During her visit she went to the magnificent mausoleum of the founder of Modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal AtaTurk and laid a wreath. While standing in front of that majestic grave, did the thought cross her mind that here lay a great son of the soil, who had freed his nation from the clutches of foreign occupiers and literally threw them in the sea. That was in the early twenties, when the Great Ottoman Empire had been dismembered. Mustafa Kemal took to the hills and rousing his people waged a relentless battle and brought victory.

Our National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, sitting in an obscure corner of Bengal sang the victory of Mustafa Kemal in his immortal poem Kamal Pasha. Nazrul was known as little outside his Bengal as Mustafa Kemal to the Turks. Does the music: "Kamal tu ne kamal kia bhai" not reverberate in our ears even to this day?

In 1953, I started my career in the Pakistan embassy in Istanbul. In my office there was a fresh graduate from an American University, Turkkaya Ataov, as translator. He and I translated Kamal Pasha into Turkish and it took Turkish literary circles by storm. They could not believe that sitting in the backwaters of Bengal a poet would sing the song of victory of an unknown fighter named Mustafa Kemal! Ataov and I have traveled long distances and Ataov is a doctor of letters and famous professor of Ankara University. His contact with Nazrul remains as lively as ever and he came last year as guest of Nazrul Institute and delivered talks.

Kazi Nazrul Islam remains the unbreakable bridge between Bangladesh and Turkey. After the death of Mustafa Kemal AtaTurk in 1938 in the Dolmabahce Palace at the banks of the Bosphorous, a magnificent mausoleum was erected by the Turks in Ankara at the highest point Cankaya, overlooking the capital built by AtaTurk. AtaTurk was laid to rest within the mausoleum in 1953. The grandeur of the mausoleum has to be seen to be believed. Its vastness, the sweeping view of the city, the soldiers guarding the mausoleum, they all attest to the deep devotion and respect of the Turks for the saviour of a fiercely proud and independent nation. No wonder the world gives the Turkish nation the respect that they have earned by holding their saviour in the highest position of respect. A nation earns the respect that it gives its great sons of the soil.

One of the first acts of the father of the Bangalee nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was to bring the revolutionary poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam, who sang the song of victory and rebellion and had suffered imprisonment in the hands of the British rulers, from Kolkata to Dhaka. The poet had lost speech since a long time. But which Bangalee could ever forget the soul stirring poems of that fiery poet: "Ore tora joyodhoni kor" (oh, you sing the song of victory) Bangabandhu showered affection, highest esteem, and put the poet in the highest pedestal of the Bangalee people. The bond between Nazrul, AtaTurk and Bangabandhu is established.

More than thirty years have gone by since the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu, his family and political associates. He lies in a forlorn corner of Bangladesh. Is it not time to bring him to the heart of the country which he freed by his incomparable leadership? He dedicated his entire life to freeing his long oppressed and suffering Bangalees from the clutches of the Pakistani occupiers. In that relentless struggle imprisonment was his constant companion. Like Mustafa Kemal, he galvanized his Bangalee nation into a magnificent fighting force until on March 7, 1971, he thundered in the Suhrawardy Uddayan: "Ebarer songram amather muktir songram, ebarer songram swadhinotar songram" (the fight this time is for emancipation, the fight this time is for independence).

Governments in Bangladesh have come and gone and we have spent more than three decades for our identity. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman created Bangladesh and those of us who had the great privilege to serve as his ambassador can only recall with pride how we strode the universe. The governments of Bangladesh have failed to show the sensitivity that it was high time to build the most magnificent mausoleum for the great leader, who built for the first time for the Bangalee nation a state of its own. Where else could that mausoleum be built than in the vast field of verdant Suhrawardy Uddayan from where rang the greatest song of all times -- the song of freedom.

If our political leaders have not shown the guts to fulfill the destiny of the nation, regrettably our civil society has been totally silent. We see them involving in all kinds of issues and strangely utter not a word on this task of the nation, which should have top-most priority. Is it not true that the nation remains incomplete until we bring our beloved Bangabndhu to the heart of Bangladesh?

"Bolo bir chiro unnata momo shir" (say, oh courageous one, my head is always held high).

Arshad-uz Zaman is a former Ambassador and Acting Secretary General, OIC.