What we have in Bangladesh today is every anarchist's dream. Let me give you a quick rundown of why that is:
1. Two days ago, the students stopped the police and checked their license and registration papers. They found many anomalies. The police brought and showed them their licenses the following day. In many places, including in my home ground, Uttara, they made police officers write tickets against other police officers. This proves that the citizens can not only police themselves, but also can police the police better than the police.
2. They didn't just block roads, they showed how traffic can be controlled in a proper fashion. Vehicles were required to stay within their lanes and slow and fast vehicles were channeled into different lanes. They even created an emergency lane for ambulances and fire trucks. The state has never been able to implement this—despite trying for at least five years. Thus, the students can make the citizens obey the laws better than the state.
3. Students didn't let politically influential people get away with illegalities. They even turned away two ministers’ cars, including the car of once-influential student leader Tofail Ahmed, when they entered a road from the wrong direction—or couldn't present proper papers for their vehicles. Thus, the students broke the colonial cycle of differential treatment for the elite—something that intellectuals and activists have been trying to do for the past 47 years.
The core belief of anarchism, or libertarianism for that matter, is that people are better at governing their lives than the state—and the state is mostly a threat to the freedom of common people. Thus, libertarians attempt to limit state power in essential matters, while anarchists dream of abolishing state power. Although, today's Bangladesh has not proven that the country could survive without the state in the long term, is has certainly underlined that the state is running the things horribly— and the citizens can run them much better.
However, the anarchist dream is fleeting. Like any good revolutionary practices, dreams often wither in the absence of strong revolutionary laws, practices, and policies that espouse civil liberties and the rule of law. Therefore, although today has tickled the hidden anarchist in me, and many of my peers, the structural problems the young revolutionaries have exposed need to be dealt with—through sound permanent policies so that the citizens don't have to take over the state functions every day.
And the state should do this quickly for its own sake. Otherwise, the country may realize that it doesn't need a state altogether.
Anupam Debashis Roy is the Editor of Muktiforum
