Preserve country's history, heritage for next generation
Experts say on Int'l Museum Day
Staff Correspondent
International Museum Day was observed across the country yesterday as elsewhere in the world with a renewed commitment to preserving the country's thousand-year-old heritage for the next generation so that the history becomes a source of inspiration to them.This year the theme was 'Museum and Universal Heritage'. National Museum and International Council of Museums (ICOM) Bangladesh jointly organised daylong programmes, including discussion, seminar and view exchanging meeting, to mark the day. Carrying banners, festoons and placards and wearing white T-shirt, several hundreds official of National Museum and leaders and activists of ICOM brought out a colourful procession at 7:30am from Shahbagh in the city that paraded different city streets. Secretary to the cultural affairs ministry ABM Abdul Haq Chowdhury inaugurated the daylong programmes organised to mark the day at National Museum in the morning. "Museums are the mirror of a nation that bridges the past with the present," said Haq. He called upon the authorities concerned to preserve the objects in the museums that present the thousand-year-old history and heritage of the nation and unveil those before the world community. Later, a seminar was organised at the auditorium of the museum. Participants at the seminar pointed out the problems the museums are undergoing and placed recommendations, including training facilities for skilled museum staff, making the young generation interested about museum, fund raising for the museums and making the best use of information technology. Director General of National Museum Samar Pal said museums mainly reflect history, society, anthropology, ethnology, politics, religion, customs and folklore of a country. "Globally, a total of 830 places are identified as 'historical heritages' in 138 countries, including 644 cultural heritages, 162 natural heritages and 24 combined heritages," he said while presenting the keynote paper. Nurul Haq, director of National Science and Technology Museum, said each objects of a museum contains an independent historic background and cultural heritage. Additional secretary to primary and mass education ministry Kazi Akhtar Hossain said the ancient culture and the history of Bangladesh shall have to be portrayed before the next generation through the museums. In the evening, a view exchanging meeting was held where representatives from different museums across the country took part.
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