Feature

Eternal conquest

Afsana zarin

FREEDOM, liberty, autonomy, sovereignty - we all are familiar with these words. We all want to breathe in sovereignty, live with free will. We love our freedom and never want to compromise it at any price tag. But do we really know the meaning of the word “freedom”? This freedom was not a free gift. It came at the cost of 3 million lives and massive bloodshed. We lost many intellectuals of our country to pay the cost of this liberty, this freedom.

The glorious history of our ancestors made us a proud nation on the world map. We are not just another tribe or nation; we are the nation who fought for its freedom for almost nine months. Our ancestors gave up their lives for a glorious sunrise in independent Bangladesh, to make us breathe in the free air. And now it's time for us to preserve their achievement. We wear red and green dresses on our victory day, black and white dresses on martyr's day, change our facebook profile pictures to our national flags.

And by doing this we definitely are giving our identities to the whole world but we cannot forget, our responsibilities. I am not saying these are awful, relating fashion and technology with our history is definitely good. But if we limit our responsibilities only to these, that is definitely awful and disgraceful. It's been 38 years we have been an independent nation. But we still do not know how to respect one's privacy, we do not show much respect to women, we are corrupt, we are becoming terrorists, drug addicts, doing gender violence and what not? Many of us gave in their freedom to western culture. It is always good to welcome new and good things. Changes are necessary sometimes, but we definitely should not imitate something or someone so blindly that we lose our individuality one day. Our norms, our culture are already so enriched and so unique that we do not need to follow any others.

We are the youth, the main lifeline, and main source of vitality of a country. If we remain irresponsible, careless then how we will show respect to our ancestors who snatched the liberty for us? And how will we preserve our magnificent history? How will we inform the tomorrow's generation about our liberation war? We cannot just let our pride go in vain; we can never lose our identity as a nation. It is our conscientious duty to respect and preserve what our ancestors gave us to make our future generations learn about our glorious history. Let us all unite to fulfill the dreams our forbearers have seen, let us promise to make our Bangladesh a sonar bangla in this glorious month of December. I love my Bangladesh. And I am proud to be a Bangladeshi. May God bless us all.

(3rd semester, Institute of business administration, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka.)

Photo: Shahabuddin