We just passed few significant dates from the history of Bangladesh in the months of February and March. A history that we, who carry the blood of Bangladeshis are incredibly proud of. Although, the course of events, fights, bad politics, and war caused enormous suffering to the common people, they made our ancestors strong and made us who we are today.
Now, we achieved the right to language, got our own independent geographical land and we are recognized as a nation– “Bangladeshis”. However, I have been the witness of the remembrance of those historical dates all my life. Do not get me wrong, I love the remembering part but, some of the dates vary on which government is in power and who should we celebrate and so on. It is confusing for the people like me who actually could not witness the historical events and written history is tricky. For example, yesterday we celebrated Christopher Columbus and today we hate him. Therefore, we actually do not know what to believe anymore. Most of us, just praise the person in power, sell their names just for selfish reasons and grab the opportunity. In that sense we are all gold diggers. As a generation of younger people, it is a matter of incredible shame where we just need an excuse to get a new outfit and go out with friends and enjoy without even realizing what we are celebrating for.
I have another matter of concern about our pride. Whenever we are celebrating, we do have a tendency of belittling other people from other nations. We are often considering us to be the best of all the others, and in the process, we are bringing all the bad things about other nations. For example, we have this tendency to look at people from African descended in a negative sense. We are constantly saying we are the only nation who fought for our language; hence it is the best language in the world. I am not saying everyone is claiming that, but I think the appropriate approach should be that we are lucky enough to have such sweet language. We had to fight and sacrifice lives to earn the right to it, so we understand the importance of all the languages and what they mean to the people who learnt them from their mothers. That is how we can get the entire world to respect us a nation. Some of us complains about the international mother language day to be 21st February. They want the day to be called 8 Falgun. Although it limits the celebration only in the Bengali speaking community.
I am one of the unlucky people who lives far away from home for a long time. There was a period when I was completely disconnected from my own country and culture, hence I did not learn to type Bengali in a keyboard. In a technology ridden society, it was not a good thing. I was slowly re-entering into my culture and started writing and participating in the silly social media arguments. I was immensely criticized of not being able to write in Bengali. Unless my skin would be as thick as a brown hippopotamus I would just leave for good. The point is, we should not criticize someone so bad that they lose the interest. Most discriminations start from our own.
When you live in a multicultural city like mine you must consider yourself as an ingredient to add in this huge melting pot of culture and we have to remember to compliment the other ingredients as well. The world is shrinking in a sense of technology and the limit of the city is extending toward covering the entire world. In these multicultural countries we get to learn about each other but in a country like Bangladesh, we often forget there is whole world out there and we fall behind on humanity.
My goal is to be a global citizen and respect all the cultures even though they are not quite familiar to me. In order to do that I must learn about them first and respect them. We must not segment and label ourselves in such restricted limits that we forget that there are others that we share this planet with. Taking care of the environment, joining the politics, cleaning our area, becoming a part of something larger these all are a part of being that global citizenship and be in harmony with others.
I was born in Bangladesh, a beautiful country with a rich history, beautiful people, and a very colorful culture. It gave me my lovely childhood and adolescence. I am adopted by the second largest country of the world with immaculate beauty. Canada blessed me with everything great and shaped my personality. I want to spread this news of both countries all over the world by behaving my best and respecting others so I can bring that respect for me and my country.
-Momo Quazi
