October 6, 2024

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This is an opinion editorial by Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation and author of “Check Your Financial Privilege.”

I. The Shrimp Fields

“Everything is gone.”

–Kolyani Mondal

Fifty-two years ago, Cyclone Bhola killed an estimated 1 million people in coastal Bangladesh. It is, to this day, the deadliest tropical cyclone in recorded history. Local and international authorities knew well the catastrophic risks of such storms: in the 1960s, regional officials had built a massive array of dikes to protect the coastline and open up more territory for farming. But in the 1980s after the assassination of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, foreign influence pushed a new autocratic Bangladeshi regime to change course. Concern for human life was dismissed and the public’s protection against storms was weakened, all in order to boost exports to repay debt.

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