Press Release
The Tarique Rahman Show: A Political Distraction from a Broken Secular System

As Bangladesh enters a critical pre-election phase, the announced return of Tarique Rahman, the son of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and acting Chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has sparked a predictable wave of personality-centric hype. This narrative, aggressively promoted by his party, presents him as the singular solution to the nation's challenges. We must see this for what it is: a profound political illusion that dangerously obscures the fundamental realities of today’s power and system.

The Repeated Failure of the "One-Person Savior" Myth: History, globally and in Bangladesh, consistently debunks the myth of the messianic leader. Look at the Arab Spring: leaders fell, but the underlying Western-backed power structures stayed the same. In our own history, what seemed like ‘change’ driven by Dr. Yunus alone was actually powered by support from the military, civil society, and foreign interests. No leader operates in a vacuum. The hype around Mr. Rahman as a "savior" is a dangerous illusion. Real change won't come from one man, but from a broad-based movement capable of gaining the allegiance of the very power centers that uphold the current order.

Systems Rule, Not Personalities: The focus on Mr. Rahman's persona deliberately diverts attention from the entrenched system he represents. The falls of autocrats like Suharto in Indonesia or Marcos in Philippines were not simple acts of heroic replacement; they were the result of systemic pressures, internal fractures, and shifts within the global order that withdrew support. The machinery of neo-colonialist financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) and diplomacy is a far greater determinant than any individual. Hyping a personality is a tactic to mask the unchanged nature of the Western-backed political and economic system that any major party, including the BNP, must navigate to attain power.

The Inescapable Geometry of Global Power: Bangladesh holds significant strategic and economic value. No plausible political transition at the national level occurs without some level of understanding with major global powers, primarily the US and UK, which have vested interests in regional stability, trade, and strategic influence. The notion that Mr. Rahman or any opposition figure could ascend without such engagement is naive. If he is being amplified, it indicates utility perceived by external quarters aligned with their interests, not an independent, transformative force for Bangladesh.

A Convenient Distraction from Political Bankruptcy: The fanfare around this return primarily serves to camouflage the BNP's own profound deficits. It raises a critical question: where is the party's compelling vision, its grassroots organization, or its concrete policy alternatives? The public sees little but a cyclical swap of elites—a replacement of one set of practitioners within the same system with another, promising change but perpetuating similar dynamics. The "hero's return" is a theatrical bluff, diverting public energy from demanding real change.

O People, real, enduring change for Bangladesh will never arrive on a single airplane from London. It will be forged not by glorifying individuals, but by confronting and uprooting the systemic pillars of today’s Western backed world order that perpetuate the status quo in Bangladesh. And to fixate on a person is to fall for a dangerous distraction right now.

The sincere leaderships of Hizb ut Tahrir is working for comprehensive change of system instead of changing mask of a rotten secular-capitalist system. The hard, unglamorous work of building genuine capacity for the promised Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly guided Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood from the ground up remains the only true path forward. So we call upon the sincere politicians in particular and the people at large gather around Hizb ut Tahrir for changing the system, rather than being a part or mere expectorators of western political circus.

[إِنَّ اللَّهَ لاَ يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ]

“Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves” [Ar-Ra’d: 11]

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Bangladesh