Prayers (Milaad) and Solidarity Event in Nishchinthapur with the remaining survivors and families. Speeches and Bands (details to be added) kept the flame for justice, our brothers and sister's did not burn to death in vain.
Yesterday was STRONG, the presence and spirit of the city dwelling bands, singers, activists and those who have persevered for this cause since the first day, cheered up this little town of ''Nischinthapur'', who embraced the solidarity and by the end I filmed the voices of workers scream for justice. May their voices not be quelled by tear gas, rubber bullets, threats or gun shots. The is only the beginning of a life long fight for justice.
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
― Howard Zinn
It has been one year since we witnessed those horrifying scenes of body bags and charred remains lining the grounds of the factory, anguish on the faces of relatives having to look through the rotting corpses to find their missing child, wife, sister or mother. Witness statements describing how the surviving women had smelt the smoke but where still being forced to work, some locked in, how they had to leave their colleagues behind to burn to deaths while they jumped out of the window to the next building or off the roof. Statements of mothers or wives, making their last calls, knowing they were going to meet a burning fate.
Tazreen Fashions supplied to Walmart, Disney, Edinburgh Woollen Mills, C&A, Li and Fung, Clothes for the US Marines, EVEN clothes for the Forbes listed billionairre Sean ''P Diddy'' Coombes. None have paid compensation, instead have rejected to be part of the agreements ensuring safe standards at Bangladesh factories.
I have been working in Bangladesh for just over a year, when collating the initial report from the information my colleagues from ASK investigation Unit collected; the photos of the burned bodies, burned pretty faces and the haunting scenes of the remaining assembly lines, the padlock which would lock the workers in, the fire extinguishers which remain untouched due to no training, the wired grills on the window where there were attempts to escape, woke me up to the reality of first world greed and the monster we have allowed capitalism to become.
There have been numerous articles, features, documentaries and coverage. Relentless attempts by those who also felt their souls tremble, individuals, professionals, non-professionals, organisations, lawyers, activists, human beings. Attempts to bring justice to the remaining families who were having to go through a grueling DNA testing process, some having to mourn at unmarked graves while others had no body. Soon after, the owner Delowar Hossain received tv coverage crying. Had he taken measures to stand by the dead workers victims and the surviving injured, no. I saw their desperation and I saw how the world remained untouched.
Instead of taking full responsibility the government have allowed the families of the victims and surviving victims to suffer, no health care costs let alone compensation, no support, they had to run around from the outer city to the central, to beg the BGMEA, to government offices, to the hospital, it had taken months for DNA tests.
International governments and significant profiteers of the garments industry in Bangladesh were showing major ''concern''. Why were they not holding the brands in their own home countries accountable? Why was the Bangladesh Government protecting the factory owner, despite the release of a government probe report finding the owner to be guilt of ''criminal negligence''?
Occupy London | Points from initial Statement
''The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.''
''We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.''
''We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.''
It has been long established since world wide protests from Arab Spring to Indignados and Occupy, the government do not represent its people anymore. The facade of democracy has fallen, where the British had built a wonderful looking ''democracy'' in Great Britain, they had also started the first Multinational throat cut corporation in history, in Bengal. The East India Company. I am yet to find the evidence behind the tales I have heard here about the East India Company cutting off the fingers of the weavers who produced fine muslim which Bangladesh had been trading with european countries from as early as the 12th century. Their explotation is nothing new.
Why are the garments girls, the ''bostrobalikara'' of Bangladesh disposable? Why is this a class issue? Why didn't this incident shake the souls of all men and women of each and every human being? There have been outrageous headlines, how these brands have shunned responsibility, have not taken part in talks to reform the building safety regulation and improving the lives of the workers. Instead nauseating scenes of P Diddy on yacht parties, even though his PR company said immediately after the fire they would pay compensation, no action was taken. Repugnant, repulsive and abnoxious scenes at the 2013 Annual Shareholders meeting, celebrities took the stage to celebrate WALMART, Tom Cruise, Hugh jackman, Ben Stiller, Elton John, Justin Timberlake and many others shamelessly celebrated this beast of a corporation. Why couldn't they have some integrity like Russell Brand who shamed the label Hugo Boss at a sponsored event this year, GQ Awards, where the likes of notorious toff and elitist arch enemy of Occupy, ''Mayor'' of London won an award for Politician of the year. I was there at the London Peoples assembly where he was being booed by his constituency the year before! Thankfully he was blasted by Brand, now I deem as a responsible celebrity.
Having been in London in the summer, how the high street labels and fashion continues, even after Rana Plaza collapse which swallowed 1130 workers. I found the fashion I once would have liked, vile. After seeing the photos of corpses or mutilated/amputated survivors, mannequins at the window and teenage fashion victims imitating them, made me shudder. I was disconnected from the bubble of the capitalist utopia, greed for need, obsessions with self at the cost of these disposable lives.
The western world are fully aware of the health and safety regulations, fire and safety, building code and compliance, workers basic rights! I am sure the staff in the brand outlets enjoy the trickle of the 80% profit margins and they get to look good too. The dark, petite garment girls of the ''third world'' are just a sob story in a faraway land.
How could life go on? Hard working, independent, self respecting young women, trying to make ends meet, they were supporting their parents, their families, their husbands or trying to save for an education. Their dreams and hopes were choked and smouldered in the flames.
Consumers, the public are immune, the evils of marketing, materialism, celebrity trash, fashion magazines, carnal, vulgar, self obsessed, sexualised advertising is subconsciously churned into the majority of mindsets. A new generation of teen pop beasts being created by this system. A disease which has been spreading from the western world in the middle classes of asia, where women can no longer empathise the plea of women, where human beings cannot feel or hear the burning screams. Simple human empathy has been dissolved by greed, the lower desires of the human soul. Whilst in this bubble, those who should be acting and fighting are disable by inaction.
We critiscise the governments, we allow the corporations, we have laws and ''guiding principles'' but WHO are responsible for implementation? Press statements and articles shine with solutions but PEOPLE have got to be the watchdogs on every level at every stage, getting out on the streets is not just out on the streets, its getting your hands dirty and doing the work. The situation is in crisis and a simple vote is not your responsibility to society, pouring in funds or boycotting a brand is not enough.
We have to go further than demanding crimes are investigated, crimes have got to be punishable, those responsible on ever layer of the system, held accountable, named and shamed, chased and occupied.
Why can't the governments of the world start taking responsibility for the behaviour of their home businesses and brands? Or for a start why can't the government of Bangladesh compensate the remaining victims of Tazreen? These workers the government gloat about for the life blood of the growing garments industry, why can't they treat them with their due respect? I was sitting in the one room shack of Sumaya Khatun, a 16 year old who was initially trapped in the fumes in Tazreen then had to jump out to survive, her eye had almost popped out and she has since developed a brain tumour behind that eye. A few activists have been raising money for her treatment and she has been through 33 radiation sessions, which have not succeeded. She sits on her bed taking morphine, she has lost her eye sight now and her hair has fallen off due to chemo, laying in silence while her mother and little brother take care of her. She raised her brother whilst her mother used to work, her mother told us how she spent all the money saved for Sumaya's wedding on her initial treatment costs. I couldn't comprehend her situation, as we left she grabbed hold of Saydia Gulrukh who has been standing by her side and she didn't want to let go. As Saydia had to peel her away, I walked in silence. Even though she is dying, why can't the government give her due respect and compensation for living her life as an independent, working from a young age?
Why can't the issues for compensation and injured survivors be resolved by the government or the millionaire conglomerates. Since Tazreen there were three more factory disasters in the past 12 months. Rana Plaza hit the headlines as the other incidents had smaller numbers which disappeared in to columns. Where we see one death in the western world as a murder, here they are just statistics.
The cheap lives of the disposable garment workers held no significance as we have become immune. In the summer, passing the high street brands, I wanted to scream the pleas of these women, wanted to throw red paint on all the stock, throw red paint/blood at models in London fashion week, so many ideas and actions but what is the point? When people don't feel the desire to care?
Campaigners have been campaigning, writers writing, the injured, breathing, surviving. Special thanks to the kindess and humanity of activist anthropologists and the Dead Workers Union even groups like ACT who have been attempting to wake up the zombified masses whilst the charred bodies of the forgotten sisters have become dust. The hard work of numerous NGOs and lawyers who have been fighting the battle for years in Bangladesh and having to deal with the awkward system goes unnoticed and unthanked. We continue walking on this soil, the same soil which contains the blood of our ancestors who fought for the freedom of the people of Bangladesh.
The battle continues!
Nafeesa
