The recent death of elderly person after being beaten up by neighbours who were taking revenge for his protests against loud noise parties is a good example of the state of our civic life. Everyday we face traffic jams and every night we have sound jams. Both are deadly affront to our rights. When we talk about Gooms, we are quick to blame the state offices and mechanisms.  When there is a cross fire death we feel oppressed. Understandably, they are gruesome incidents and reflect the inability of the law enforcement regimes to manage outlaws using legal methods.

 

But such incidents actually are meta level ones and deeply ingrained into the nature of the state.   Chances of this trend changing are low.  But at the micro level the situation is also producing a series of social encounters which are quite violent and all seem to be sourced at the disregard for the rights in the name of something higher or plain bullying.

 

The sounds of death

 

The conflict that led to the physical assault centred on a rooftop party that is now very common as Dhaka enters the wedding season. It’s also common to hold very loud and noisy parties with loud speakers aimed at the entire neighbourhood.  It’ a bizarre display of festivity in which people who are not even remotely involved are subjected to audio torture. People who organize such parties seem to think that their social identity is recognized only when everyone gets to hear what a grand and noisy party is being held.  It’s a display of high arrogance by a small group who know that protest can be disregarded and are routinely done so because they come with a price as the person who did paid an extreme one did.

 

Of course no one wants to kill but threats, bullying, beating up are very common and as the upper middle class culture emerges around the apartment society, the stronger ones prey on the weak as all tribal societies do and the rooftop becomes the iconic symbol of  this supremacy. The party on the rooftop is the animal call of victory by the powerful over the weaker ones.

 

Audio torture

 

But the threat of loud noises going on for hours on health has never been really assessed in Dhaka and other big cities where loudspeakers reign However , there can be no doubt that both direct and indirect cost of loud voice is high and is  responsible for much bad health.  This ranges from cardiac discomfort to loss of hearing etc. However, we are blissfully unaware of the cost of it.

 

It’s our inability to think that high decibel noise can be harmful makes us think of it as a lesser priority to address but that we continue to make loud noise is linked to our disregard for other people. The idea that other people may have a right to peaceful or even a less noisy environment is completely strange to us. And this is where our problem begins.

 

Our societies are not rights structured so we never ever consider that we should not do anything for our enjoyment if it hurts others. In this extremely violent world, both covert and overt, the only thing that makes sense, that we think works, is violence. So we continue to do what we think is our right to. If the transaction cost of our enjoyment of others is harm to others, we don’t stop as we think violence is in the nature of things to get something done. So we don’t hesitate.

 

The problem is that loud music which as the incident has shown kills is no different from the loud bang from a gun that kills. What connects the two is the idea that things can be done to achieve our objectives, political, criminal or social by doing whatever it takes. And that position has been so well established that we take it for granted.

 

The fault of this tragedy and of many others is not that such a thing happened but that we can let it go on happening. Brought up in the culture of impunity, lives really don’t matter, rights really don’t. If it doesn’t hurt us we don’t think it matters.