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The eternal 21st February

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Published: 11:12, 21 February 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
The eternal 21st February

All people around the world love their mother languages respectively. Our mother language is Bangla. We are proud of the language as we had to pay a high price to establish the right of this language.

Bengali people sacrificed their lives to uphold its dignity and rights on February 21 in 1952, created a noble history across the world. Sacrificing blood for language, Salam, Safique, Barkat, Zabbar, Rafique created such a history that inspired people to stage movement for rights, instead of bowing down heads.

So, 21st February is just not a day, it is a source of inspiration of passion, love and self-identity for Bengali nation.  Today is the Shaheed Dibash (the day people sacrificed their lives for the language "Bangla"). People are paying tributes to the martyrs placing wreaths at Shahid Minars across the country. The premises of the central Shahid Minar will be fulfilled with wreaths as people of all walks of life pay their homage to the martyrs. We also remember all the known and unknown language martyrs with due respect.

It is also celebration of International Mother Language Day. With the UNESCO announcement 1999, this day since then is observed worldwide to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.


The language movement in 1952 was one of the strongest protest as Pakistani rulers started to practice their unfair and discriminatory manners after separation of countries in 1947. The bullets of the dictators could not stop the movement. Inspiration of Ekushey encouraged Benglai nation in every step to raise their voices against the tyrants which later turned into the Liberation War.


So, despite official observation, we should practice the inspiration of 21st February in the heart.

The Independent Bengali nation is improving in education, society, culture and economics. We believe, one day the nation will hold the seat of glory in the world arena.

It is rare to sacrifice lives for language in World's history. So, we feel proud of the language. But it is a matter of regret that we are still in backward in case of practicing mother language and flourishing it in different fields which is contrary to the inspiration the language movement. Everybody should be careful in this regard.

For this, it is needed to create a congenial environment, making the terminology, dictionary and all possible materials available. It should be encouraged to use foreign languages groundlessly. However, it does not mean that people will not learn or practice other languages without their mother language. Such thinking is obviously useless in this age of globalisation. We believe in learning other languages for the demands of modernisation, but we should prefer the security, development and free practice of the mother language. Otherwise, we will go behind as the nation.

 


risingbd/Dhaka/Feb 21, 2017/Ali Nowsher/A K Azad

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