I’ll assist make college students’ dream for Bangladesh come true

Bangladesh’s new chief is obvious: this was not his revolution, and this was not his dream.

But Muhammad Yunus knew the second he took the decision from the coed on the opposite finish of the telephone final week that he would do no matter it took to see it via.

And the scholars had determined that what they wanted was for Prof Yunus – an 84-year-old Nobel laureate – to step into the facility vacuum left by the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and lead the brand new interim authorities. He accepted instantly.

“I’m doing this because this is what the youth of the country wanted, and I wanted to help them to do it,” he explains throughout a personal briefing for choose journalists at his workplace within the Jamuna State House.

“It’s not my dream, it’s their dream. So I’m kind of helping them to make it come true.”

Prof Yunus was sworn in on Thursday after months of student-led protests culminated within the fall of the federal government, and continues to be attempting to gauge the dimensions of the job in entrance of him.

Most urgent, he says, is the safety state of affairs. In the wake of the violence which left greater than 400 useless, the South Asian nation’s police had all however disappeared – the nation’s police union had introduced a strike, and site visitors was being guided by the scholars, whereas tons of of police stations had been gutted by fires.

“Law and order is the first one so that people can sit down or get to work,” Prof Yunus says.

Monday noticed the primary glimmers of progress as officers returned to the streets. It is a primary step, however safety is way from the one downside.

The authorities solely “disappeared” after Sheikh Hasina fled the nation, Prof Yunus says.

What was left behind after 15 years of more and more authoritarian rule is “a mess, complete mess”.

“Even the government, what they did, whatever they did, just simply doesn’t make sense to me… They didn’t have any idea what administration is all about.”

And but within the face of the chaos is “lots of hope”, Prof Yunus emphasises.

“We are here: a fresh new face for them, for the country… Because finally, this moment, the monster is gone. So this is excitement.”

Reform is vital, based on Prof Yunus. It was a easy demand for reform of a quota system which reserved some public sector jobs for the family of conflict heroes, who fought for the nation’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, that sparked the protest motion within the first place.

But it was the brutal and lethal crackdown by safety companies which adopted that noticed it develop into calls for for Sheikh Hasina to face apart.

Reform is desperately wanted, says Prof Yunus, pointing to freedom of speech – closely restricted below Sheikh Hasina’s authorities, the prisons full of individuals who sought to talk out in opposition to her.

He himself alleges he was a sufferer of the crackdown on freedom of speech. An outspoken critic of Sheikh Hasina’s authorities, Prof Yunus – lauded for his pioneering use of micro-loans however considered a public enemy by the previous prime minister – was sentenced to 6 months in jail in what he has referred to as a politically motivated case.

But there are different, extra radical, concepts within the pipeline.

Each ministry could have a scholar seat in it, an acknowledgement of the position they performed in bringing the earlier administration to an finish.

Already, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, college students who led the anti-government protests, sit in his cupboard.

And then there may be reform of the judiciary. Already, the scholars have put strain on the chief justice to resign.

Prof Yunus argues the judiciary was failing to behave independently – as an alternative allegedly taking orders from “some superior authority”.

“In the technical terms, he was the chief justice,” he says. “But actually, he was just a hangman.”

There will, he acknowledges, be selections made that not everybody agrees with, however he hopes will probably be higher than what has come earlier than.

“Whatever experience I have in my work… So I’m not saying I can run a government. I’m saying that I have some experience of running some organisations. I’ll bring that as much as I can. There will be people who like it, people who dislike it. But we have to go through with it.”