Corruption and the Gen Z revolution

Inside Bangladesh, it’s called the Gen Z revolution as young students from Dhaka University began protesting last month to demand an end to the government’s jobs quota system.

The system, according to a CNN report on the Bangladesh crisis, reserves 30 percent of civil service posts for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.

“Many of the country’s contemporary political elite are related to that generation – including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the widely regarded founder of modern Bangladesh who was assassinated in 1975.”

Following days of protests which had turned bloody, the 76-year-old Prime Minister Hasina resigned and fled the country by helicopter to India.

Hasina’s sudden exit ends 15 years in power, which were marred by dissent because her government, according to critics and human rights organizations, stifled civil liberties.

Amid joblessness, high inflation in the post-pandemic era and the growing curtailment of freedom, protestors demanded change.

Ironically, Hasina led a democratic uprising against military rule in 1990. Now she has found herself in the same situation but at the other end of the uprising.

It was a long time coming. It was not a revolution that happened overnight.

Prior to the July 1 protest, critics and human rights organizations have already expressed concerns over increased reports of political violence, harassment of the media and opposition figures, crackdown on freedom of expression online as well as arbitrary detention and torture in Bangladesh.

Tipping point

This was not the first time that protests hounded Hasina’s government even as she managed to survive previous demonstrations.

The recent protests, however, were different as police shot and killed the young dissidents in full view of their peers.

This seemed to be the tipping point. Protestors could no longer be stopped, not even by the threat of being killed by security forces.

“Driving the anger was high unemployment levels in the country, especially among young people. Bangladesh has seen strong economic growth under Hasina, but it slowed in the post-pandemic era and is beset with high inflation and depleted foreign currency reserves. In a nation of 170 million people, more than 30 million are not in work or education,” according to CNN.

This could be the first major successful Gen Z revolution in world history, said Sabrina Karim, associate professor of government at Cornell University, who specializes in the study of political violence, as quoted by CNN.

People Power I

The Philippines is no stranger to uprisings.

In 1986, we inspired the world with the historic bloodless People Power revolt which toppled Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

Whether in the Philippines or in Bangladesh, however, the challenge is how to protect the freedoms we’ve fought for and successfully won.

The challenge is to fulfill that promise of change that protests and revolutions strived to usher in.

Leaders of change must make sure that they are indeed capable of becoming the change they want to see in their country; that they wouldn’t just turn into the next monster or ogre they successfully slayed and that they wouldn’t end up being corrupted by the system they vehemently opposed and tried to change.

Otherwise, it will just be a cycle of boom and bust; of authoritarian rule and revolutions; of protests and military rule or, in our case, of yellows and reds; of Marcos and Aquinos; or of Marcos and Dutertes.

Look what happened to us. We toppled a dictator and showed the world how it was done only to elect another Marcos into power more than three decades later.

Ironically, some of those who protested against then president Marcos Sr. back then are now part of the government of President Marcos Jr.

One cannot blame them, however. Or the masses. Perhaps for them, nothing really changed after the 1986 People Power Revolution.

We are unique in this sense because it seems we never really learn our lessons. History just keeps repeating itself, no matter how absurd a cycle that is.

One culprit I see here is corruption.

Corruption has been around for thousands of years. Shakespeare’s plays showed vignettes of corruption, while Dante supposedly placed bribers in the deepest parts of Hell, according to the International Monetary Fund’s working paper on corruption published in 1998.

And yet, it doesn’t seem to end.

After a new candidate or a new system is in place, the initial jubilation soon fades as constituents realize that the same old system or the same old trapo is back.

In the Philippines, it’s even getting worse, especially in local government units where corruption has become so deeply entrenched.

Pay offs or grease money have gone up by 30 to 50 percent, attest some businessmen; some local chieftains even offer “bespoke pay-offs packages” to entrepreneurs who want to set up shop in their locality, depending on their capacity to pay and their needs.

Local chieftains, like lawmakers, also have their own contractors which they require businessmen to hire.

Anti-corruption bodies, including the Anti-Red Tape Authority, must look into these reports to eradicate corruption in the different branches of our government.

Revolutions can only lead to lasting changes if they topple not just flawed leaders but corrupt systems as well.

This is a lesson that Gen Z Bangladeshis must also keep in mind now that they have removed their leader from power.

Otherwise, it’s just going to be the same old story.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.