Disasters come and go. Any public outrage that initially rises from social media forums and street protests evaporate as soon as the mainstream TV channels and print media shift the country's attention to the next big cause célèbre. Some NGOs and conscientious individuals keep plowing on with the cause, but that is never really enough, because the fury and indignation fomented amongst the general population at the beginning eventually fades out with the rise of other prominent issues. This was the fate of the Rana Plaza tragedy, a fate suffered by many others, from Tazreen to Gaza, as we managed to forget and skim through to newer disasters.
In remembrance of the tragedy, the British Council Bangladesh and Monsoon Letters, in collaboration with the performance poetry troupe, The Muse Masters, and other theatre professionals, staged a play at the British Council premises in Dhaka on 1st of May. This play was infused with the rhetoric of poetry to remember once again all those lives ended and transformed on 24th April, 2013 when the building in Savar collapsed due to structural failure.
People from all walk of lives came in the evening to pay their respects to the garment workers, who lost their lives due to the incompetence and the relentless pursuit of profit on the part of the owners, and to remember the heroic Bangladeshi citizenry, who as volunteers, risked their livelihoods for a greater cause.
This play created a platform for anyone willing to raise voice against the apathy that has so surreptitiously pervaded into contemporary society, and atomized us individuals to the point of passivity. There are interests across Bangladesh inviting this play and we hope to take this play to wider audiences in near future.
