A History of Violence

A thirteen-year-old was tied up and beaten to death, while onlookers stood and watched. A young man mercilessly beat his supposed friend and brazenly recorded it on video. A headmaster was humiliated and beaten in public by his own townspeople and students. A few young men killed 22 people at a restaurant in broad daylight. On the surface, these are three unrelated incidents that occurred in Bangladesh over the span of the last few months. They can easily be brushed off as sporadic instances of unwarranted violence. However, there seemed to be a vague familiarity about them. As if they were different iterations of a plot that was tied together by an underlying theme. After some deliberation, it came to me that these were all symptoms of a more terrifying and disheartening disease – these were reflections of the violence that has become deeply embedded in our society. 

Not very long ago, a video of a young man, Xunayed, assaulting his friend, went viral on social media. His solution, to what he perceived as a transgression by his friend, was violence and instead of condemning the violence, the reaction from a large number of people on the social media and otherwise was to threaten more violence as payback for what they thought was offensive. In truth, we did not condemn Xunayed's violence; we only ridiculed the stupidity of his onscreen 'performance' and felt the need to remind him that he isn't as powerful as he thinks he is. We needed to express that we were stronger and could easily squash him. 

Incidents like this aren't isolated; in fact, they are so common place that we ignore them until tragedy strikes. Take public floggings for example. Think back to every time we heard of a thief or burglar being caught and beaten (sometimes to death) by the mob. Very rarely are we outraged; on the contrary, most of the time we feel a sense of righteousness, that justice has been served. But in the neglect of legal means, eventually and inevitably, we are faced with heartbreaking brutalities - like the fate of Samiul Alam Rajan last year. 

This thirteen-year-old was beaten to death in public by some men on the allegation that he had stolen a rickshaw. Understandably, the whole nation erupted in uproar, but it took the video of a poor child chained to a wall, begging for his life while his assailants laughed mercilessly, for us to realise the brutality of such violence. This incident should prove that taking the law into our hands is not justice; it is in fact frontier justice. By engaging in it, we are only asserting that whoever has physical strength to overpower the opposition will win. That everything can be resolved by violence, and subliminally, we acknowledge that in our society, might is right.

Vigilantism continues to be endemic in our society. We refuse to learn from our mistakes and inevitably tragedy repeats itself. Like when six students were mistaken for burglars by villagers in Aminbazaar and beaten to death. This incident gave us pause; we felt sad for the victims and bemoaned the case of mistaken identity, but we still failed to effectively condemn the violence. We only noted this as a tragic misunderstanding because the victims did not "deserve" the violence in this case. Yet, ultimately, we dismiss it as some systemic error that we accept because we do not see anything wrong with the "nature" of the act. We failed to identify that the underlying problem was our predilection for and acceptance of violence as a justifiable solution to almost everything.

I believe that it becomes ever more undeniable that our culture harbours and even encourages violence in the form of vigilante justice. This may seem farfetched but one need only recall how often we see skirmishes break out on the roadsides. It's quite common to see individuals squabbling on the roadside over petty issues like who should give way to whom at a traffic junction or if the rickshaw puller is asking for too much money. Invariably, there will be a threat of violence and some might come down to throwing fists while a crowd gathers to watch the spectacle.

Sadly, this violence has become inherent in our culture and is reinforced by the media. Take for instance, the movies we watch. In almost every local or foreign movie, violence seems to be the main or, at the very least, a major attraction. We break into applause when the protagonist takes matters into his own hands and goes outside the law to brandish his own form of justice. What we do not realise is that subconsciously, or even consciously, there is an instant connection with the hero, as we feel the desire to engage in violence with the same impunity. Many of us will never act on these urges, but, unfortunately, many others will. 

One of the most shocking examples of this acceptance of violence and religious intolerance came a couple or so months ago when Shyamal Kanti Bhakta, the headmaster of a local Naryanganj school, was publicly made to hold his ears and then beaten by some locals. His alleged crime was that he apparently hurt some people's religious sentiments. Regardless of the validity of the allegations, it was deeply worrying that in a culture that is built on respecting elders, these people, which included some students of his school, had the audacity to act out their form of retribution on a headmaster of their very village. Furthermore, the public nature of the act suggests that they believed they would be able to carry such violence with impunity. In other words, they expected their behaviour to be accepted. And they weren't wrong! Probably, the most incredible aspect of this whole farce was that this 'punishment' was apparently encouraged by an elected official who, in this scenario and in the perpetrators' eyes, represented the government and hence, the justice system. This is not only an acknowledgement but also an endorsement of such violent behaviour.

Unfortunately, this glorification of violence in the media and our society in general has resulted in very sinister practices becoming ingrained in our culture. Domestic violence, for instance, is widespread to a staggering extent. It is almost taken for granted that husbands beat their wives, even in the cities where people are supposedly more educated and therefore, assumed to be less violent. Many husbands believe that it is their right to receive dowry from their spouse's families. If they are denied, they feel wronged. Since they have been wronged, they feel the need to exact their idea of justice on their wives. It is frightening to think that we live in a society where we're so convinced that it's okay to be violent that we may even resort to gruesome murder if we feel that it is deserved (as in the case of mob justice).

This culture of violence also bears responsibility for the string of blogger killings that took place in the recent past. Between January 2013 and now, there have been no less than ten incidents where so-called atheist bloggers were hacked to death by religious extremists. It should have been cause for concern that in a democracy like ours, people were being brutally hacked to death for stating their views. While we acknowledged that the killings were wrong, we also iterated that the bloggers should not have said anything against religion. So, in our tolerance of violence, we indirectly justified the attackers' violent behaviour. 

In our society, since we are so convinced that we are right, we are convinced that they are wrong. With this conviction comes the sense of righteous entitlement that we need to punish what is wrong. For some extremists, this meant viciously murdering bloggers in broad daylight, when in fact stating an opinion should warrant nothing more than a verbal response with one's own opinion. There is no doubt that these killings occurred from a sense of self-righteousness that was at least partially fuelled by our general acceptance of violence. It is especially frightening because it alludes towards a religious intolerance being bred from this violent nature.

On July 1, twenty two people were killed in a restaurant in Gulshan by militants. The country is still reeling from the shock of this barbaric event. There has been an outpouring of grief for the victims and concern that this may be the beginning of a descent into turmoil. We find ourselves asking how we got here. Unfortunately, we are still unable to realise that subliminally, it is our acceptance of vigilantism and affinity for violence that is at least partly responsible. Our indifference and sometimes tacit acceptance of violence against "dissenters" is culpable. Our silence to the violence that went before gave encouragement to the extremists to continue what they believe are righteous acts. 

We must ask ourselves if this is the society we want to be? A society that harbours and encourages violence that at times borders on barbarism? I sincerely hope the answer is an emphatic NO. The picture does appear bleak. Yet, we cannot afford to be disheartened and simply accept this as the status quo. We must first acknowledge our responsibility and not simply push the issue under the rug. Secondly, we must look at how we have been united as a nation to protests against this violence. Our outcry led to the death sentence of Rajon's killers; we stood steadfast by the side of Shyamal Kanti Bhakta; and we continue to be active in our fight against intolerance and terrorism. All of this proves that we have an indomitable moral compass which, with some introspection, can lead us away from violence and towards a path of peace and tolerance.

The writer is a final year medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Email: tahsinf08@gmail.com