Why we will never have a revolution against corruption in Bangladesh – a naive view

Set A: Ruling Party – Reap benefits in current state when their party is in government

Set B: Government loyalists – Reap benefits all year round, working for government

Set C: Paid Political workers – Reap benefits all year round, working for or against government

Set D: Dormant – have become immune and more concerned with bringing food to the table

Set E: Revolutionary Nationalist – active protesters against any government

Set F: Opposition Party – Invest in opposing current government to reap benefits in future

From my naive understanding, in order to have revolution similar to the Arab Spring, set E i.e. the Revolutionary Nationalist has to significantly inflate. The practical options are:

a.    Employ set C i.e. political workers – this can only be done through incurring huge costs, funded by Set F, i.e. opposition party. This usually never works out, as the original agenda of Set E is lost in the process.

b.    Employ set D i.e. dormant population – although the more appropriate approach, this can be achieved only through substantial length of oppression under the same party to build enough hatred and anger with the presence of a new revolutionary leader. Trouble is, this is highly unlikely given we have a memory refresh every 5 years. Also faint chance of this happening is immediately leveraged by Set F, the opposition party, therefore again, original agenda lost in the process.

c.    Under the most unlikely event of a new party forming within set D&E, all other sets ensure it is neutralized to secure the investments they have made as incumbents – therefore the revolution becomes too costly for the dormant population to continue.

The main culprits from my point of view are the Political Workers – they have neither love for the nation, nor ethics behind the cause they fight for. Yet – they have played a pivotal role during each election in the last 20 years.

The dormant population has led itself into its own fate – we wait in traffic for 4 hours, watch the meter increase and complain on social media through our phones, instead of abandoning the rented vehicle and joining in a 30 minute march back home.