The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario expresses vehement solidarity with the student and youth movement in Bangladesh, who are rising up to abolish the neoliberal government’s job quota system and to stop a nationwide shutdown.
Throughout the past week, students took to the streets en masse to demand an end to the discriminatory policy of the current government quota system, a system that favours up to 30% of civil service and government jobs for the families of veterans who fought in 1971 towards Bangladesh’s liberation movement. Students have also demanded that a minimum quota be ensured for the country’s marginalized and oppressed groups. Bangladeshi police and its paramilitary forces harassed and brutalized over a thousand students, taking the lives of over a hundred of them. The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario firmly opposes the state-sanctioned violence imposed on student protesters. The Bangladeshi government has now imposed a total blackout, cutting off all international communication and declaring a curfew. Yet, the students remain unmoved in their struggle against the deeply unpopular quota policies, which also takes place at a time of economic crisis and rising youth unemployment.
The similarities between the repressive tactics that are being used against students, here and globally, have been evident. When students are fighting against systemic oppression and state violence, the repeated response from the state has been and remains intimidation and brutality. Similar lines are drawn in how the student movement in so-called Canada has escalated over the past few months as students and community members continue to take back physical and cultural control of spaces on and off campuses, in response to the global solidarity movement for Palestine and an end to imperial and colonial violence. In this time, the role of the students becomes pivotal—the student movement will always be imperative to dismantling oppression on campuses and across the world.
Time and time again, it is shown that the historic nature of the student movement and the consistent threat on student autonomy are central components to assess in fighting oppressive systems and struggles across the world. The CFS-O joins the student movement in Bangladesh in demanding a quota system that is centered around workers, peasants, Indigenous communities, oppressed genders, sexes, minority languages, and overall, the multifaceted needs of the populations it is supposed to benefit.
The Federation calls upon a globally united student movement to take to the streets, while continuing to demand a free and accessible education, and a just future.
In Solidarity,
The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario