The Revolutionary Communist International salutes the inspiring bravery of the students of Bangladesh. Their movement, which began in protest against a rotten quota system, has escalated to demand the downfall of the murderous Hasina regime.
Our comrades, in over 40 countries around the world, stand in full solidarity with you. The just cause of Bangladesh’s students is the cause of the working class and youth of the whole world! The world must know what is really happening in Bangladesh.
This long ago ceased to be merely about the corrupt quota system, used by Hasina’s regime to reward its loyalest lackeys.
Since the regime responded with murder, arrests and torture, it has become clear that a free and dignified existence for the masses in Bangladesh is impossible whilst this regime stands. It must be brought down and the killers brought to justice.
In the words of the students: “First we count the bodies, then we count the quota.”
The need for international solidarity is urgent. Despite the campaign of murder conducted by the Hasina regime, the defiant students have refused to back down on even a single demand.
The repression has not abated either. Police are continuing their door-to-door round ups. Over 2,000 have been arrested according to official figures.
Bodies are still arriving at the morgues. Doctors are reporting that bodies are being stacked on top of one another as morgues fill to overflowing. Newspapers in Bangladesh have counted over 200 dead – but this figure is likely to be a gross underestimate.
The regime is desperately trying to cover its tracks. Police have gone from hospital to hospital, and have confiscated the registers of the deceased so that no one can know the true scale of their crime. But we will not allow this cover up to succeed!
WATCH #HasinaMustGo https://t.co/pyuZYK1pYI pic.twitter.com/ivIiDqHQuR
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) July 23, 2024
It is the internationalist duty of students and workers everywhere to shine a light on the crimes of Hasina’s regime, and to break the complicit conspiracy of silence of the international media.
We express our utter condemnation of this wall of silence by the media. The billionaire-owned press see Hasina as a loyal representative of their class. She has turned Bangladesh into a paradise of cheap labour for their class to exploit. From the blood of the Bangladeshi working class, they coin enormous profits every year. They therefore shamefully close their eyes to the shedding of further blood to maintain their loyal stooge.
We likewise express our utter condemnation of the so-called ‘international community’. They have not moved a muscle. This ‘community’ is one of plunderers and exploiters. Hasina is one of their own.
These rotten capitalist regimes sense a subterranean mood of revolutionary anger among the workers and youth of their own countries. Nothing strikes greater fear into their hearts than the prospect of the brave example of Bangladesh’s students being replicated at home.
That is true of the regimes in the United States, in Britain, in India, and even in Pakistan.
The Hasina regime tries to blame the old enemy of Pakistan and ‘shadowy actors’ manipulating the protests. They lie! The rotten ruling cliques in all these countries – be they friends or rivals of Hasina and her gang – fear the example of Bangladesh’s students!
But the poor and downtrodden everywhere look with the warmest sympathy upon your struggle. To the students of Bangladesh we say: Here alone is your one real ally – the youth and working class of Bangladesh and of the whole world!
We will do everything we can to bring the attention of the working class everywhere to your plight.
We call for protests of solidarity in all major campuses, outside embassies and media outlets. And we call for trade unions and workers’ organisations, and student organisations everywhere, to link up with diaspora communities to organise protests denouncing the slaughter.
Sign our petition, and join our vigil this Sunday for students killed in Bangladesh. The student movement in Britain must support the students in Bangladesh! #SaveBangladeshiStudents #HasinaMustGo https://t.co/hgato7jYQG pic.twitter.com/M1xDQ5kZIm
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) July 26, 2024
Make no mistake, this is a class war that Hasina is waging. Her regime has only one aim: to create an ‘orderly’ situation in which the capitalist class – the garment manufacturers and giant multinationals, and, of course, her own clique – can exploit and rob the working masses of Bangladesh in peace.
The masses are being crushed mercilessly by the crisis of capitalism; by inflation, unemployment, and poverty. Millions have been forced to emigrate in the search for jobs with which to maintain their families back home, often ending up in low-paid jobs with no rights, and suffering racism and oppression in the countries they have gone to.
They have reached the limit of what they can take. They identified the students’ struggle with that against their own hated oppression and exploitation.
Hasina was threatened with an explosion of the working class. It would have brought down her regime, of that there can be no doubt. She thus opted for the swiftest and most brutal repression before such a movement could spread to the workers.
Sheikh Hasina called the student protesters razakar. But in reality, it is the Awami League and the Bangladeshi ruling class as a whole who have betrayed the liberation struggle, which was waged by the workers, students and poor peasants.
In fact, the Bangladeshi students in their movement against quotas are rekindling the flame of revolutionary struggle, and retying the knot of history with the best of the revolutionary traditions of the past.
But whilst using the utmost brutality against the masses, she has done everything in her power to please the capitalists and ensure the masses are crushed without hurting their profits.
The curfew and blackout have created harsh suffering for the masses. However, Hasina has exempted 400 garment factories in the Chittagong EPZ (Export Processing Zones), where 500,000 garment workers are employed.
They are being allowed to remain open in order that the capitalists can continue making their fabulous profits unimpeded. However, there is nothing that Hasina and the ruling class fears more than the student movement linking up with the workers, and especially the garment workers, whose power we had a glimpse of during the wave of strikes in November.
Big foreign companies worried about their supplies, not the fate of students or anyone else. They put profits before lives!
H&M said it was “concerned about . . . the violence” and “continuously monitoring the developments”.
Steve Lamar, president of the American Apparel &… pic.twitter.com/ttsMh9SZly
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) July 25, 2024
We have thus seen state forces being used to stop anyone getting in or out of EPZs. The regime is trying to establish a cordon sanitaire between the students and these powerful sections of the working class.
In order to bring victory to the movement, we must break through this cordon. In order to bring down the Hasina regime, the power of the working class must be mobilised. What is needed is an all-out hartal (general strike and shutdown), linked to the formation of saṅgrāma pariṣada (councils of struggle) bringing students and workers together.
Through such action committees, organised at the local, city, district and national level, it would be possible not only to coordinate self-defence and to systematically broaden the movement, but to form organs of workers’ power that could challenge the brutal regime and pose the question of who rules the country.
The point is not to replace the Awami League for the equally corrupt BNP, which also serves the interests of the capitalists and the multinationals, but that the working people of Bangladesh should take the running of the country into their own hands.
Victory to the students of Bangladesh! Long live international solidarity!
Down with the Hasina regime! Down with capitalism!
RCP comrades offer support and solidarity to Bangladeshi student protests
Alen Yerinkov and George Williams
We joined a recent Bangladeshi rally in central London, directed against the Hasina regime and its killing of 300-plus student protesters, who are mobilising against the government’s hated quota system.
Thousands assembled in Trafalgar Square for this solidarity protest, on 22 July, before marching to Parliament Square. The demonstration was full of energy, providing a powerful voice for the Bangladeshi community in Britain.
While youth in Bangladesh face repression there, the Bangladeshi community here has also been under attack – from the incoming UK PM, ‘Sir’ Kid Starver.
Ultimately, Starmer and Hasina are both representatives of the same rotten system.
STUDENTS IN BANGLADESH ARE BEING ATTACKED. There is a total black out in the media. Internet cut off. The situation is critical. Huge support for all the brave students from East London tonight. #SaveBangladeshiStudents pic.twitter.com/AbSyawC0Jz
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) July 18, 2024
Protesters brought Bangladesh flags, chanting in both English and Bengali for Hasina to step down, and shaming the regime for its brutality.
Bangladesh is experiencing a very convenient media blackout, allowing the ruling class to cover its tracks. Similarly, western media has shown an utter disinterest in covering these events.
We were warmly welcomed by the demonstrators; in particular, by the ‘We are Bangladesh’ campaign group, who were enthused by our presence and support.
We spoke to many of the protesters, to get an impression of the general mood.
“One of the worst things about Hasina’s regime and the killing of students,” one told us, “is that the youth are the bones of society; they’re the future.”
“If you shatter the bones, the body can’t walk,” they continued. “The government doesn’t care about our future. It doesn’t care about us.”
They later noted how outrageous it is that Hasina is on holiday in Spain, while the students are risking their lives on the streets. The regime wastes money on helicopter rides, they added, while ordinary Bangladeshis suffer in poor living conditions.
We put forward demands for worker solidarity with the students, both in Bangladesh and internationally, and discussed plans for a general strike and for broadening the movement – channelling the inflammable mood in Bangladeshi society towards revolutionary ends.
This message of international class-based solidarity was echoed loud and clear by RCP comrade Fiona Lali, who spoke to the crowd in Trafalgar Square, calling on the students and workers of Bangladesh to trust only in their own strength.
London, 22nd July Trafalgar Square. Thousands out in solidarity with students across Bangladesh. The mass of students and workers must trust their own power! #SaveBangladesh #HasinaMustGo #SaveBangladeshiStudents pic.twitter.com/WpIPYgx6pj
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) July 23, 2024
In our conversations, many expressed that this is not about the quota system anymore. Many in the movement are rightly pointing to the continuous cuts and austerity that are being implemented, at the expense of ordinary people.
These events have also clearly been a learning experience for those involved about the nature of the state. Placards at the protest we attended read: “If the police kill, who are you meant to call for protection?”
We, the comrades of the Revolutionary Communist Party, offer our full solidarity and support to the students and workers in Bangladesh waging this heroic struggle.
United, alongside our brothers and sisters internationally, we can fight for a world free of all exploitation and oppression.
See below for a solidarity motion to raise in UK trade unions. And if you’re a student in Britain, click here to sign a petition – organised by the RCP and the ‘We are Bangladesh’ campaign – calling on the National Union of Students to demand: an end to the quota system; an end to repression; justice for the victims; and the resignation of this murderous government.
FROM LONDON, TO NAIROBI, TO DHAKA, SOLIDARITY! #HasinaMustGo #RutoMustGo pic.twitter.com/w7VyqRZnhB
— Fiona Lali (@fiona_lali) July 25, 2024
Model motion – Solidarity with Bangladesh student protests
This trade union / branch notes:
- That since 1 July, students and youth in Bangladesh have led protests against the ‘quota’ system for public sector jobs – a system which favours supporters of the ruling Awami League party.
- In response to these protests, the Awami League government has declared a total media and communications blackout, aside from pro-government news, and then used naked repression from state forces and pro-government militias.
- That this state repression, including the firing of live rounds into crowds, has led to the massacre of many hundreds of protesters at the time of writing, with thousands more injured. Thousands have been arrested.
This trade union / branch further notes:
- That the Awami League and their big business backers are steadily enriching themselves while the workers and students of Bangladesh grow ever poorer, with 39% of young Bangladeshis unemployed according to the latest figures.
- That the media in the West has largely ignored these shocking statistics and actions from the Bangladeshi government, giving them virtually no coverage, despite the brutal nature of the crackdown.
This trade union branch resolves:
- To condemn the actions of the Awami League government, and to fully support the demands of the Bangladesh student movement – for an end to the quota system, an end to repression, justice for the victims, and for the resignation of this murderous government.
- To petition our NEC to take up the same stance nationally.
- To ask our NEC to draft and send messages of support and encouragement to the Bangladeshi Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, and to our sister trade unions in Bangladesh.
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