Hungary attacked Ukraine. What would happen then? Russia could support Ukraine, or the remaining NATO countries would go to war with Hungary, on the side of the victim country, if two NATO countries were at war\! Then, Russia might support Hungary to teach NATO a lesson\! But if a NATO member attacks a non-NATO country, NATO can’t do anything; even if the remaining countries oppose the attack, they can’t do anything\! So NATO is not just providing security against Russia; it is also providing security against the other NATO countries\! **C.** But beyond this discussion of political economy, we must return to the philosophical discussion. If we look at the world history in this era, we see that countries with democracy don’t exactly engage in disappearance and murder of their own citizens like Lukashenko, Putin, or Bangladesh’s BAKSAL, but they are killing millions abroad\! Besides Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, Israel is a democratic country, but it is not at all stopping the killings and attacks in Palestine\! Even in India, severe attacks on the country’s own minorities can continue\! Even Zelensky, who was elected in Ukraine with 73% of the vote, took Israel’s side regarding the continuous attacks on the Palestinians\! This means there is a fundamental flaw in what we know as **Democracy**\! We need to judge this with great caution. Because of this flaw, in my assessment, many people worldwide, besides many familiar Bangladeshis, are unwilling to take the side of the oppressed in Putin’s attack on Ukraine, and they don’t face any ethical dilemma in doing so\! Perhaps the matter is not even that; they cannot recognize the oppressed\! Perhaps because of that flaw, the gaze for recognizing the oppressed has become largely blurred in the world\! Another issue needs to be brought up with this; I’ll say it in just two words, I had said it in a little more detail in an old article: **French philosophy** has blurred the thing called **Truth**, and its ultimate result is that the death of a human no longer receives the respect of death for many—does a human really die? If a bullet entered your chest, that’s your version. The gun has a version, the gunman has a version, that kite that was flying above (my version, or is it a heron of the Khagdon River\!), that kite has a version, there are many things, there is just no **Truth**, or it is unknown, there is no way to know, man himself is metaphysics. So, what could be the fundamental flaw of democracy? Democracy had the oath of **Inshaf**, and its banner, unlike all other political systems, called people, saying it would provide **Inshaf**; the king, feudalism, autocracy, oligarchy, or tribal rule cannot provide **Inshaf**, at least not nearly as much as democracy can\! And every ruler considers himself God, and there is no way for a worldly judgment of any ruler’s track record. Conversely, in democracy, the ruler is the servant of the people, and the people have the power and authority to judge him according to his track record. Thus, **Democracy** is the least bad system for the oppressed to get justice\! Now, think, who is most likely to be a victim of **Zulum**? Who needs **Inshaf** the most? For whom is obtaining **Inshaf** the hardest? The **weak**. So, the system called Democracy should be on the side of the **weakest** in society. And if this is true inside the country, regarding its citizens, should it be anything different outside the country? No\! So how did such a flaw happen\!? Such a flaw could happen because **democracy betrayed its oath**; it was no longer faithful to the narrative with which it gained legitimacy. Or, in standing up as a reaction to feudalism, it did not get time to give its own narrative a strong foundation\! The logic of the monarchical political system was the **rule of the powerful**; in feudalism, lineage was added to power, which ultimately was still power. Did democracy, by driving these away, establish the **rule of the weak**? No. Theoretically, democracy is actually saying that a ruler is an undesirable thing\! But the State exists, rule exists, so the ruler will also exist. But since the ruler is a **necessary/compulsory undesirable thing**—a necessary evil—the ruler must be **bound** as much as possible\! Judging the ruler’s track record and elections are the ways to bind the ruler. An election, therefore, is not an effort to install someone in power, but rather a fight to remove someone from power or prevent someone from sitting in power. Party members want to install someone, and they will, but for the common people, the event is the opposite. That means party members vote, but the common people only **accept**, they only **permit**. If the intellectuals-narrators-artists had kept the **people’s dislike for the ruler** as the default of democracy, then the ruler’s effort would be to **win the Kubuliyot of the weakest in the State**, to be busy pleasing them. There is no other way to achieve **Inshaf** for the weakest. But instead of this, democracy has actually become the **rule of another powerful entity**; the difference is that in the monarchical system, the powerful one is the king, and in the democracy we see, the powerful one is the **people\!** And this **people** certainly means the **majority**; sometimes the majority is easily found through the narrative of nationality, sometimes religion, etc., so the **weakest** is not needed at all here\! Thus, the ultimate destination of this type of democracy becomes **populism**. If you notice, a cruel mechanism of **biological evolution and natural selection** continues within this matter; the only path left for the weak is simply to cease to exist\! Think about this foundational issue of political philosophy: If the **rule of the powerful** remains in effect, if the **consent of the weak** becomes a useless thing in democracy, and if we legitimize the **natural selection of the living world** in human society, then you can effortlessly create Kashmir or Palestine or Yemen through democracy. In that context, driving out the Palestinians doesn’t seem out of place with that democracy\! And then, look, democracy, which swore to establish **Inshaf**, itself becomes a **factory of Zulum**\! I called this matter the **fundamental flaw of democracy**. Unless we can escape the idea of the **rule of the powerful and the majority**, there is no way to escape that fundamental flaw of democracy\! \ **D.** There are many people in the world who don’t like elections, and there are powerful narratives for that. And if election-based democracy actually commits such **Zulum**, if it doesn’t respect the right of the weak to **Inshaf**, then what’s the problem with Lukashenko or Putin? What great difference did we find between them and the elected Zelensky\! Only the difference that he doesn’t kill his own citizens as much is enough, actually\! But I think about the matter from another perspective. In reality, the fact is, there is no collective in the world that doesn’t have elections\! Elections don’t just happen in one form. Are there no elections in China or Taliban’s Afghanistan? Of course, there are; elections certainly exist in Lukashenko’s, Putin’s, or Erdogan’s Turkey\! In China, for example, only party members vote. The Taliban also has elections; there too, only party members are the voters\! The members of Lukashenko’s or Putin’s gang are the voters; they make decisions based on their **Kubuliyot** or vote. And the power of these voters is a little less, because they do not have the authority to remove Putin or Lukashenko from power, and that is the condition for them to be members of that gang. Elections have existed in all eras of history, from the tribal system to the monarchical system; the difference is in the election system and who the voters are. Perhaps there were only a few overly careless kings who didn’t care for the vote or **Kubuliyot** of anyone in the court, and they died within a few days\! Just because not everyone was a voter doesn’t mean you can’t call it an election; because in that case, there is no election in the world\! Even now, no one under 18 can be a voter, and only 45 years ago, women in Portugal could not vote\! In the modern era, Ayub Khan in Pakistan formally introduced a somewhat monarchical system of election, in his basic democracy. So what does it mean when China, Putin, or the Taliban don’t conduct elections? It simply means that those systems do not respect the right of the majority of adult citizens to vote, nothing else. The Taliban not liking elections means that unless you are a party member, you cannot vote; they do not respect the right of people to give or withhold **Kubuliyot**. So we need to try to agree on a bottom line. In my opinion, that bottom line is **Inshaf** \[Justice\]. The destination of human society is to ensure the rightful **Inshaf** of the **weakest**. **Inshaf** is at the center of all world theories, political thoughts, and religions; even Plato’s rule of **Truth** ultimately demands **Inshaf**, because **Inshaf** cannot be established without **Truth**. The version of **Truth** that French philosophy speaks of also has behind it the desire for a more perfect understanding of **Truth**\! To ensure the rightful **Inshaf** of the **weakest**, the **Kubuliyot** of the **weakest** must be made the most valuable thing in the political system\! Because the lack of **Kubuliyot** is the beginning of **Zulum**, the beginning of **Zulum** means the increase of human **Golami** \[servitude/slavery\], and the relationship between **Golami** and **Inshaf** is inverse: the more **Golami**, the less **Inshaf**. We need to think even further; the ultimate destination of human society does not end at the human boundary; the ultimate destination of human society is to establish **Inshaf** for **all creatures**. A happy or unhappy dog is a dog, of course, and can also be the reason for happiness or sorrow in a human mind\! We also need to remember that **Kubuliyot** is not a simple matter. For instance, we must define the boundary between parenting and **Zulum**; is education **Zulum**? Should we educate children by getting their consent, or does the **Kubuliyot** of a minor have no value? Notice, is it even possible to teach the lesson/education of the value of **Kubuliyot** without giving any value to the **Kubuliyot** of a minor? And so much more\! We need to settle the limits of hospitals and prisons; what is the value of the **Kubuliyot** of a suicidal person? Since we are so far behind in giving value to the **Kubuliyot** of all adult, sensible people in the world, when will we find the time to think about the limits of prison, minor, or hospital? And when will we go beyond humanity to think about the happiness and sorrow of all creatures\! //RokomshaherBoyan \[The Narrative of Rokomshah\], March 7-31, 2022
comment/ফতোয়া