MARKING FEEDOM
Bangladeshis celebrate
More than 300 members of Windsor’s Bangladeshi community recognized the 48th anniversary of the nation’s Victory Day with cake and camaraderie Saturday. Many attendees at the Optimist Community Centre were living in Bangladesh the day in 1971 when Pakistani Forces surrendered to allied forces, marking the end of the nine-month long Bangladesh Liberation War, and the end of the Bangladesh genocide. The official secession of East Pakistan into Bangladesh immediately followed.
“We have to remember the war,” said Saiful Bhuiyan, president of the Bangladesh Canada Association of Windsor-Essex. He was eight years old when the war and genocide that claimed 3 million lives and forced the exodus of 10 million refugees ended. “The broad community, we would like to ask for their solidarity and love,” Bhuiyan said. He first immigrated to Canada in 2001 to complete a postgraduate degree. Now, he owns an accounting firm. “We used to celebrate only in Bangladesh, but now we celebrate all over the world,” he said. Bhuiyan helped to establish the Bangladesh Canada Association of Windsor-Essex in 2003. About 2,000 people from 500 families are members of the not-for-profit organization, which was officially registered with the City of Windsor in 2006.
“We want to raise our children so they are involved in mainstream Canadian life,” he said, “but also try to offer cultural programs for kids so they can maintain and build a sense of identity.” Recognizing Victory Day is one of those identity-builders, Bhuiyan added.
The journey that led to the Liberation War began on Feb. 21, 1952, when a group of protesters were killed for speaking out against the Pakistani government’s declaration of Urdu as the national language, despite its use by only about four per cent of the East Pakistan population. Those like the protesters who spoke Bengali, now the official and more widely spoken language of Bangladesh, were labelled enemies of the state. This year, Bhuiyan and his fellow committee members initiated the City of Windsor’s official proclamation of February 21 as International Mother Language day in recognition of the protesters’ sacrifice, he said. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), began recognizing the day in 1999.
When you have multiple languages, multiple cultures, everything is better.
“If the world is only one colour, that’s not good,” Bhuiyan said. The Bangladesh Canada Association of Windsor-Essex plans to hold a celebration for the public that day in February, with displays from various ethnic communities in the city. “When you have multiple languages, multiple cultures, everything is better.”