Paris Commune Shahbagh Spring and Ten Days That Shook the World

AUDITY FALGUNI

Our Revolutions were failing as the progressives were ultimately selling our movements to the conservatives: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The
Autumn of the Patriarch.
Hope it wont be too long a prelude to have a look at the much acclaimed Paris Commune movement in France and the Bolshevik Revolution
of October 17, 1917 in Russia before analysing the ongoing Shahbagh Spring of Dhaka.
The Paris Commune movement of France commenced in March 18 1871 on streets of Paris and extended up to May 28. It occurred in the
wake of Frances defeat in the Franco-German War and the collapse of Napoleon IIIs Second Empire (1852-70). The National Assembly,
elected in February 1871, had a royalist majority. The republican Parisians feared restoration of monarchy by the royalist National Assembly
and so began the Paris Commune movement comprised of people from lower middle class, working class and the socialists.
The Paris Commune formed of the Proudhonists, socialists supporting federation of communes and the Blanquists socialists won the
municipal elections on March 26, 1871. The programme that the Commune undertook called for measures reminiscent of 1793 French
Revolution (end of support for religion, use of the Revolutionary election) and a limited number of social measures, (10-hour workday, end of
work at night for bakers etc.). But ultimately the conservative Versailles government launched la semaine sanglante (bloody week) from
March 21 to 28, 1871 to suppress the movement in different cities of France. Around 20,000 insurrectionists were killed along with 750
government troops; about 38,000 were arrested and more than 7,000 were deported.
John Reed, author of Ten Days That Shook the World on Bolshevik Revolution of Russia in 1917 wrote in the preface of the book: Just as
historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in
Petrograd in November 1917. Despite being a communist, Reed tried his best to provide an objective eyewitness account of the Bolshevik
Revolution. His excellent analysis about the success of Revolution was: The workers in Petrograd emerged triumphantly largely because
they depended only on themselves. The Bolsheviks faced opposition from the bureaucracy, the army, the diplomatic community, the
bourgeoisie, and even the peasants as they tried to govern a divided country. Yet Ten Days ended on a jubilant note when a hastily elected
Peasants Congress lent support in the revolution in late November 1917.
Shahbagh Spring: How does it relate to the Paris Commune Movement and 1917 Revolution and how does it not?
a number of youths came out in Shahbagh on February 5 when Quader Mollah, a war criminal of 1971 with the charge of assassinating 350
Bengalis, was sentenced only to life imprisonment. Mostly students and professionals came out on the street and stayed the first night after
call by Bangladesh Bloggers and Online Activists Network. Then the crowd began swelling everyday. Though on February 15 evening it
was decided the movement would continue every day from 3 PM to 10 PM from February 16, the news of the murder of Rajib Haider, Thaba
Baba, reignited the spark within the young soldiers again.
The Friday funeral rites of the late blogger multiplied the presence of people. Meantime, the movement has already achieved reputation for
its non-violence, artistic and poetic character (protesting by kindling candles, building shaheed minar with flower petals, chanting poetic
slogans), gender sensitivity (large number of young women taking part in the movement day and night amidst huge crowd without any
untoward incident or even any bad comment) and political neutrality. The government felt obliged to place the War Criminal Tribunal Act in
the Parliament for revision, assess the feasibility of banning Jamaat-e-Islami or other religion-centered parties and other necessary steps.
The young dreamers and doers at Shahbagh have also been able to delineate and identify the major institutions like Islami Bank, Islamic
NGOs, medical and educational institutions as the lifeline of fundamentalist political economy of Bangladesh and are raising their voices to
ban those too for a modern and secular Bangladesh.
But its also equally true that the Jamaat-e-Islami, with its Middle East connctions, has been able to lobby with the western states and
institutions like Amnesty International and cash in on those communities sentiment against death penalty. Against the given backdrop of
national and international politics how far the dreamers and doers of Shahbagh will be successful is still hard to predict. But we can be sure
that our youth cannot be purchased. They have shown that they are no less than those who were in the glorious movements of Paris
Commune and October Revolution in 1917.
The writer is a development activist.
Email: audity.falguni@gmail.com