Dhaka safe and sound
Saturday, 30 October 2010
A unique event Dhaka Safe and Sound Fortnight, reflecting the creative visions for an environment friendly metropolis, was introduced at the Goethe Institute on Oct 18 by eminent artist and environmentalist Rafiqun Nabi. A specially flown German concert team took part in it.
The fortnight-long programme included theatrical performance Silenced Water by a local theatre group the Lathial.
In the inaugural session Mr Mahfuz Anam, editor of a local English daily, gave his narration of Old Dhaka when he was a student of St Gregory School. Mr Anam, son of a central cabinet member of United Pakistan, had seen much of the changes in the sub-continent including the contrasting reality of Dhaka and Karachi. In 1971, Dhaka was a provincial outpost only with a population of half a million, a good part of it Urdu-speaking immigrants from India. Today Dhaka is a metropolis of 17 million with one tenth of the country's population that surpass the population of Karachi. Its population in the greater periphery is expected to surpass Kolkata making it the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. Like a phoenix it has risen from its ashes.
Has Dhaka recovered from its wounds?
No, not definitely as we hear the demands for the trial of the war criminals, the past echoes the post-World War Germany.
Overpopulated Bangladesh like the pre-World War Germany lacks living space - lebens raum. Before the World War Germany had one hundred million people. Now a united Germany has only eighty million. The birth rate is extremely low. There are nearly ten million Germans of foreign origin - nearly half of them are Muslims including 4 million Turks. The Turks were the allies of the Germans during the First World War and after the Second World War they came to rebuild Germany. People from all over the world came to help Germans. In the midst of destruction and foreign occupation the Germans showed extreme tolerance and hospitality as Nuzhat Amin a journalist who lived in Germany in the seventies wrote, "I found a Bengalee mosque in the centre of Frankfurt in the eighties.
But Europeans respect Germany for its cleanliness. Despite being over populated the Germans do not keep their city dirty. A German child is taught from his childhood to follow the norms of life. There are no street children nor any crime. The German police are one of the best disciplined in the world. The crime rate is far less than in the Anglo-Saxon world. Though Chancellor Merkel's remark that multi-culturalism has not worked so well has been out of context quoted in the Anglo-Saxon press, Germany has unique success in cultural pluralism compared to Anglo-Saxon world. Germans treated the inhabitants of their colonies in Africa and the Pacific quite humanly until they were occupied by the Anglo-Saxon powers. A century later the German influence still lingers in those countries. I can just mention Hagnas in Micronesia. Hagnas is a German name for part of Guam.
We can tell our German friends and the people around the world - Dhaka is a city safe and sound. They can visit it without the fear of being mobbed. We can face traffic jam or black out. There may be barbed wire on our streets which might make us remember the American occupation of Germany.
But we have an invincible spirit to survive. That spirit the Germans upheld above the Berlin Wall. Like the Indian Sub-continent, Germany too was partitioned by the occupying Anglo-Saxons. But the German unity triumphed.
I just quote a phrase from the brochure by Murshida Arzu Alpana - No Oaths, no promises but word to keep.
We have a word to keep - Dhaka safe and sound.
The fortnight-long programme included theatrical performance Silenced Water by a local theatre group the Lathial.
In the inaugural session Mr Mahfuz Anam, editor of a local English daily, gave his narration of Old Dhaka when he was a student of St Gregory School. Mr Anam, son of a central cabinet member of United Pakistan, had seen much of the changes in the sub-continent including the contrasting reality of Dhaka and Karachi. In 1971, Dhaka was a provincial outpost only with a population of half a million, a good part of it Urdu-speaking immigrants from India. Today Dhaka is a metropolis of 17 million with one tenth of the country's population that surpass the population of Karachi. Its population in the greater periphery is expected to surpass Kolkata making it the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. Like a phoenix it has risen from its ashes.
Has Dhaka recovered from its wounds?
No, not definitely as we hear the demands for the trial of the war criminals, the past echoes the post-World War Germany.
Overpopulated Bangladesh like the pre-World War Germany lacks living space - lebens raum. Before the World War Germany had one hundred million people. Now a united Germany has only eighty million. The birth rate is extremely low. There are nearly ten million Germans of foreign origin - nearly half of them are Muslims including 4 million Turks. The Turks were the allies of the Germans during the First World War and after the Second World War they came to rebuild Germany. People from all over the world came to help Germans. In the midst of destruction and foreign occupation the Germans showed extreme tolerance and hospitality as Nuzhat Amin a journalist who lived in Germany in the seventies wrote, "I found a Bengalee mosque in the centre of Frankfurt in the eighties.
But Europeans respect Germany for its cleanliness. Despite being over populated the Germans do not keep their city dirty. A German child is taught from his childhood to follow the norms of life. There are no street children nor any crime. The German police are one of the best disciplined in the world. The crime rate is far less than in the Anglo-Saxon world. Though Chancellor Merkel's remark that multi-culturalism has not worked so well has been out of context quoted in the Anglo-Saxon press, Germany has unique success in cultural pluralism compared to Anglo-Saxon world. Germans treated the inhabitants of their colonies in Africa and the Pacific quite humanly until they were occupied by the Anglo-Saxon powers. A century later the German influence still lingers in those countries. I can just mention Hagnas in Micronesia. Hagnas is a German name for part of Guam.
We can tell our German friends and the people around the world - Dhaka is a city safe and sound. They can visit it without the fear of being mobbed. We can face traffic jam or black out. There may be barbed wire on our streets which might make us remember the American occupation of Germany.
But we have an invincible spirit to survive. That spirit the Germans upheld above the Berlin Wall. Like the Indian Sub-continent, Germany too was partitioned by the occupying Anglo-Saxons. But the German unity triumphed.
I just quote a phrase from the brochure by Murshida Arzu Alpana - No Oaths, no promises but word to keep.
We have a word to keep - Dhaka safe and sound.