Opinion: From Luton to Dhaka: A British-Bangladeshi Writer Calls on Dr Yunus to Seize Bangladesh’s Last Chance
As a British-Bangladeshi writer and filmmaker based in Luton, I feel a deep responsibility to speak now, not only as someone who carries the memory of Bangladesh, but as someone watching from afar while the country teeters on the edge.
What I am about to say may sound provocative, but it is written with care, not condemnation: Dr Muhammad Yunus — long regarded as the last hope for Bangladesh — is failing.
For decades, Bangladesh has been caught in a vicious cycle of corruption, violence and broken promises. From the rule of the Jatiya Party to the dynastic greed of the Awami League and the cruelty of the BNP, the people have suffered deeply. The dream of independence has been stained by years of misrule and neglect.
Instead of the promised golden Bengal, we’ve watched power concentrated in the hands of a few, while the many are crushed under poverty, injustice and fear. The cycle of false hope and betrayal has repeated itself so many times, it now feels like fate. But it isn’t. It’s a result of choices by those in power, and by those who failed to challenge them.
We now stand on the brink of something irreversible. The political forces that have ruled this nation since 1971 have each, in turn, desecrated the hopes of liberation. The Awami League, after nearly two decades in power, has turned governance into a family affair, a dynasty that uses the police, courts and civil service as tools of control. The BNP, having been ousted for its own corrupt misdeeds, has returned not with reform, but with a vengeance, bullying its way back through fear, muscle power and extortion. Jamaat-e-Islami lurks quietly in the background, waiting to drag the country backwards into sectarianism and dogma. The left is a fractured chorus flattering the ruling regime for crumbs.
This is the vacuum in which the people looked toward Dr Muhammad Yunus. Not as a politician, but as a statesman, a moral figure, a man untouched by the poison of Bangladeshi politics. A builder, not a destroyer. A voice of reason in a nation gasping for decency.
But that voice is growing fainter. And that figure, once so full of promise, now risks becoming irrelevant.
It is not because Dr Yunus lacks brilliance, or courage in the academic sense. It is because he is still playing by the rules of a rigged game. He is trying to write poetry in a burning house. Trying to negotiate with wolves while they circle closer. Trying to win back the soul of a nation with patience, when the time calls for fire.
Just days ago, a businessman named Sohag was murdered in broad daylight in Old Dhaka. Dragged into the street, stomped, hacked and stoned to death by political thugs. Why? Because he refused to pay chada, extortion money. The perpetrators are linked to the BNP. The murder was captured on CCTV, yet not one person intervened. Not the police. Not the government. Not society. We have normalised political terrorism, and that is our collective shame.
If this is not a wake-up call, what is?
What we are witnessing is not politics. It is gang rule, recycled under different banners. One government kills democracy in the name of stability. Another seeks power by intimidation. And all the while, ordinary people live with fear as a daily companion, fear of the police, fear of party men, fear of speaking truth.
Dr Yunus, you cannot transform Bangladesh gently. Not anymore. You cannot inspire the nation by playing safe. Your moral high ground is useless if it is not used. You are being hounded, defamed and prosecuted by a system that feels threatened, not because of what you have done, but because of what you represent. And still, you hesitate.
You must not.
You must speak clearly, louder than ever. Not just about poverty or social business, but about the rot at the core of our political structure. You must name the parties, the institutions, the individuals who have made this country bleed. You must step out of the comfortable language of development conferences and speak to the broken heart of this nation.
And if the system calls you authoritarian, let it. If it accuses you of disruption, wear that as a badge. The system fears radical honesty because it cannot survive it.
Because here’s the truth. The nation no longer needs a gentle reformer. It needs a transformer. Someone willing to remove what is decayed so that something new may grow. Like a caterpillar breaking its body to become a butterfly, transformation is not polite. It is brutal, essential, and beautiful only after it is done.
You may not have wanted to be a revolutionary, Dr Yunus. But history has placed that responsibility in your hands. If you do not take it, there may be no one else left.
This is not just about you anymore. This is about whether Bangladesh will escape the clutches of organised political crime disguised as democracy.
This is the last window.
Wake up, Dr Yunus.
Wake up, Bangladesh.