The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

The International Congress of Paris [ICP] adopted May 1 as the International Socialist holiday in 1889, and each following year, in all civilized country, workingmen and women steer to demonstrate on that day to demand from a capitalist world greater political and industrial freedom and better standard of living.

It was conjured principally as an international demand for an 8-hour day, for social legislation, for equal labor right for men and women, and as a protest against militarism and war of intolerable exploitation. In most countries May Day is celebrated as a workers' holiday.

On this day the class conscious working men and women assert, if only for a day, their freedom and solidarity from capitalist domination. And by this hallmark it signifies to them the great international brotherhood of the working-class, fighting for liberation from capitalist oppression. Then comes the war, and May 1 became a day of sadness.

The observance of the day in Bangladesh is essentially important and mostly goes mocking of that fortitude, with the deep-seated rights of the citizens poised under a state of emergency. There is no rebuffing the fact that the reality for workers in Bangladesh remains largely similar to that of the Chicago laborers, who took to the streets for an eight-hour working day exactly 122 years ago. Tens of millions of workers in the formal and informal sectors of the country work longer hours for meager amount.

Conversely, the Chicago laborers at least had the freedom and right to come together and protest against the exploitation they had been subjected to. As of now, the workers in Bangladesh do not even have that freedom. Therefore, the very goal of whatever programs that we will have to showcase the day should be to make the case for quick withdrawal of the state of emergency and restitution of the fundamental rights of the general people.

It is in Bangladesh more than in any other place that May Day prolongs to have huge connotation. To be sure, as the country has gone through the various ways, some of them rather asymmetrical, in its rally towards industrialization, the memo of May Day has progressively come to attain a fresh and more effective meaning for all of us

The painful efforts of workers and farmers of Bangladesh have been going on, in spite of all the deafening proclamations that have been made and go on to be made a propos how developed a society we have been forwarding. There are the facts and figures which continue to report to us what needs to be worked out. The number of the poor has not grown less. If anything, it has only been going up. The mass departure of young people, men as well as women, from the villages to the towns and cities of the country is testimony, if testimonies were needed, of the deficiency the broad masses are yet subject to in this land. And in the urban areas, the laborious struggle which the poor -we can consider the garments workers, rickshaw pullers and some other helpers here - have incessantly put up is an ideal pointer of how far we yet holdup behind other nations in the issue of guaranteeing a welfare society for the nation.

In the general brains, thus, May Day is about the establishment of a civilized, caring, educated society where the self-esteem of the individual matters. The self-esteem of course comes through giving the individual the opportunities promised him or her by the state. In Bangladesh, it is the serious responsibility of the state to care for all its citizens well. A breakdown to do that can only create, often, those circumstances of poverty and corruption that have recurrently limited our capacity to do better to our fellow countrymen.

The truth for Bangladeshi workers today, conversely, largely remains similar to that of the Chicago laborers 122 years ago, although the government as well as political parties observe the day in pomp; but with missing the spirit. An authentic report shows that more than tens of millions of workers in the country's formal and informal industrial sectors are paid at a rate which is one of the lowest in the world.

More to the point, the private sector workers, particularly the garment workers, mostly women, are reportedly made to work, at times, 12 hours a day and seven days a week. And as for working condition, it is one of the worst in the world - frequent garment's wages riots making the labor right warped being the burning example. Our governments are never seen serious about addressing the issues, which is a clear manifestation of their indifference to the welfare of the toiling laborers. Under these political and economic circumstances, we can hardly expect the healthy growth of a resourceful labor force, which is well thought-out a key to the healthy growth of national economy principally in the competitive open market economy of the globe.

The 8-hour day has become the standard of capitalist production; in every capitalist country universal labour right is either realized or on the eve of its realization. On the other hand, the violation of international labor law under capitalism has become a chimera, permanent peace an empty phrase, a dream that will not and cannot be fulfilled so long as capitalism with its greed for territories, markets and spheres of influence continues to exist.

It is because of these facts that the class-conscious workers, leaving to the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class the stage-management of 8-hour day celebrations, demonstrate on May Day for revolution, and that on May 1 there rings round the world the timeless slogan: "All power to the workers!"

It is high time that the government ensured the labor rights for the ultimate benefit of both the workers and the employers, which would sooner or later result in a considerable economic advancement of the whole country.