Freedom, still not earned

A rattling bog published in I am not a silent poet (November 11, 2015). Grateful to the editor of the journal, Reuben Woolley.

Click here to read the poem: A rattling bog

Thank you.

Note : Thanks to Walmart, in North America, we all know now Bangladesh. Amongst the countries that have witnessed on a grand scale the terrifying experience of death and misery, Bangladesh stands alone, and still appears to be “eternally” enmeshed in the same patterns of misfortune. Hardly any other country in the world, like her though, had to go through such a bloodshed and human tragedy (according to the Bangladeshi authorities, three million people were  killed in nine months) to earn not just the political freedom, but also the freedom of language of expression. The bloggers and their publisher who have been recently attacked and hacked to death in Bangladesh belong to that uninterrupted narrative of the country’s freedom struggle. But life in such a country is often considered to be cheap. Easy to forget such deaths, here too. “Je suis Charlie” has long gone to sleep in the storehouse of our memory.

I dedicate this poem to the following slain and attacked free thinkers :

Asif Mohiuddin, blogger, killed on January 15, 2013

Ahmed Rajib Haider, blogger, killed on February 15, 2013

Sunnyur Rahaman, blogger, attacked on March 7, 2013

Shafiul Islam, chair of the sociology department in Rajshahi University, killed on November 15, 2014

Avijit Roy, blogger and founder of the blog  Mukto-Mona, killed on February 26, 2015

Oyasiqur Rhaman, blogger, killed on March 30, 2015

Ananta Bijoy Das, blogger, killed on May 12, 2015

Niladri Chattopadhyay Niloy, aka Niloy Neel, blogger, killed on August 7, 2015

Faisal Arefin Dipan, publisher of Avijit Roy, killed on October 31, 2015

Ahmed Rashid Tutul, Rono Dipam Basu and Tareq Rahim, bloggers, attacked on October 31, 2015

And let’s not forget also the attacks on Taslima Nasrin, Shamsur Rahman in the nineties and on Humayun Azad in 2004.