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July uprising offers path
FROM PAGE 3
few uprisings to challenge them,” he said.
“And we have to be concerned about the further prospect of such regimes in erstwhile bastions of bourgeois democracies in Europe and North America,” he added.
Bangladesh, he observed, might have demonstrated a potential path to avoid this fate.
Reflecting on Bangladesh’s post-liberation trajectory, Wood said the constitutional principles designed in the euphoria of independence 52 years ago had been “warped and thwarted” through the actions of contesting individuals.
“This Bangladesh has become a case of no-one ending up where they collectively wanted to be,” he said.
He warned that revolutions and uprisings are often betrayed, as “normal” oligarchical behaviours re-emerge.
Citing Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as an analogy, he referred to the ultimate failures of the French Revolution and pointed to the Arab Spring, particularly Egypt, as examples of institutional hierarchies reasserting themselves and rebels struggling to govern effectively.
Wood outlined the immense challenges in returning to and sustaining democracy, which he defined as embodying equality, opportunity, dignity, and freedom.
He emphasised the need for expertise to manage an economy, banking, inflation, geopolitics, and state institutions while confronting corruption, cronyism, a politicised justice system, and others.
“The link between performing these necessities of state management and the structural tendency for regimes to return to oligarchic concentration of power is the main challenge,” he said.
He stressed the importance of boundaries between the state and regime to prevent the latter from contaminating the former. Citing Antonio Gramsci, he argued that the hegemonic incorporation of non-state institutions, as seen in Bangladesh, must be resisted.
Wood criticised the lack of vigilance and accountability in Bangladesh, which he said has led to the unchecked power of ruling parties and the contamination of state institutions. He highlighted the shared blame among the state, civil society, and political regimes for this failure, stemming from a lack of checks and balances.
“Large-scale and blatant rent-seeking of the past, alongside other misuses of power, has clearly been an affront to the interests of ordinary citizens and must be condemned,” he said.
“This means that the justice system therefore has to be tackled and ‘cleaned up’ in order to be fit for purpose—for now and into the future,” he said.
A similar agenda applies to the civil services, local government and forces of law and order. The Election Commission itself cannot be left out of this agenda.
“The Public Services Commission and Establishments Division have presided over a network of patronage via recruitment and promotions for years. Clientelism has been everywhere. Political interference has been rife,” he said.
To restore trust in the state, he proposed cleaning up public services and considering a truth and reconciliation commission to confront past abuses, reset careers, and establish principles to prevent future slippage.
“Without such reforms, the culture of public service cannot be established,” he concluded.

Govt
FROM PAGE 5
Md Shahaduzzaman, deputy director of DAE in Faridpur, said that in this regard, a meeting was held at Faridpur deputy commissioner’s office on November 27. In that meeting, a four-member inquiry committee was formed to investigate the matter. The committee will report next Thursday.
Apart from identifying the culprits, recommendations will be made on how to compensate the affected farmers, he added.