Image is of vehicles set aflame by protestors near a government building.
Since July 1st, students have protested the unpopular proposal in which 30% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their relatives. In a country with a youth unemployment rate of around 20% and a population of 170 million, a large number of otherwise eligible and competent people would have been forced out due to favouritism for veterans. As with basically every country on the planet over the last couple years, Bangladesh is suffering from inflation and an increasing cost-of-living, further exacerbating tensions.
The student protests have been met with significant violence by the government - local newspapers report that over a hundred protestors have been killed, and thousands have been injured. Guns and tear gas have been used. Additionally, the government has completely cut internet access throughout Bangladesh to prevent organizing, which has had some success in dividing protestors, but has also only further angered various parts of the country due to the massive impact to Bangladesh’s online industries and various startups. And a national curfew has been in place to limit movement, with the population told to remain home if they want to be safe.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh relented, stating that now, only 5% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans and their families. 2% would be allocated to members of minorities, with the remaining 93% distributed on merit. A period of tentative calm has arrived, but Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, has stated that unless the government restores the internet, removes the curfew, releases detainees, and forces certain ministers to resign within a few days, then the protests will resume.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Bangladesh! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been having trouble sorting out exactly what’s going on politically in Bangladesh over the last couple days. Any time the “authoritarian” label gets bandied about by the liberal media, my skepticism goes through the roof, so I’ve been looking at what Hasina and the Awami League in general is about and I’m just confused. They’re like… nationalist liberals who are also reactionary but also like socialism, but also think socialism is just helping the people? And they like China and BRICS and Palestine and dislike Israel, but also like India under Modi? I’m reminded of Gaddafi, honestly. Very idiosyncratic.
Whenever there’s protests in developing countries, especially student protests, my Colour Revolution Alarm starts gently ringing, but I don’t want to go into this with limited information and make assumptions and risk accidentally supporting either US protestor stooges or a genuinely shitty regime, so I’m going to sit back and wait until somebody more knowledgeable can give me a good rundown.
100% same attitude as you, with a notation that in colour revolutions, they likely wouldn’t dare even to suggest supporting China, Russia, Palestine, BRICS, etc. Like, the CIA cannot allow any of that to seep into the movement. Just an armchair analysis though.
I once saw a documentary that included the owner of a clothing factory in Bangladesh. While I wouldn’t call him sympathetic, he clearly didn’t have much more wealth than the typical worker and was outlining (correctly) that he had no choice but to pay the horrible wages he did, otherwise he would have no business with the western clothing manufacturers. That’s an anecdote and not data, but there probably is some sort of strata of Bangladeshi society that would be a sort of national bourgeoise that is completely subjected to the whims of international capital.
They’re left nationalists, which you could include with Gaddafi or Nassar or many decolonial movements, but south Asian geopolitics means they also like India because they don’t like Pakistan (their former overlord)
patsocs with bangladeshi charateristics.
Cool let’s just start equating third world nationalism with imperial core nationalism because a bunch of guys in badly fitted suits tweeted their way into existence.
Avg. 2024 Hexbear learning about the Iraq Baathist party: “whoa, patsoc much!?”
a) i think people on lefty forum can read tongue-in-cheek comment
b) nationalism is a shortcut instead of/in addition to worker solidarity. bangladesh had workers strikes in january, now they have students movement, it reads as disjointed actions, natural outcome of not easily synthesizable movements is (third world) nationalism, which while good in liberatory sense, doesn’t necessarily mean worker’s empowerement, it (in nationalist form) could be coopted by local bourgeoisie.
c) a lot of organizers were arrested before and after january protests, as i understand it.
still nothing to do with Twitch brainrot
twitch brainrotedness is transposing third world nationalism onto imperial core. Patsocs imagine themselves as ho chi minh, while they are mitterand.
Calling the real object by its warped reflection name is kinda direct link, non?
That’s cool purple prose about your new online influencer fixation but it still doesn’t really have anything to do with what’s going on in Bangladesh
gentleposters, there’s no fighting in here, this is the newsmega!
Still no geopolitics in the thread, I’m asshurt beyond belief to this very moment. Not to mention people trying to dunk in my replies when I’m correcting slapping random labels onto internet grifters.
Next thread I will add my own bulletin like Redcuban or something to get the pot stirring again to make up for it.