Professor Anu Muhammad
The worst symptom of a disease must be when we are inured to the symptoms.
“An unknown caller threatened him on February 21, saying that he would be killed if he does not stop his campaign to protect gas and coal,” said the article published in a national daily. Thereafter, to my knowledge, there has been little said or done by either the authorities or civil society on this seemingly trivial news.
Professor Anu Muhammad's crime is serious: he has been a man who has always engaged in the life of our people and who has always defended people's interests. In recent times he has been explaining how the particular arrangement of the sale of certain natural resources in Bangladesh is disadvantageous to us and at the same time would force many thousands out of homes and livelihood. With endless patience, through discussions, seminars and writings Anu Bhai's efforts have contributed towards a national discussion of the issues, without which we can never hope to find what is good and what is bad.
Perhaps in our times the worst crime is to be independent: to speak out one's thoughts, not to be bought out by the rich and powerful, indeed, to be alive, alive, that is to say, to actually care enough for issues and people to speak out. To be alive this way is a serious threat to the forces arrogant enough to pick up the phone and give a death threat, just like that.
Can we react? Can we protest? Do we as a society have any life left? Or have we become so used to the rot that we take this outrage as something natural?
The evil forces behind the death threat would like the entire country to be a jail cell, all of us to remain resigned, silent and in exile in our own homeland.
Have they triumphed already?
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