Emerging in Zurich around 1916 in response to World War I, Dadaism embraced chaos, absurdity and collage, challenging the political and aesthetic authority of its time.
The name Dada was chosen for its childlike randomness, evoking French baby talk or a rocking horse. Logic gave way to satire and the subconscious. When Marcel Duchamp presented his inverted urinal, Fountain, in 1917, it challenged artistic conventions and posed a radical question: "What is art?"
Unrelated to the movement, the Bangla term Dadagiri means bullying or bossiness. It describes the exercise of self-appointed authority over others, often under the guise of seniority or assumed status.
Throughout art history, works created by artists associated with the Dada movement have been known as Dadaist artworks, Dada artworks or simply Dada art. Perhaps as a distant pun on the name, "Dadi Art" emerged as a Bangladeshi Facebook page in July 2025, a year after the July Revolution.
Unlike Dadaism, its work features stylized vector portraits, bold flat colours, angular forms, vintage poster aesthetics, distressed textures, retro typography and strong graphic contrasts.
I enjoyed and shared several Dadi Art posts on Facebook without much curiosity about who was behind the page or which faction of the July forces they supported. Eventually, I felt compelled to ask whether Dadi Art was the "Stealth League's art wing in disguise" for celebrating an "anti-July crony" such as Anisul Hoque of the daily Prothom Alo. A month later, I discovered that the page had quietly deleted the post without informing its audience.
These days, Dadi Art seems less concerned with art than with moralizing about individual acts of political good and evil. It castigates opponents like a high priest preaching from the sanctimonious church of art. That is not artistic criticism; it is a straw man fallacy.
The page constructs straw men only to knock them down, presenting these attacks as confrontations with its actual targets. Its approach resembles political targeting more than artistic engagement.
It is now compiling an eclectic list titled "July's Shame." The list places a renowned, award-winning filmmaker such as Mostofa Sarwar Farooki alongside an obscure political prankster like Ayash, treating them as comparable figures.
Following the same pseudo-political logic, it associates July itself with shame. The implication may be intended as subtle, but once expressed publicly through words or graphics, it becomes difficult to ignore.
It is natural to judge public figures differently, praising some and criticizing others. Personal opinions are not the issue. But attaching the name of "July" to a purported list of shame carries a broader implication: that July itself was a shameful sequence of events.
There is no shame in July. July is a glorious chapter in our history. What had seemed impossible within our lifetime was achieved through an extraordinary struggle.
That is July. It undoubtedly had significant limitations, rooted largely in the socio-political conditions of our state and society, but those limitations do not make it shameful. Our Liberation War, too, had historical limitations, yet nothing about those limitations diminishes its place in our history.
Reducing a major historical event to a contest of naming, praising and shaming individuals subordinates history to personal approval and resentment. July is better understood through a broader social and politico-economic framework, one that neither ignores individual contributions nor exaggerates their significance.
If a public figure's actions or writings appear harmful to society, they can be challenged through detailed, case-by-case criticism. There is no need to invoke the sanctity of July. July was a historic period of 36 days, defined by extraordinary struggle and heroism. Once those days had passed, those who began invoking July to distribute labels entered the politics of clout, fame and social capital. Dadi Art has now joined that same market of clout-chasing.
Driven by political delusion, those behind Dadi Art appear to regard themselves as arbiters of reputation, recognition and disgrace. Yet inside their imagined July Hall of Shame, they stand alone, surrounded by straw figures of their own creation.
I have no wish to pronounce a definitive judgment on whether Dadi Art is entirely good or bad. I recognize my own limitations and cannot claim the authority of such a deterministic grandparent. I want more art houses to emerge in Bangladesh, eventually surpassing the influence of media houses and political establishments.
If art houses are not yet possible, let them begin as Facebook huts. There is nothing wrong with that. But they should examine their own practices as carefully as they examine the world around them. There was little room for free art during the 16 years before July. Let there be art now.
Whether you are a Dadaist or a child nestled in your grandmother's lap, history is neither your ancestral property nor a pet dog trained to obey your artistic commands.
Instead, let a hundred flowers of our inherent ethics bloom. Inherent? Yes.
In his posthumously published work Ethics: Origin and Development, the Russian scientist, philosopher and prominent nineteenth-century anarchist Peter Kropotkin argued, drawing on extensive research, that morality originates neither in religious dogma nor in laws imposed by the state.
Rather, it emerges naturally through evolution and the struggle for survival among humans and other social animals.
Kropotkin maintained that empathy and a sense of social justice are inherent in humans and other social creatures. People possess an instinctive understanding of what benefits or harms themselves and others.
His argument was that moral development does not require artificial coercion, or sermons from an art house, imposed by state authorities, religious institutions or self-appointed guardians offering rewards and threatening punishment.
In a free and spontaneous society, this internal moral capacity can develop on its own. Art can awaken that capacity.
Dadaism can help. Dadagiri cannot—not even in the name of art.
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Salim Reza Newton is a Bangladeshi academic, writer, political thinker and civil rights activist. He is an associate professor in the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Rajshahi