Thank God, patriotism is still there in Bangladesh
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Enayet Rasul
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
- John F Kennedy, slain US President
Notwithstanding the expected sneering reaction of the hard-boiled ones to the above quotation from one of America's most well known and admired Presidents and statesmen, the reality continues to be that patriotism is the vital building block of a nation. Without it, no nation will be secure, make progress or be great. This is an everlasting lesson of history that no amount of so called pragmatism, concepts of the borderless world and other utopian notions of the present times, can quite blot out and replace with any worthier value.
Patriotism involves sacrifice ; it essentially requires overcoming mundane personal considerations of gain or returns by the individual for the greater good or glory of one's country and countrymen. Chicanery, selfishness and individual advancement at the cost of greater or higher public good, however camouflaged these may be with reasonable sounding words and propositions, can never justify the lack of patriotism. A patriot is someone who cares deeply for his or her land of birth and upbringing and wants to do something to protect it , promote it or uphold its honour and worthwhile values. Thus, a patriot under all circumstances must be counted as someone who deserves the highest recognition and esteem of the people of a country.
Nothing great or good is born or sustained from self-seeking and little else. For a country to be strong, prosperous and lift its head high with justifiable pride from accomplishments, it must have men and women in sufficient number with patriotic ideals. We were not short of them in the past. In 1952, our language martyrs gave their lives in a hail of bullets to lay the foundation of our nationhood. In 1971, the patriots or freedom fighters made tremendous sacrifices to make the nation victorious. From 1971 onwards, patriotic impulses led some Bangladeshis to all kinds of enterprising within their country to take it forward in different sectors. They encountered all kids of formidable challenges on their way but did not give up fired by the sense of patriotism in their bosoms. They could indulge in escapism saying that the odds were too many in their motherland and citing other excuses run after the very common temptations of green cards, settlement, etc., in other lands. That they did not and dreamt the Bangladeshi dream and made the dream come true at costs to themselves, are the reflections of their patriotism.
But despite the train of patriots coming up to fulfill their duties to the country, there has been also the almost overwhelming challenge to this nobler instincts from the preponderant number of Bangladeshis manifest in their cowardice, utter lack of values, escapism and nihilism. Thinking and saying only negative things about their country, exhibiting a very detestable urge to leave their country at the first opportunity, looking down on everything about their country and considering its fate as absolutely a hopeless one, have been the singular behavioral traits of too many Bangladeshis in recent times. Thus, the vanishing breed of the patriots have reasons to be duly concerned by this obnoxious trend. Specially, they feel that any sign of true patriotism breaking through in public view in this wasteland of greed and self-centredness, ought to be given high publicity to regenerate morals and help change degraded mentalities.
Therefore, it was very sad to note that a great news of matchless patriotism of a number of our cricketers which should have made the nation so proud of them, was so downplayed in the press and the media as a whole, recently. A premium paper of the country reported almost inconsequentially in the inside page that two very successful cricketers in the present national cricket team of Bangladesh-- Mashraffe Murtaza and Tamim Iquabal-- were contacted during the one-day series against New Zealand to quit from the national squad and join the on going Indian Premier League (IPL) for a vast sum of money. Tamim was reportedly offered US$ 900,000 and Mashraffe also a similar amount. But both of them declined the offers and the same was reported not only in this paper but scantily only in the sports pages of a number of other mainstream newspapers.
But in all fairness, this splendid news of self-denial -- for 900,000 dollars is a very large sum of money and could make both of them very rich overnight -- deserved to be splashed all over in the front pages of these papers. Not only that, the entire media should have given very prominent coverage to the same. For these two cricketers have been making news not only from their specially notable performance against the New Zealand side, but now they should be catapulted into the limelight as national heroes for their very outstanding deed of not being swayed by very attractive cash offers as accepting them would mean hurting the national cause and honour. Young ones in their early twenties like Mashrafee and Tamin who resisted very great temptation for the sake of the country and its honour, deserve to be recognized as the true icons for the younger generation to look up at and follow for inspiration. But hardly the country knows about their very great acts from the flacid response of the media to the same.
We must learn to bestow honours on our great ones promptly and in full for their heroic deeds. This is for the sake of justice and, more significantly, to imbue many others with their heroic ideals and spirit in the service of the nation.
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
- John F Kennedy, slain US President
Notwithstanding the expected sneering reaction of the hard-boiled ones to the above quotation from one of America's most well known and admired Presidents and statesmen, the reality continues to be that patriotism is the vital building block of a nation. Without it, no nation will be secure, make progress or be great. This is an everlasting lesson of history that no amount of so called pragmatism, concepts of the borderless world and other utopian notions of the present times, can quite blot out and replace with any worthier value.
Patriotism involves sacrifice ; it essentially requires overcoming mundane personal considerations of gain or returns by the individual for the greater good or glory of one's country and countrymen. Chicanery, selfishness and individual advancement at the cost of greater or higher public good, however camouflaged these may be with reasonable sounding words and propositions, can never justify the lack of patriotism. A patriot is someone who cares deeply for his or her land of birth and upbringing and wants to do something to protect it , promote it or uphold its honour and worthwhile values. Thus, a patriot under all circumstances must be counted as someone who deserves the highest recognition and esteem of the people of a country.
Nothing great or good is born or sustained from self-seeking and little else. For a country to be strong, prosperous and lift its head high with justifiable pride from accomplishments, it must have men and women in sufficient number with patriotic ideals. We were not short of them in the past. In 1952, our language martyrs gave their lives in a hail of bullets to lay the foundation of our nationhood. In 1971, the patriots or freedom fighters made tremendous sacrifices to make the nation victorious. From 1971 onwards, patriotic impulses led some Bangladeshis to all kinds of enterprising within their country to take it forward in different sectors. They encountered all kids of formidable challenges on their way but did not give up fired by the sense of patriotism in their bosoms. They could indulge in escapism saying that the odds were too many in their motherland and citing other excuses run after the very common temptations of green cards, settlement, etc., in other lands. That they did not and dreamt the Bangladeshi dream and made the dream come true at costs to themselves, are the reflections of their patriotism.
But despite the train of patriots coming up to fulfill their duties to the country, there has been also the almost overwhelming challenge to this nobler instincts from the preponderant number of Bangladeshis manifest in their cowardice, utter lack of values, escapism and nihilism. Thinking and saying only negative things about their country, exhibiting a very detestable urge to leave their country at the first opportunity, looking down on everything about their country and considering its fate as absolutely a hopeless one, have been the singular behavioral traits of too many Bangladeshis in recent times. Thus, the vanishing breed of the patriots have reasons to be duly concerned by this obnoxious trend. Specially, they feel that any sign of true patriotism breaking through in public view in this wasteland of greed and self-centredness, ought to be given high publicity to regenerate morals and help change degraded mentalities.
Therefore, it was very sad to note that a great news of matchless patriotism of a number of our cricketers which should have made the nation so proud of them, was so downplayed in the press and the media as a whole, recently. A premium paper of the country reported almost inconsequentially in the inside page that two very successful cricketers in the present national cricket team of Bangladesh-- Mashraffe Murtaza and Tamim Iquabal-- were contacted during the one-day series against New Zealand to quit from the national squad and join the on going Indian Premier League (IPL) for a vast sum of money. Tamim was reportedly offered US$ 900,000 and Mashraffe also a similar amount. But both of them declined the offers and the same was reported not only in this paper but scantily only in the sports pages of a number of other mainstream newspapers.
But in all fairness, this splendid news of self-denial -- for 900,000 dollars is a very large sum of money and could make both of them very rich overnight -- deserved to be splashed all over in the front pages of these papers. Not only that, the entire media should have given very prominent coverage to the same. For these two cricketers have been making news not only from their specially notable performance against the New Zealand side, but now they should be catapulted into the limelight as national heroes for their very outstanding deed of not being swayed by very attractive cash offers as accepting them would mean hurting the national cause and honour. Young ones in their early twenties like Mashrafee and Tamin who resisted very great temptation for the sake of the country and its honour, deserve to be recognized as the true icons for the younger generation to look up at and follow for inspiration. But hardly the country knows about their very great acts from the flacid response of the media to the same.
We must learn to bestow honours on our great ones promptly and in full for their heroic deeds. This is for the sake of justice and, more significantly, to imbue many others with their heroic ideals and spirit in the service of the nation.