Bangladesh stood with Palestine long before the West found its conscience
Bangladesh was ahead of time. We knew then what much of the West still refuses to see today: Palestine is not an idea. It is people, a state, a struggle that will outlast both bombs and betrayals
When Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer sombrely stared into the camera last week (21 September) to announce that the United Kingdom would now "recognise" the State of Palestine, the global press hailed it as a historic shift. For Palestine, for the millions displaced, murdered, besieged in Gaza and the West Bank, it was painted as a breakthrough.
But let us be clear. This is not generosity. This is colonial arrogance.
Palestine has always been a state. Its people have always existed. Its land has always been stolen. And Britain - the very empire that lit the fire in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, that promised away a land it did not own, that helped architect decades of dispossession - now wants applause for recognising what it tried to erase.
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Bangladesh, by contrast, has never needed reminders of what occupation feels like. We know, in our bones, what it means to be silenced, starved, and slaughtered while the world debates your right to exist.
In 1971, we fought against a brutal, genocidal regime and emerged scarred but sovereign. It was that memory, that solidarity born of blood, that shaped our relationship with Palestine from the very beginning.
Only two years after independence, Bangladesh stood with Palestine during the 1973 October War. We sent doctors, medicine, and relief supplies when Palestinians bled. We opened our doors to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), allowing them to set up an office in Dhaka.
Bangladesh has a complete ban on trade (indirect and direct) with Israel, as Bangladesh does not have any diplomatic relations with Israel.
On 15 November 1988, Palestine declared its independence, and the following day, 16 November, Bangladesh became one of the first 80 countries to recognise it as a state.
The first high-level meeting between the two countries took place in 1974 at the second OIC summit between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Yasser Arafat.
Since then, there have been 13 high-level visits of Yasser Arafat to Bangladesh in 1981 and 1987. Yasser Arafat was not just a visitor; he was a brother, greeted with open arms and thunderous crowds on the streets of our capital.
Our solidarity was not symbolic. It was lived.
In 1980, Bangladesh issued a postage stamp depicting a Palestinian freedom fighter in front of the Al-Aqsa mosque, wrapped in barbed wire, described as Valiant in both English and Arabic.
By 1987, our government reported that 8,000 Bangladeshi youths had volunteered to fight for the PLO. Palestinian cadets trained at our military academies. This was not the posture of diplomacy. This was kinship.
And even in the small things, Bangladesh refused to compromise.
For decades, our passports bore the line: "This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel."
It was not mere ink. It was a statement.
In 2021, when the Hasina government, ousted in August last year following mass protests, quietly dropped the clause citing "international compliance", the people revolted.
The clause has now been restored. Because in Bangladesh, Palestine is not a distant issue. It is stitched into our conscience.
The Home Ministry issued an order on April 7 instructing the Department of Immigration and Passports to restore the clause.
Just months ago, on 13 April, more than a million Bangladeshis filled the streets of Dhaka in what became the country's largest pro-Palestinian rally in history.
Suhrawardy Udyan overflowed with voices chanting "Free Palestine" and swearing a collective oath to boycott products tied to Israel. Politicians, poets, social media influencers, artists stood shoulder to shoulder.
It was not just a march; it was a mirror to our own Liberation War. We know the face of occupation. We know the sound of denial. We know the silence of the world when bombs rain down.
So when Britain, Canada, Australia, and Portugal now line up to "recognise" Palestine after nearly two years of genocide in Gaza, they must not be celebrated.
Recognition delayed for decades is recognition denied.
To acknowledge a state after fuelling its destruction with weapons, after criminalising its defenders, after arresting thousands of activists at home for daring to challenge Zionism - this is not justice. This is a photo-op.
According to an AFP tally, as of now, at least 145 out of 193 UN member states have recognised Palestine. Yet recognition remains a complex and often politicised act in international law.
Romain Le Boeuf, professor of international law at Aix-Marseille University, explained that recognition is "one of the most complicated questions" in the field - more of a halfway point between politics and law.
He noted that there is no central body to record recognitions, and states are free to choose the timing and manner of doing so.
"Recognition does not mean that a state has been created, no more than the lack of recognition prevents the state from existing," he told AFP.
For many legal scholars, the significance lies in symbolism.
Franco-British law professor Philippe Sands argued in The New York Times that recognition can be a "game changer" because it places Palestine and Israel on equal footing under international law - at least in theory.
Bangladesh recognised Palestine in 1988. But long before that, we lived its struggle as our own.
While first-world capitals debated whether Palestinians even had the right to self-determination, Dhaka was already carving their faces into stamps, already sending medics to their warzones, already raising its youth to fight alongside them.
Sea of people flood Suhrawardy Udyan in solidarity with Gaza
Bangladesh was ahead of time. We knew then what much of the West still refuses to see today: Palestine is not an idea. It is people, a state, a struggle that will outlast both bombs and betrayals.
Britain's late recognition does not wash away its colonial handprints on the catastrophe. It cannot erase the Balfour Declaration. It cannot unship the weapons to Israel. It cannot cleanse the silence as Gaza's children are buried under rubble.
Recognition, yes. But let us not mistake it for redemption.
Bangladesh has never waited for the permission of empires to decide where justice lies. From 1971 to Gaza today, we know who we are, and we know whose side we are on.
Zarin Tasnim is an Online journalist at The Business Standard
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard
