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Old February 7, 2013, 10:28 PM
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Zeeshan Zeeshan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zunaid
You are speaking only in abstractions and assumptions and basing your opinions on what photo-journalists can sell. Ignore those two kids. The people massing there are not just your easily manipulated teens or twenty-somethings - you have people in their thirties, forties, and fifities - not payjama wearing Marx spewing college students but working men and women - many of my relatives and friends are there.
A personal story will illuminate where I am coming from:
Once I was riding one passenger side and the person driving the car left and police came so I had to move the car as there were two other females who didn't know how to drive.

Since I was unaccustomed to the right-side I crashed into a rickshawala who went flying to the ground. Immediately we were swarmed by a lynch mob, not unlike the ones shown in Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, who kept banging on our cars and surrounding. I got a bit scared, but for the life of the rickshawala, hoping against hope, he was alive.

Turned out he was alive, but to clean the guilt I gave him- I forget- but at least Tk1000. And just like that the crowd dissipated.
So this is exactly how mob mentality in Bangladesh works:
1. There is a crowd, many who are illiterate or got little education, who believe in right vs wrong, which albeit due to religious background may stem from what is inscribed in Koran.

2. They see injustice or wrong and in my case it was hitting of rickshawala.

3. They take justice in their own hands. Street rally, mob marching, or gonopitani of pick-pocketers. They are not interested in the tone of accident but rather for a side-show.

4. Finally, after justice is served, either through death of the accused, or by monetary settlement, they go on living their lives as if nothing had happened.
Whole point of the story? It's very easy to get into bandwagon when there is a clear distinction between 'right' vs. 'wrong' when it reality it is being part of a crowd and unity. Then some people were complaining why I gave such huge amount to the guy. But as soon as the money was given they acted as if justice was served.

Unity by itself can be harmless. But by same tactic, a united mob driven by agenda can be as violent as real perpetrators.
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