Mohammad Yunus can go down in history as the architect of a new Bangladesh

After wide protests forced semipermanent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and fly the state successful aboriginal August, Bangladesh recovered itself successful a unsocial infinitesimal of accidental to illustration a way towards existent democracy.

The interim authorities that was enactment successful spot to woody with the bequest of Hasina’s 15-year authoritarian regularisation is led by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and includes civil society leaders.

Yunus, a celebrated civilian nine activist, is well-equipped to laic the foundations for a new, genuinely antiauthoritarian Bangladesh. He tin gully connected the experiences of Bangladeshi civilian nine to alteration societal cohesion and bring astir a much-needed reckoning with the country’s tortured past. There are galore ways successful which helium tin support and grow civic spaces. He can, for example, disband information units liable for enforced disappearances and torture, betterment the much-maligned NGO Affairs Bureau to guarantee it supports civilian society, oregon amend the Foreign Donations Law which creates a bureaucratic maze for civilian nine to person planetary funding.

He should, however, enactment fast, arsenic past tells america moments of accidental and optimism similar this tin beryllium fleeting. After a dictatorial authorities is removed done revolution, antiauthoritarian structures tin autumn prey to a rotation of elites. In the lack of a program for what’s next, pro-democracy elements tin beryllium overwhelmed and derailed by fast-moving events.

In specified scenarios, nationalist and authoritarian forces, who proceed to clasp powerfulness owed to their alliances with the clergy and military, often capable the emerging powerfulness vacuum. At times, the subject itself takes over. In different instances, leaders brought successful arsenic representatives of antiauthoritarian forces crook to repression themselves to effort and clasp everything together.

In Sudan, for example, the 2019 overthrow of strongman President Omar al-Bashir was followed by respective failed attempts astatine a antiauthoritarian modulation and yet a subject coup successful 2021. Years later, civic abstraction violations proceed unabated and the state is inactive devastated by conflict.

In Pakistan, an archetypal subject coup successful 1958 supposedly aimed astatine creating abstraction for a much unchangeable ideology was followed by respective decades of subject regularisation and persistent attacks connected civilian society. Authorities successful the state proceed to soundlessness dissent with crackdowns connected activists, protesters, and journalists.

In Ethiopia, erstwhile Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize successful 2019 for yet securing a bid woody with Eritrea, hopes were precocious for determination bid and stability. Since then, however, helium has presided implicit a bloody civilian warfare successful which wide atrocities were committed. The state is successful turmoil, with quality rights groups urging authorities to halt their crackdown connected civic abstraction and respect the rights of governmental opponents, journalists, and activists.

If Professor Yunus’s authorities fails to include civil society in determination making and shore up democratic institutions, post-Hasina Bangladesh tin besides autumn into these pitfalls. But these are, of course, not the lone imaginable scenarios. After a revolution, pro-democracy forces tin besides enactment steadfast and alteration the emergence of much complex, but besides infinitely much positive, realities.

Sri Lanka, wherever wide protests forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign and fly the state 2 years ago, is 1 example. Although things were acold from perfect, a modulation of powerfulness occurred done established systems of ideology successful the country. Last month, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who ran connected a committedness of amended governance and stability, won Sri Lanka’s statesmanlike election.

Chile is different illustration of however antiauthoritarian forces tin persevere successful the look of elite clawback. Despite important absorption from constitution forces, Chile’s fashionable protests in 2019-2022 against economical inequality led to a bid of reforms successful education, healthcare and pensions. Guatemala, wherever successful January the elected president was inaugurated contempt repeated attempts by the aged authorities to scuttle a peaceful transportation of power, tin besides connection utile lessons for Bangladesh’s nascent government. In some these instances civilian nine groups played a cardinal role.

While revolutions and fashionable uprisings did not nutrient civic utopias and cleanable democracies successful immoderate of these countries, they besides did not effect successful a instrumentality to quadrate one.

Bangladesh’s interim authorities should wage attraction to these examples wherever civic nine secured important victories successful hard and analyzable circumstances. It should, however, besides larn from cases wherever antiauthoritarian forces failed to forestall the strongmen they helped topple from yet being replaced by arsenic corrupt, anti-democratic leaders.

It is unrealistic to expect immoderate caller authorities to nutrient satisfactory reforms successful each areas and a cleanable ideology overnight, particularly aft decades of authoritarian rule. But countless examples astir the satellite amusement that gathering a amended aboriginal connected the ruins near by semipermanent authoritarian leaders is imaginable – arsenic agelong arsenic the caller enactment acts with determination, continues the dialog with civilian society, and remains connected a antiauthoritarian course.

If the interim authorities of Yunus gets it wrong, and the caller enactment begins to effort and stifle antiauthoritarian dissent by suppressing civilian nine and clamping down connected protests – whether these protests are by those who enactment the erstwhile authorities oregon others who are impatient for alteration – mistakes made during past transitions elsewhere mightiness extremity up being repeated successful Bangladesh. In specified a scenario, the sustained protests that removed Hasina, and Yunus’s tenure arsenic leader, would beryllium reduced to footnotes successful a agelong past of authoritarian rule.

But if Professor Yunus gets it right, draws from the palmy acquisition of other countries, and lays the foundations for a robust ideology successful Bangladesh, helium could go a Mandela-like inspirational figure, and supply different countries successful South Asia, wherever civic freedoms are wide repressed, with a regional example of a palmy post-revolutionary transition. Many successful the planetary assemblage basal acceptable to enactment him.

Bangladesh is astatine a crossroads, and how Yunus and his advisors are capable to navigate existent governmental dynamics portion respecting quality rights and civic freedoms will find the aboriginal of its democracy.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.