At the heart of human life lies a radical distinction. We are a species built not only to survive but to speak, to argue, persuade, and reason.

This capacity for language and rational exchange is a uniquely human inheritance. Other creatures communicate, but none approach the scale or sophistication of our ability to debate and draw meaning from complexity.

Every time we engage in conversation–whether a coffee-shop chat or a televised debate–we enter a shared assumption so ingrained we rarely articulate it: that the person across from us, regardless of their opinion, is a reasonable, dignified human being.

This is the unspoken democratic contract that underwrites public discourse. We are not simply trading words; we are affirming the basic humanity of one another.

This is precisely why the far right, the zealot, and the would-be fascist can never truly participate in democracy.

Their project begins from the opposite premise: that their religious or political vision must be imposed upon everyone else, regardless of consent.

This is dehumanizing. It treats citizens as subjects to be molded, not interlocutors to be engaged.

And here lies the paradox. You cannot reason someone out of denying another’s humanity because the act of reasoning already presumes the very dignity they reject.

Once the idea of shared dignity is forfeited, the “debate” collapses into farce.

Thus, the far right has no real use for dialogue. It relies on two tactics instead. The first is propaganda: one-way messaging designed to bypass logic and tap emotional vulnerabilities, flooding the public sphere with its narrative.

The second is sabotage: eroding the democratic arena itself–spreading rumors, fake news, and post-truth scandals to poison public trust; drowning dissenting voices in trolling, bullying, and mass intimidation.

The problem of not giving space

These movements aim to destroy the very space where arguments can be made. And in doing so, they strike at the foundation of democracy itself: the fragile, unspoken agreement that every person who speaks has a voice worth hearing.

Fascists have no use for dialogue.

They do not need the field of communicative action that sustains democratic life, nor do they desire it. Their entry into the public sphere is not to participate but to annihilate.

Like Hanuman’s fiery tail in Lanka, their arrival signals an urge to burn the entire landscape down. They feel no attachment, no reverence, for the fragile arena where ideas and arguments coexist.

For the rest of us, that space is oxygen. It is the sea in which we swim, the only environment that allows us to exercise our political agency.

Especially in a place like Bangladesh, where authoritarian habits run deep, discussion and argument remain our most vital instruments. We do not have militias or propaganda machines–our tools are words and moral reasoning.

And if we are to preserve our agency, we must defend this space as fiercely as a crow guards its nest.

The defense of discourse, however, cannot come through censorship. Once the power to silence is granted, it will inevitably be abused.

Yet the absence of shared norms is just as destructive. Without a collective understanding of decency, truth, and restraint–even in this post-normative age–the very conditions for public reasoning collapse.

That is why we must draw a firm line against the toxins that corrode our discourse: abusive language, rumor-mongering, fake news, the casual cruelty of “viral” exposure.

Even if these tactics appear to serve our side in the short run, they eat away at the foundations of public trust.

The rewards for standing tall

The principle is as old as justice itself.

In a court of law, a confession extracted by coercion is inadmissible, not because it might not be true, but because accepting it would legitimize the practice of coercion.

The same logic applies here. If we tolerate the destruction of public discourse for a temporary advantage, we grant license to ruin it for everyone.

Even if it serves your politics, never amplify those who thrive on personal abuse. Those who trade in insults instead of ideas, who reduce debate to spectacle, corrode the very medium that gives meaning to political life.

Resist the temptation to become one of them. The line between critique and cruelty is where democracy lives.

Equally corrosive is the performative cynicism of those who dismiss accountability altogether–who declare, “I’ve made my statement; let the people find the proof.”

This posture masquerades as sophistication, even as it empties words of meaning. Do not be seduced by the self-styled radicals who wrap regressive politics in postmodern chic.

Strip away the irony and the jargon, and you will find only the same old pursuit of power.

In the end, political agency is not an abstraction. It is the capacity to act, to argue, to shape the common world through words and conviction. Lose that, and you become inert–present but powerless.

The task, then, is simple but essential: know where your agency resides, and defend that space with vigilance.

Because if we fail to protect the integrity of argument itself, we surrender the only arena in which democracy can still breathe.

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Mikail Hossain is a writer and analyst