Graceful and brave, scholar finds graduation bittersweet
Rumana Monzur hoped she wouldn’t cry Wednesday when she spoke at convocation, received her law degree and said goodbye to the University of British Columbia, which has been her home, her solace and her strength for the past seven years.
Like most students, Monzur arrived full of hopes and dreams in 2010. She was a Fulbright scholar on sabbatical from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh.
Monzur was an assistant professor despite having only an undergraduate degree in political science, and had come to Vancouver to do a graduate degree that focused on climate change since her homeland is the most vulnerable in the world to the effects of climate change and rising sea levels.
Monzur came with her fiveyear-old daughter Anusheh, and with what she believed was the grudging approval of her husband. But in June 2011, when she returned home, Syeed Hasan Sumon attacked and nearly killed her.
He was arrested and died in jail before his trial.
Right after the attack, her colleagues at St. John’s College — with help from then-UBC president Stephen Toope — began raising money to help with the medical bills and, eventually, the costs of bringing Monzur, her daughter and her parents home to UBC. The federal government cleared the way for the family to come first on temporary residents’ permits and later to become permanent residents.
Monzur spent months in hospital, first in Dhaka and then in Vancouver. Surgeons here tried, but failed, to restore her eyesight; others worked to reconstruct her face. Today, with artificial eyes, she is beautiful again. But it’s her spirit and her humility that makes Monzur extraordinary.
“It is very emotional for me. UBC is my family. I don’t think any other university would have done what it did for me and set such an example with its treatment of international students … and I think Canada has set such an example of how to treat people who are in trouble,” she says.
Initially, she was overwhelmed by the challenges before her. She had a young daughter who needed her. She was a scholar who could no longer read, let alone navigate the campus without help.
She admits to crying a lot through the first 18 months.
But once back at school, “I didn’t have time to think about my blindness,” she says. “I just had to keep on going. It was good to be busy and not thinking about negative things, but the most important thing that helped me was when I came here. Everyone’s attitude was, ‘This has happened, so what’s next?’ ”
Her friends treated her no differently than before and “everywhere I went, people were so nice and there was such positive energy. That helped a lot,” she says.
Still, the challenges were daunting. Navigating physical space was hard; navigating complicated websites and databases was harder.
Yet, two years after the attack, Monzur successfully defended her master’s thesis and was accepted into UBC’s law school. In the fall, she will begin her articles at the law firm where she worked last summer, DLA Piper.
She needs to finish packing. Monzur and her daughter are moving out of the student housing that’s been their home and into another apartment near UBC. Over the summer, her priority will be spending as much time as possible with her daughter, who is 11 and in Grade 4. She’s a budding artist, a basketball player and a swimmer. It still singes Monzur’s heart that she can’t see her daughter.
They plan to settle here. Perhaps at some point when Anusheh is older, they will go back to Bangladesh, but it’s too soon. Monzur isn’t certain that it would be safe for them even though her parents — who are permanent residents of Canada — spent part of the year there.
Until then, she’ll focus on the law and exploring different areas of interest — the environment, aboriginal issues, immigration, human rights and domestic violence.
“I can’t tolerate it when people are suffering,” she says. “It kills me from inside, especially when they are children. It is important to me that I can make a difference.”
Monzur will continue doing as much advocacy work as she can fit in. But mostly, the 39-yearold mother and scholar says she needs to work at work.
“My brain still doesn’t get it that school is done,” she says with a laugh. “But for UBC, there is nothing that is too much for me to say about it. It’s great to have an institution that has your back. But I knew it was temporary: I can’t be a student all my life.”
That said, Monzur doesn’t rule out the possibility that once her daughter is established in the world that she might go back and do a doctorate or even a master’s degree in law.
But for the near future, her focus is on qualifying as a lawyer and on being a good mom.
“So, pray for me that I can overcome the remaining challenges,” she says.
I can’t tolerate it when people are suffering. It kills me from inside, especially when they are children. It is important to me that I can make a difference.