Yes, I’ve written about this before. But some truths deserve repetition–especially when the stakes are this high, and the farce is playing out in real time.

Let’s start with the language itself. The word “reform” has become one of the most misused terms in political discourse. It conjures images of progress, of systems mended and wrongs righted.

But what we call “reform” in Bangladesh today is a hollow charade–nothing more than cosmetic tinkering on a corpse.

True reform demands more than policy papers and commissions. It requires justice. Accountability. Consequences. You cannot build institutions while simultaneously letting criminals walk free–especially when the jailers hold the keys and swing the gates open.

Picture this: you hire a worker to pick mangoes in your orchard–1,000 per day. He meets his quota, bribes the guards, and vanishes with the fruit. You don’t catch him. You don’t fire the guards.

Instead, you form a “Mango Reform Commission” and raise the quota to 1,200. It would be hilarious if it weren’t a metaphor for the state.

Because in reality, if word gets out that mango thieves can disappear with impunity, your orchard will be overrun with thieves. The worst of the worst will line up for a job.

That’s precisely what happened in Bangladesh from 2008 to 2024. The Awami League didn’t just dominate; they devoured. They ate until they were full–stuffed on state power, bloated on public wealth.

Now that the feast is winding down, they’re leaving behind the mess for others to clean up. Some, like Debidwar MP Abul Kalam Azad, are literally floating away from the wreckage–yachting in the Mediterranean while the country simmers in the aftermath.

Let’s be clear: the Awami League hasn’t faced meaningful consequences. Their only real setback was not getting to stay a little longer at the buffet. But the damage is done. When they nullified the Fifteenth Amendment in 2011, they lit the fuse.

The bloodshed that followed wasn’t a question of if–only when.

And now, after years of plunder, many of the League’s elites–aside from a few loyal foot soldiers and wild-eyed fanatics–have safely tucked away enough wealth to sustain their dynasties in Dubai and Doha for generations.

They got out. Clean. Quiet. Ready to reemerge, perhaps in five or ten years, with clean slates and deeper pockets.

Left in the lurch

Meanwhile, we’re still sitting in the orchard, wondering why the fruit keeps disappearing. Reform? No. This is a heist in slow motion, and we’re too distracted by the word “reform” to see it.

But the Awami League didn’t pull off this great escape alone. The interim government–through either deliberate collusion or staggering incompetence–handed them the final gift: a clean getaway.

Whether by design or by default, the doors were flung open, and the looters walked out unbothered, uncharged, and unaccountable.

And with their escape, justice itself was quietly exiled. Any talk of reform now rings hollow–because reform without justice is just political theater. We aren’t witnessing a new beginning. We’re watching a scorched-earth exit strategy.

More dangerous still is the precedent this has set. Among Bangladesh’s political elite–across party lines, from civil and military bureaucracies to business syndicates–a singular idea is now cemented: it is possible to loot a nation for sixteen years and leave without consequence.

The next generation of political aspirants has received the message loud and clear. Whether they dream of holding power for a decade or just one five-year term, their ambitions will be shaped by plunder rather than by public service.

The deeper consequence lies in what this betrayal has done to the nation’s psyche. By protecting Awami cronies inside military cantonments before spiriting them out, the interim regime has planted a toxic seed: suspicion between the military and the people.

That mistrust won’t vanish–it will bloom into something darker in the next political rupture. July, already bristling with tension, may be bloodier than anything we’ve yet seen.

Professional politicians will carry on with their tired maneuvers–saving factions, making deals, spinning empty programs. But the public sees through it. From the street-level perspective, this moment is not just about the Awami League’s corruption–it’s about the death of deterrence.

The 16-year plunder followed by a mass escape is essentially a national humiliation. It’s also an open invitation for the worst elements in every party to seize the reins.

When corruption is rewarded, Gresham’s Law applies to politics too: bad actors drive out the good. And once the monsters take over, conflict with the public isn’t a matter of if, but how violent, how soon, and how complete the collapse will be.

Bleak future or silver lining?

So where does that leave us–the public, the people who have no private yachts, no exit visas, no offshore accounts?

We, the ones left behind to pay for the damage, don’t have the power to drag back the fugitives or put the architects of their escape on trial. But that doesn’t mean we are powerless.

In the wake of this mass exodus of accountability, our first and most urgent task is to reject the poisonous politics of division–of class, gender, and ethnicity–that keeps us fractured and weak.

We must refuse the state's relentless attempt to position itself above society, to expand its power at the expense of our voices. That kind of state always serves the looters, never the people.

We must begin again, from the ground up–not with commissions or slogans, but with solidarity. With a common political language rooted in the everyday struggles of working people simply trying to live.

No state, no party, no military structure can be allowed to dominate that space again.

Second, we must fight relentlessly to preserve the mechanisms of democracy–however fragile, however compromised. That means sustained pressure for regular elections.

That means demanding, not requesting, public forums for speech, dissent, and discourse. And it means insisting that those conversations remain in our hands–not handed off to NGOs, party loyalists, or international mediators.

Without a vigilant, informed, and vocal citizenry–without public pressure and participatory politics–what comes after the Awami League may look different in name, but it will operate by the same script.

The names on the loot bags might change, but the looting will not stop.

In other words: if we don’t seize this moment, someone else will. And they will seize it not to rebuild, but to repeat.

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Mikail Hossain is a writer and analyst