Values and norms prized by ethnic people

Can a people be superior to another? Confronting such a question is quite disquieting. It is not easy to agree on the criteria for determining a people's superiority. A particular people may have produced a very large number and proportionate to their total the highest percentage ever of scientific inventors and yet this cannot be a guarantee for their superiority. A megalomaniac in the shape of Hitler more than adequately disproved his racial theory. In fact, the target of his political persecution produced the most inventive minds of that time.

Even education and enlightenment that raise people from backwardness, rusticity and intellectual inhibition can detract unless tempered by humility, piety and compassion for fellow human beings. Ethnic people living on the social fringe may at times teach modern, smart and educated guys a lesson or two. People living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are different from mainstream plain-lands people in more ways than one. About one thing there is no doubt that ethnic people are yet to master the art of duplicity, deception and lies. Hardworking these people expect sincerity from others as well.

That these people have kept themselves immune from the practice of using chemicals for ripening the fruits they put up for sale certainly set them apart from the rest of the country's inhabitants. At a time when the country is struggling to overcome the danger posed by food adulteration and invasion of chemical contamination, the hill people are totally disinterested in any such practice. Anyone on a trip either to Rangamati or Bandarban will be pleasantly surprised to relish the delectable taste of fruits girls and women display on roadside for sale. In matriarchal society, women have a larger-than-life role in family. This may be one reason why dilettantism is foreign to their character.

True, smartness and modern way of life are not their forte but it would be an injustice to consider them less receptive and resourceful. In fact, the location in which they live is harsh, offering little opportunities for them to advance their causes. Walking up and down the steep roads and pathways is a daunting task. Procuring water for their household uses takes hours together. They have to overcome these challenges in order to survive with their families. Surely, their simple and unaffected life has its own beauty but one cannot say it is easy and bountiful.

Well, their sons and daughters have started receiving higher education. But their number is few. Their communities are yet to confront cultural clash from within. The ideals, values and norms they have so far defended successfully will face challenges when more and more young men and women will receive higher education in colleges and universities. The so-called backward communities in main land have been able to easily adopt themselves to the new demands because their social structure was not much different from the mainstream society. This is not true for the ethnic communities who have different sets of values and social norms.

However, some of the ideals and beliefs they cling to must not be compromised on. For example, their opposition to food adulteration and contamination should never be given up. Rather the inhabitants of plain lands must ask themselves the question if the ethnic people can do without this vile practice so can we. Bangladesh society is in a state of transition. Avarice for wealth on the one hand and flagrant consumerism on the other have eroded values and morality to the extent that a large section of businesspeople does not feel the qualms of conscience in heavily adulterating foods which now pose a great threat to national health. The ethnic people in the hill districts are free from this kind of mental aberration. It is better the majority of people learnt a lesson from them.