Bangladeshis fear old guard’s revenge after leader’s ousting
While picking the ‘right’ colour is entirely subjective to the space and property, this expert always comes back to green.
Amid their jubilation, many of the student protesters who chased Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power a week ago were afraid that she was scheming to return with the help of her ally, the country’s chief justice.
So students on Sunday surrounded the high court and demanded his resignation, fearing he might overturn the selection of the country’s new, temporary leader. Again, they prevailed.
The repeated success of the students over the past week has fuelled hope across the capital, Dhaka, that the tremendous violence that culminated in Hasina’s overthrow will yield dramatic political and social changes, including in how Bangladesh elects its leaders, and how its government, courts and police operate.
“We will keep hitting the streets if we have to,” said Shima Akhtar, a protester who said several of her friends had been killed by police during the demonstrations. “This is a time for real change.”
But expressions of hope are mixed with fears that the old guard would hijack the revolution by undermining the transitional government, headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.
There are also concerns about the prospect of ethnic violence or a breakdown of law and order after the departure of Hasina, who had ruled with an increasingly iron fist over the past 15 years, and anxiety over the country’s deepening economic crisis.
“It’s not very easy to hope for something better,” said Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan, a Dhaka University international studies professor who mentored the student protest leaders. “We had this same experience in the past, and we failed every time.”
Since the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has cycled through repeated military coups, dictatorships and alternating civilian rule by the old guard parties, Hasina’s Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), both led by dynastic figures.
This latest change of power was the bloodiest, with hundreds killed, most of them students. “This is the last chance for us,” Khan said.
Hasina’s rule has left the country’s institutions deeply politicised and corrupted, political analysts say. The country’s constitution is riddled with amendments that have allowed elected leaders to abuse their powers. Experts say the last valid election was in 2008.
The temporary government led by Yunus is focused first on restoring law and order, and eventually on overseeing fresh elections. But many critics of the old guard are asking for a more fundamental break with the two political parties that have long ruled the country.
“If the current constitution stays as is, how can we say that the next Hasina is not in the making?” asked Ali Riaz, an expert on Bangladeshi politics at Illinois State University.
Demonstrators, who have continued to protest peacefully, are offering a variety of proposals, such as a new bicameral parliament, a two-term limit for MPs, and a new system to nominate judges.
Leaders in the traditional political parties, however, retort that the members of the transitional government are unelected and have no standing to undertake such major changes.
Yunus was chosen by the students in negotiations with the security chiefs and the president after Hasina resigned and fled the country, and other members are heads of development organisations, students and other activists.
The Awami League says the government “has no mandate” at all, according to Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed.
The BNP also said the transitional period should be over as soon as possible.
But Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the adviser for environment in the transitional government, says the student-led movement has earned the right to lead through its actions and sacrifices.
“If the political parties do not realise the difference in strength between their political standing and the political standing of the students, they would be miscalculating,” said Hasan, speaking at her home beside an array of congratulatory flowers. “These questions of legitimacy will always be there, but we have to earn legitimacy through our actions.”
While the transitional government could lose its legitimacy if it holds power for too long, some students say it will take time to form the new party they would like to see.
Experts such as Khan warn that the coming months could pose various dangers, including the targeting of minority communities.
Bangladesh is majority Muslim, with Hindus making up about 8% of the country’s 170 million people. They predominantly supported Hasina’s Awami League, which espoused secularism, and in the past week they have at times come under violent attack.
Khan said the publicity around these sporadic attacks made it seem as if Hindus had been left vulnerable to violence by Islamist extremists without Hasina there to protect them. The attacks, he said, were part of a “campaign to claim that if Hasina is not in power, this country will be a country of fanatics”.
Bangladeshis are also imperiled by the desperate state of the economy.
The country has been celebrated for the success of its garment industry, which has become a key, low-cost supplier to Western companies, and is now second only to that of China. But the Covid pandemic undercut demand, pummelling the industry. The country is so dependent on this sector that Bangladesh hasn’t been able to generate enough employment for the 2 million people entering the workforce each year.
Also stoking the economic crisis have been increases in the cost of food and fuel imports due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other supply chain disruptions.
Employment grievances fuelled the protests of the past month, which were triggered by the expansion of affirmative action for government jobs. People whose families participated in Bangladesh’s freedom struggle, many tied to the Awami League, were promised preferential treatment.
The challenge of fostering economic growth is tied up with that of restoring law and order. Stability had long made Bangladesh attractive to foreign investors.
A week after Hasina fled, police remain far from public view. But students have stepped into the void. Students carrying sticks and donning donated hi-vis vests have been directing snarled traffic. Other volunteers swept shattered glass from around the high-rise building that housed the pro-government television channel.
Another team of students, armed with notebooks, entered one of Dhaka’s largest wholesale markets. They checked the prices being charged by every seller to make sure no-one was inflating them to take advantage of the turmoil.
“If we, the students, ever catch a bribe, we will take action against you and the bribe collector,” said Sajjad Hossain, 23, wearing a ribbon around his head with the Bangladeshi flag, and shouting into a megaphone. His voice carried down the small alley lined with stacks of rice bags.
“We will liberate Bangladesh again if it comes to that,” he yelled amid a chorus of cheers. – Washington Post
“If the political parties do not realise the difference in strength between their political standing and the political standing of the students, they would be miscalculating.”
Syeda Riawana Hasan, transitional government adviser
You can tell a lot about a property from just a thumbnail. Ruth Mottershead was casually browsing a United Kingdom property website from her modern home in Hale Barns, Greater Manchester, when she stumbled on a detached, redbrick Victorian house in the nearby village of Hale, and instinctively had to go and view it.
“When we walked in, we knew it was probably the one for us,” she recalls.
It was rich in original features and character, but was decorated in neutral shades. “We felt like we needed to inject a bit of colour,” she says.
“I think the biggest problem for most people is that they find it hard to choose paints and wallpapers. But for us, it’s deciding exactly what we want, because there are so many options, and we want to use what we’ve created.”
While the five-bedroom house is still a work in progress in terms of furniture and window treatments, the walls and ceilings are an evolving expression of the couple’s creativity.
Here, the pair share their top tips, as well as the choices that didn’t quite work out.
Use colours to create a mood
The south-facing playroom/dining room off the kitchen is what Mottershead calls “the hub of the home”.
“It’s an active space – it’s energising and full of life,” she says, which is why the couple opted for a feature wall swathed in 1838’s graphic Peacock Topiary wallpaper
(1838wallcoverings.com).
The remaining walls and ceiling are drenched in Little Greene’s Etruria
(littlegreene.com), a mid-strength blue with warm tones, offset with a statement wall of joinery in the brand’s vibrant Yellow Pink.
It’s a playful combination; Ruth muses how pairing the wallpaper with a soft white would have changed the atmosphere entirely: “It would probably look a little more sophisticated.”
The space is a marked contrast from the couple’s office, which feels far more serene.
“For a home office, I always specify colours that bring calmness and aren’t too much of a distraction for when you’re working, because you just want to focus and concentrate,” says Mottershead.
Little Greene’s Light Peachblossom, a dusky pink, exudes serenity on the ceiling and bookshelves, with Rolling Fog, a warm beige, covering the walls.
Have fun with transitional spaces
“Because you’re not spending a lot of time in them, you can really afford to be a bit louder,” says Mottershead of being bold with decor in hallways, loos and utility rooms.
She practises what she preaches: her home’s cloakroom (which doubles as the dogs’ sleeping quarters) is wrapped in Little Greene’s Burges Snails, a charming daisy and snail-print wallpaper designed with the National Trust.
She teamed it with an earthy, putty colour, Portland Stone, on the woodwork, which happens to be Little Greene’s best-selling paint shade: “It works well with green because it’s got some green pigment in it,” she notes.
The hallway and staircase are just as impactful, with pale blue-green walls in Aquamarine grounded by dark-green Ambleside on the original wood panelling on the lower parts of the walls.
“Aquamarine is a really hard colour to use,” admits Mottershead, “but it works well in this particular space because it’s a cold green – I wouldn’t necessarily use it in another room in this house.”
Create cohesion around the house
A yellow ceiling, a pink office, a green hallway … if it all sounds disparate, then know that there is method to Mottershead’s schemes. “We’ve handled each space individually, while trying to create a transition from room to room,” she says.
A case in point is a kitchen wall painted in a muted green called Windmill Lane, which recalls the sage green in the adjoining dining room’s peacock wallpaper.
The rest of the kitchen is a stopgap job, and the cabinetry and tiles have been drenched in a plastery pink, China Clay Deep, which was also picked out of the same wallpaper. “You come out of one room into another, and although it’s quite different, it feels like a smooth passage.”
If in doubt, go with green
After visiting the Mottershead-Watson abode, friends always leave feeling inspired to try something punchier than grey.
“Questions about colour are what I get asked the most,” says Mottershead. While picking the ‘right’ colour is entirely subjective to the space and property, she always comes back to green.
“I adore green. You can use it in lots of different spaces and areas as there are so many tones of it, whereas other colours are more appropriate for certain spaces.
“Overall, it’s quite neutral: you can obviously get blue-greens or pinkygreens, but they’re not so off the scale that it’s creating too much cold or too much warmth in a room – it’s right in the middle.”
Be prepared to pivot
The only spot of grey to be found in this house is on Ivy’s bedroom window frames. She was a toddler when they moved, so Mottershead and Watson chose to repeat the same vibrant jungle mural by Sian Zeng that she had had in her bedroom in their former home, to aid in the transition for her. “I absolutely loved that wallpaper, and it brought some familiarity,” says Mottershead.
But there are other rooms which haven’t been so successful and are already enjoying a second life. In the basement, the wallpaper the couple originally chose for a guest room has been replaced – by a delicate floral motif with a neutral background, which helped to lift the mood.
Rather than dwelling on these decisions as mistakes, the couple use the opportunity to try something new. It’s reassuring to know that even the experts don’t always get it right first time. – Telegraph Group