Stop the War at Any Cost: Ordinary People Are Tired of Dying for the Powerful

By Sunahwar Ali::

I do not care which flag is waving or which side fired first. This war must be stopped. At any cost.
Because ordinary people are paying the price with their lives, their children, and their suffering.
American Dead, Bangladeshi Forgotten
Thirteen American service members have been confirmed killed. Over 380 wounded. They came from working-class towns in Iowa, Nebraska, and Florida—not from the wealthy families who decided on this war. The children of presidents and prime ministers are safe at home. The children of the poor are in body bags.
But let me speak about my own people. Bangladeshi workers across the Middle East —in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar—are being killed in this conflict.
They are not soldiers.
They are labourers, cleaners, domestic workers, security guards.
Poor and needy people who left villages in Sylhet, Comilla, Noakhali, and Dhaka to send money home to their families.
When war breaks out, these Bangladeshi workers are the first to be killed and the last to be mourned. Their names do not appear in Western media. No prime minister wipes away a tear for them.
They are just gone.
A phone call to a village.
A widow screaming. Children who will never see their father again.
How many have died?
No one knows. Because no one is counting poor brown lives.

Darkness in Bangladesh
And here at home, millions of people are suffering in a different way. Every day, multiple times a day, the electricity goes off.
The temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius. No fans.
No lights.
No water pumps. Children cannot study.
The elderly collapse from heat.
Why?
Because the war in the Middle East has blocked the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices have exploded. Bangladesh cannot afford fuel for its power plants.
The money that could have built solar grids, hospitals, and schools is instead being burned on missiles and drones thousands of miles away.
Every bomb dropped in the Middle East is a light bulb that will never turn on in a village in Sylhet or rest of Bangladesh.

The Only Solution
The powerful will never pay the price of this war. The poor always do. American working-class families. Bangladeshi migrants.
Iranian civilians. The sick and elderly sitting in the dark.

Stop this war now. At any cost.
Exhaust every diplomatic channel. Put every human life before any missile.
Let the politicians swallow their pride.
Let them lose elections. That is a million times better than letting another mother lose a child.
And to the governments of the world: Compensate the families of the Bangladeshi dead. Bring our workers home safely. Invest in renewable energy for Bangladesh instead of weapons.
Because ordinary people do not want war.
They want light. They want water.
They want to live.

Sunahwar Ali is a campaigner for equality, anti-racism, and anti-corruption, and former Chief Whip of Tower Hamlets Council.