1. en-ashram-N/G
2. 20-07-2019
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Though, living as an immigrant in North America, still my emotion is very much fueled and fumed by my birth land Bangladesh. That's why even though it seems irrelevant, still feel like to write few lines about our present growing generation there. A quite significant portion of this generation, by their outfits and apparent prayer practice   trying to prove that they are the follower of Wahhabi Ultra Conservative Islamic path. But surprisingly, underneath of that, their mind shape and activities are rapidly embracing the trash part of western culture. In their music tune, television and other social festivities their identity is just pro Indian or can say even Punjabi blended. What about moral values..? A rapid growing solar eclipse is distinctly visible in that horizon!   So, what has Bangladesh left for it’s own? A long breath..! 

Couple of weeks before my wife and I went to visit an antiques fair. We were just browsing through items in front of a stall. An old pair of customers came in front of the stall (assume they are a couple), by outfit and appearance decent looking, and seemed to be of Caucasoid background, became curious about a nice looking greenish colour glass set. So, the vendor was giving some description and history of the merchandise. As soon as she mentioned that the glass set is made of Iran, the old customer lady told oh..  it’s from Iran..? It is dangerous..!! Goodness, I Just felt like a thunder bolt struck in my ear!. Looking around I asked myself again, am I living in 21st century..? I know, we have been brain washed many ways. Media imperialism is one of those. The western world spends billions every year to broadcast propaganda to make people like us believe their false fabricated story about their enemy parties. Sometimes it is accompanied by religious faith and belief too. I would like to bring at least one example of this media imperialism. Days before the downfall of former communist leader and dictator Nicolae Ceausescu of Rumania in 1989 all the western media (VOA, BBC and so and so) were continuously broadcasting that Ceausescu's soldiers killed thousands of people in the city name Timisoara. Numbers were different from media to media, but the range was always between 35000 to 72000. Question came in mind that a city where the population is not even three hundred thousand, how come thirty five thousand (just considering the least number one) got killed? Keep digging for the real number and almost a year later we came to know the number was 72! Does not matter. In the meantime, downfall of Ceausescu is done successfully. So, this is called the western media imperialism. Well, the Russian's have also do the same thing though their network and audience is not that vast. Then where is our minimum level of self judgement, minimum level of conscience for humanity. Still very curious to know, what darkness and cloud sealed inside the heart and mind of this generous looking old pair. What possibly could motivate them to think through out their lives? 

Communist system soon disappeared from earth because we people is still way far behind to uplift our soul to that level and I doubt ever will be. Well, also possibly to some extent this system has conflict with the natural selection process. But how hard it is to sit inside our own mind  and try to ask a few basic questions about the universality of our common happiness, sorrows, pain and equality. Do we need to practice religion or need some sort of high level mentoring for that? No. Just need to make a try to find the very easy truth. The two biggest obstacles for that are money and selfism. We need money to survive, to live a decent life. But how much..? Most of us have a feeling, this I want to be mine, that I want to be mine and if possible this whole world I want to be mine..! Don't think for a moment that damn!..., I myself am not mine. Since I can not guarantee myself to live for the next moment then it is not worth to think ' I myself is mine'. So, why we run after so much money? “ He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he like to have” .. Socrates.

I assume most of the country has a way to check how we earned the money. Also there are terms like black money or white money. I feel like there should be another bar about how we spend our money. There must be a set ceiling regarding how much we should be allowed to spend our money for lavish amusement. It does not matter how we earn it. Doing job, doing business, black or white does not matter. We should not be allowed to make a budget of 100 million dollar for our daughter's wedding. We should not be allowed to have a 500 million dollar yacht for someone’s personal amusement only. The world can not afford to spend 50 thousand dollars for a night to stay in a luxury hotel. Does not matter how we earned or inherited this money. For all these, the only resource place is this mother earth. And this for every people who lives here now and  for the future generations to come. Consider that billions of babies and children in this world have no bed to sleep, no food at night, wake up and emerge through the day in an empty stomach, die without treatment. A filthy show of wealth in this world should be considered as a crime by law. A crime against humanity. It is just like someone laughing on a brutal picture that says a military boot on the chest of an innocent baby in a war torn zone. Doing this, if anyone dares to call themselves a human being, declare him or herself as the best creature of the planet, then shame on them. We should try to make this world a fair stage at least to some extent. 

As I mentioned, we progressed a lot over the centuries. Time to time we have taken steps towards humanity. We invented religions to salvage ourselves from sufferings. Though indeed, that created divisions within us. But still we should acknowledge our achievements. Yes, these achievements were always not one step forward then take the next step forward from there. And that is the shocking news. In recent days, clearly we observe the racial supremacist and ultra nationalism type of feeling again in rise world wide. So in different time points in history, we take one step forward, and few steps back.  Which is death towards the all important humanity, and which we thought we left behind after 2nd world war. 

The story of Kunta Kinte is a real life story. Nothing is fabricated, nothing is exaggerated. He is just an example, just an icon of African – American history  and slavery. On the road to this civilization, there were billions of Kunta Kinte whose lives were a tale of this or more severe brutality. The truth is, the world is still a pit hole of its shameless existence.  And this is very shocking! It’s a feeling which brings to mind  that song again and again..

“ Old man river
That old man river
He don't say nothing
But he must know something
Cause he just keeps rolling
He keeps rolling along….”

… He must say something to sometime. He must tell what we have behind our mask. He must reveal the truth that we carry inside our blood. He must show the path to us to rectify ourselves. Otherwise, this journey towards a civilized human world ( if we realize that technological development is not the only index of civilization ) will always remain in a faulty ferries wheel. One that never reaches at it’s peak but comes downward  again and again..!!

Farid Talukder
Toronto, Canada.

1. en-ashram-N/G
2. 20-07-2019
4. Tweet