Now is the time for information explosion, courtesy of internet and the media. But the surge of information leaves one wondering if too much of it is adding as much to the human knowledge pool as they should have. This leads to the point if the interpretation of information for creation of knowledge is proportionate to the generation of the former. Information is not knowledge in the same way all facts and happenings are not history. A nation writes a good deal of its autobiography in its antiquarian remains but the vast unwritten actions and way of life go missing. History can never be a statement of facts in isolation from a comprehensive understanding of a nation's struggle, ethos, aspiration and dreams. It is an attempt to capture reality in the perspective of evolution.
At a time when the country's education system and the history of the nation's making have become subjects of intense controversy, one ventures to find a link between and among what is an incomplete and at times distorted study of the nation in the making, its short-cut education system and the widespread social rot now threatening to undo the many achievements of independence.
It becomes an overpowering concern particularly when such developments are pitted against the death of some of the last guards of this nation. Sardar Fazlul Karim was first to breathe his last on June 15 this year, followed by the eternal journey of language activist Abdul Matin popularly known as Bhasa Matin and it was the turn of national professor Slahuddin Ahmed to take leave early this week. These three men were like lighthouses to the nation in many ways. They carried the baton of a select class of people wedded to knowledge and patriotism, living a life thorough and thorough unpretentious and simple.
These are people who were dedicated to the cause of the nation as well as represented a generation when scholarship was respected. With their departure society has become truly poorer -not in the sense of wealth but in the sense of erudition and interpretation of facts of history. Unlike the other two scholars who taught at universities and wrote books, Abdul Matin was primarily an activist who believed more in practice than precept, a rare quality in a society where unsolicited pieces of advice continue to pour from all corners. He lived for a cause as much as an example for others who cared to take a cue from him on life's mission.
However, Sardar Fazlul Karim and Salahuddin Ahmed were academics and scholars with golden hearts. They are the finest example of scholars and critical observers of man and society. Although their disciplines were philosophy and history, their interpretation of the Liberation War, social changes in historical perspective made them the true voice of the nation. Now that they have left, who the nation will turn to when naïve and amateur historians come up with isolated facts and reminiscences to claim they know better than all others.
Even in their advanced age, the three made it a point that records were put straight. Misleading the nation by distorting history causes greater harm than taking over state power. A great proportion of the social ills of today is a legacy of social instability caused by wrong interpretation of the nation's history. Widespread violence, sexual and other grave crimes the nation is witnessing now surely has its direct or indirect link to controversial history. Where history is deliberately made controversial, ethics and idealism cannot spread roots and the young generation gets confused.
To the young learners, the basic approach to life does not receive the firm support from authentic history approved by the nation's best minds. Confused, they do not develop the love and dedication that were once the hallmark of the preceding generation. It is exactly at this point, the education system founded on the narrow principles of commercial interests and market economy, discovers itself in a state of nebula.
Now there are celebrities galore. The media are fanning the cheap sentiments and amidst the hullabaloos, wise men are relegated to the backstage.
No matter how big the mounting heaps of information are, unless one knows how to convert those into true knowledge, the kind which pulls nation out of ignorance, extremism and communalism, the nation cannot find a firm footing in the comity of nations. Aberration in the name of modernisation will simply lead the nation on the road to moral bankruptcy. There is a need for making good use of information in order to assimilate them for solving mysteries of life and the world all around. The sole aim, though, ought to be the welfare of society and the world at large.
Men of Sardar Fazlul Karim's and Salahuddin's calibres are fast becoming extinct. Today subjects of the humanities are no longer in demand and also basic science is subjected to utter neglect. Knowledge of history and philosophy is a prerequisite for a comprehensive understanding of life and society.
With the departure of stalwarts like them, there will be none to inspire the meritorious among the young generation to take these subjects for higher studies and research. There indeed lies the fear. The nation's true interpreters' legacy runs the risk of not finding followers with big enough feet for their shoes.
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