Against Discrimination
The first question about the recent three-week uprising of the people in Bangladesh and the root of their protests, which has left hundreds dead, is what their main grievance was during these 20 days and what exactly led to the escape of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the twenty-first day, as it is said she left Dhaka for a city in India and the protesters have taken over the Prime Minister’s building.
The protests erupted and expanded after the Bangladeshi government passed a resolution that half of the civil service positions would be allocated to certain special groups. Based on this, nearly 30% of these jobs were reserved for the relatives of those affected and veterans who participated in the Bangladesh Liberation War from Pakistan in 1971.
The protesters considered this resolution as an example of discrimination and a form of monopolization, depriving the country of specialized and merit-based management, and they rose up in rebellion.
However, the protests were met with bloody suppression, and although the government retreated and most of the quotas were canceled with the intervention and ruling of the Supreme Court, the protesters, especially the students, demanded justice for the families of those killed.
Matters escalated to the point that after three weeks of street protests, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left Bangladesh for India on Monday.
In fact, like a woman leaving home for her parental home, because the formation of Bangladesh was the result of the subcontinent’s Muslims seeking independence from India, which led to the creation of Pakistan, yet in the new land, they faced discrimination again.
If in India they faced systematic discrimination because of being Muslim, this time West Pakistan could not tolerate the people of East Pakistan speaking Bengali, and if the initial separation was over religion and they named the capital Islamabad and considered the untouchables from the Hindu perspective, now the country of Pakistan was established. This time, because of the Bengali language, the new land was formed and named Bangladesh, although the geographical distance from the main land was not without effect.
The point of this reminder is that Pakistan and Bangladesh themselves emerged in protest against religious and linguistic discrimination, and the Bangladeshis, with their experience of linguistic discrimination, could not accept quota discrimination. The scope of the protests was so wide that 13 police officers of various ranks were killed, and the situation escalated to the point where garment factories, which had remarkably transformed Bangladesh’s economy, mostly voluntarily shut down to show solidarity with the protesters.
Among Iranian journalists and analysts, Engineer Abbas Abdi has addressed the two issues of discrimination and humiliation more consistently than others, considering these two as the root of protests against governments. Six years ago, in a note about these two, he wrote that discrimination is a more significant factor in the formation of crises in governments, and discrimination inherently implies humiliation, creating a sense of being humiliated in the individual subjected to it. Humiliation and discrimination are two destructive factors for society and its stability.
When the second of Khordad appeared as a new social movement, I introduced and analyzed it in a note titled ‘Revolution Against Humiliation’ because the humiliation against the elites, the people, and academics had become such that it prompted the people to react in that manner.
Although the revolution against the Shah’s regime can or should be analyzed and understood with structural and economic factors, alongside them, the Shah’s humiliating behavior with all segments of his society was the most significant social psychology factor in the people’s inclination towards revolution.
The main reason for the positive and joyous reaction of the people to the fall of Reza Shah was his humiliating behavior with all segments of society, even the administrative system under his command.
The fate of humiliating others is clear, and lessons should be learned from it, but discrimination is a more significant factor in the formation of crises in governments, and discrimination inherently implies humiliation, creating a sense of being humiliated in the individual subjected to it.
Discrimination is such that it initially tastes sweet, but eventually traps the perpetrator of discrimination.
Tocqueville, one of the classical sociologists, traveled to America about two centuries ago in his youth and provided a brilliant analysis of the state of the United States, addressing the issue of slavery, which is the pinnacle of discrimination and humiliation of humans, established with the aim of exploiting humans by humans. However, he shows how it is also detrimental to the slaveholder and master.
He compares the two states of Ohio and Kentucky, which are on opposite sides of the Ohio River and are similar in every aspect, with the only difference being that slavery was not practiced in Ohio, whereas it was prevalent in Kentucky.
Tocqueville says it’s easy to judge which is more beneficial for humanity: slavery or freedom.
All you need to do is board a ship and travel along the Ohio River, occasionally looking at the left shore and then the right shore.
The left bank of Ohio is a society that is active, developed, vibrant, dynamic, and beautiful, but in the state of Kentucky, we witness a dead, spiritless, and undeveloped society.
He clearly explains the reason for this difference, showing how slaveholders become captives of their own slaves and experience both moral and economic decline.
Another brilliant analysis of the issue of discrimination was provided by Gary Becker, an American economist and sociologist and Nobel laureate.
He challenged the view that discrimination benefits the discriminator and showed that if an employer does not hire workers solely because of skin color or other non-professional criteria, they lose a valuable opportunity.
In fact, his theory and analysis have been accepted as a principle among various industries and companies that discrimination leads to falling behind and ultimately the bankruptcy of the company.
Bangladesh, however, is a living and broader example that shows how discrimination can pose serious and sometimes new challenges to a political structure. Considering Mr. Pezeshkian’s two slogans about rights and justice, the realization of justice in his government can be considered to the extent that there is no discrimination.
If Iranian radical conservatism has fallen into the current pathetic state and its claim of justice is challenged and even ridiculed, it is because justice is the opposite of discrimination, and with discriminatory resolutions and decisions, one cannot claim justice.
Look at how in recent days, the managers of the outgoing government are scrambling to secure positions and permissions for themselves through discriminatory appointments and decisions, and the most ridiculous of all is the appointment of the weakest Minister of Education in history to a position in the National Organization for Educational Testing, which shows that the claimed justice of these gentlemen was, in fact, a pseudonym for some in pursuit of position. During his election campaign, President Pezeshkian emphasized that the officials’ table should not be separate from the people’s table instead of repeating extravagant, false, and absurd promises like land, gold, and loans.
The calamity that befell Mrs. Sheikh Hasina, despite belonging to a reputable family in Bangladesh, was because she separated her table and that of her close ones, appointees, and relatives from ordinary people and thought that the mere economic growth of this country, which is astonishing in some areas like garment production and sometimes surpasses Turkey in global markets, would prevent people from opposing discrimination and discredit the coin of justice.
Due to the sensitivities surrounding the word equality, one cannot speak much of equality, and the reason for opposing many international conventions or rejecting resolutions in the Guardian Council is the religious non-acceptance of equality. However, when there is no sensitivity regarding justice, it is appropriate for the new government to pursue the elimination of discrimination, rent, and undue quotas as manifestations of the fight against discrimination.
We have seen and heard that even positive discrimination to achieve justice in some areas, especially in employing minorities and women, has been mentioned. With this perspective, every anti-discrimination action is a step towards justice.
Quotas and rent for specific individuals, which are essentially aimed at patronage and increasing the number of loyalists or as a reward to them or elevating a class or profession over others, have no relation to justice and are only justified when given to compensate for a lost opportunity.
During my high school years at Alborz, which coincided with the early years of the war, a friend of mine went to the warfront at a young age and naturally lost a year of schooling.
He later managed to obtain his diploma with arrangements and support and also benefited from a quota in the entrance exam, and now he is a dentist who has returned to his hometown in Arak and is providing services in a public and probably charitable clinic instead of opening a private practice.
It is obvious that giving him a quota was justice itself, and it is still possible and necessary to defend the regional quotas for universities or those who sacrificed themselves for this country, but extending it to several generations later and while 36 years have passed since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, it shows more signs of patronage and discrimination than justice.
The problem, however, is not limited to educational quotas. The purification project in the past three years, which failed with the rise of Mr. Pezeshkian, although they are still struggling and striving, aimed at monopolizing management as well. In the same way, in the Farhangian University and new recruitments, the term ‘standard teacher or professor’ was coined for distinguishing between insiders and outsiders.
With this perspective, although purification and giving preferential treatment to certain individuals and layers initially and seemingly for security reasons, as we saw in Bangladesh, ultimately threatens national security. Mrs. Sheikh Hasina’s big mistake was thinking that because she is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, and has been Prime Minister four times before, she has such legitimacy that she is immune from any criticism and harm. However, discrimination and humiliation know no exceptions, and people never tolerate these two and will one day rise against them, and that day for the Bangladeshis was the middle of the summer of 1403 in the Iranian calendar.
We said that Pezeshkian’s slogan and among his most frequent words are rights and justice. In Plato’s view, rights are a virtue whereby everyone should be given as much as they deserve.
This deservingness cannot be determined much by criteria and indicators, but in political positions, it is attributed to social and political weight.
In this view, instead of insisting on equality, one can speak of justice and allocation based on deservingness. Any rule that disrupts this balance is contrary to justice and is only acceptable and justifiable in cases of positive discrimination or compensating for lost opportunities, as I mentioned above.
It is fortunate that so far the uprising of the people of Bangladesh against discrimination and unjust quotas has not been interpreted by internal authoritarian media as a color revolution and an American conspiracy, and the opportunity to address it from the perspective discussed in this writing has not been taken away.