আমার লিখা Speech বিশ্বের ১৩০টি দেশের প্রতিনিধিদের সামনে তুলে ধরেন
World Miss University Bangladesh 2017 winner: Tahmina Othoi

December 04, 2017
Rohingya problem and internal situation in Bangladesh,special attention to the International community.

The land which is decorated with the largest mangrove forest in the world, one of the longest sea beaches in the planet, bountiful rivers and with its evergreen nature is my beloved motherland Bangladesh. The land is surrounded by India in the North, West and East. The Bay of Bengal is located in the South and shares a very little bit of border with its another neighbor country Myanmar in the south-East.

Myanmar was formerly known as Burma, its official present name is “Republic of the Union of Myanmar”, the capital is known as Naypyidaw. On 4 January 1948, the nation became an independent republic, named as the “Union of Burma”. On 2 March 1962, the military overtook the republican government through a coup and since then the government has been under direct or indirect control of the military.

Civilization had planted its root in Myanmar 13000 years ago. The first people to live there were from Tibet who used to communicate in ancient Burmese language and were the followers of Buddhism. That used to be an independent state back then.In 1287 the mighty Mongolians overtook the state from the natives and ruled there till 1552. The Burmese native culture got mixed with the Mongolian culture in that period of time.

Later, in the 17th and 18th century Burma was greatly developed,which is known as Taungoo Dynasty. The Taungoo Dynasty was overthrown by the Konbaung Dynasty in the mid 18th century. Later from 1824 to 1885 the land faced “Anglo-Burmese War” and as a result of which it was overtaken by the British Government and became a British colony. Historians indicate that, that was the time when the culture of the land was hugely influenced by the British and that was the period when the inter-racial fights among the Burmese started at an extreme level,which at a stage led Myanmar to achieve its independence from the British Empire in 1946.

There are many nuclear tribes in Myanmar,among which the “Muslims” is a profound one and could be traced back there from at least 700-800years ago from this time.

A beautiful state of Myanmar named “Rakhain” is one of the main living place of the “Muslim” tribe, which has an area of 36 thousand square km. Though all of you surely know at least something about them, I am going to tell you some more about the people of that place, their life, culture and history.

Why they have been oppressed till now from 1962? Why the military regime, even the republican government of the state is too much eager to terminate them? The people who live in the state of “Rakhain” are known as “Rohingyas” and who are mostly Muslims.

Now,the “Rohingyas” have lost their own homes, own villages, their own state. They are living in the refugee camps in other countries. It all started within the first decade of the state’s independence. It is really not clear why the ethnic group of Rohinyas was never enlisted by the state as an ethnic group and even why the state has never updated their list. But, as they were never enlisted in the list by the government, the government now refuses to recognize them as a native ethnic society ! Though there were many profound Muslim leaders in the state, from the time of their independence, even in their national assembly as representatives. But,the present evidence of the violence against the Muslims/Rohingyas show us that the government-military regime is too much interested in the business of killing their men, raping their women and burning their homes !

It is not that the people of Rakhain state were living in a heavenly situation before the present situation. they have been neglected since 1946 and as a result nor development neither education took place there in a healthy way and as a result of which the standard of living became poorly and full of struggle. It’s not that,the people who lives and had lived there were narrow minded and didn’t want development, education or a better future for their children, but the policy of the country has provide them none.

Though, as Bangladeshi we are taught, not to get involved in the matters which do not concern us, but we got involved when it has pushed its barrier and became our problem too by them killing the innocent people and by us by taking them as refugees.

Bangladesh is a hardworking proud developing country and as a nation we had passed difficult times to achieve this pace of development, but still we ourselves have not achieved proper timely development.

The hard working work force of our country, who is leading us on this path of development make us proud. But, if now as a nation we are to face the refugee problem because of the policy of the neighbor government, it makes us worried that our own economic progress might be hampered for their policy. The huge population of the country, is still our main problem and we are still not able to provide jobs for our own working class people. At a time like this, the “Rohingya” situation has thrown a new challenge to us and introduced a new level of difficulty on the path of our economic development.

Still, as a nation we are trying our best to provide for the Rohingya refugees, who has flown away from their home, who has been tortured and had their families killed and we have opened the border for them. At least 5 lakh Rohingyas have flown away from their land to ours from 1962 to 2012 and the present violent act by their military regime have made them to leave their home too and this present number of people has exceeded all the previous statistics. Its is said that, there are vast amount of natural resources in that Rakhain state and some of the powerful nations of the world have invested their money for those resources. But, the social scientists are investigating that whether it is the main reason to kill those innocent lives and make them leave their own homes or anything else.

“The whole world is a home for human beings. Even human beings have tried to make a suitable living place for the animals, but isn’t it unfair for human beings, not being able to live in their own homes?”

We demand that the government of Myanmar needs to set up the regulations about the Rakhain state in a proper manner, by establishing the right to live their lives and develop as today’s human beings. It seems like no one cares about the sufferings of the Rohingyas. We the people of Bangladesh don’t want financial support for our Rohingya refugees, we want a guarantee that the government of Myanmar will secure a future for them, in their own land.

Only in this year at least 10 lakh of their people have flown away to our country. At least 16 lakh of them has come here since 1962 and still they are living here. Not a single diplomatic step taken by our government has become fruitful because of their governments negligence about them. We as a nation could have indicated this as an International problem, a long time ago, but we did not,as we are the people of a peaceful land. But, now a time has when the situation has hit the rock bottom. Their military is breaking the International border laws and sending their air-force on the border, even they are crossing the borders sometimes ( approximately 17 times) to impose some kind of a threat.

But, still as a nation we have kept our head cool, did not fire back a single shot or send a single plane of our air-force to face them in the border. We as a nation is not that much arrogant to break the International border laws, instead we respect them. But if the government of Myanmar finds our good manner as weakness then it will be a mistake for them.

We just want to guarantee a safe passage to the refugees to return to their homes and live a life in the proper way and not be threatened again. We want the support from all the other nations from all over the world to make the government of Myanmar take back their people and to preserve their normal human and civil rights.

We, Bangladesh as a nation has destroyed a huge amount of forest land which is worth at least 1 thousand crore taka to make camps for these refugees. Every single person of our country has tried something to make the lives of these refugees habitable and not only that, we tried to collect funds from the all the International sources to support these innocent lives.
If we as the residents of this planet cannot guarantee the future safety of this Rohingya tribe it will surely be a loss for all of us. People might forget this incident, this period of time as other International issues will appear, but that will guarantee us nothing but the loss of innocent lives.

We, Bangladesh as a nation is not able to provide them livelihood for an unknown period of time, as I have already mentioned that we ourselves are a newly developing nation. if the situation does not change now, it will not only be a loss of the lives of those innocent refugees but also it will affect Bangladesh as a nation in its new speed of development. Therefore,we want all of our help and support to solve this problem. We want to deliver the message to the Myanmar government that, ”You, as an institute might be powerful and you do fulfill all the needs of your policy and the needs of your powerful individuals’ lives, but you need to keep in mind that these innocent people have lives too, they also feel the hunger and thirst, they also bleed, so what made you think that you can just terminate them just because they are weak! Sometimes things cannot be made possible due to economic barriers,but that does not mean the minimum quality of life cannot be provided to the people.”

All we want is safety,security and a quality life for all the people around the world who have been tortured and fled away from their homes,as it is their civil rights. It is a great honor to fight and raise our voice for those who are under privileged and tortured, the innocent victims. Dear, honorable audience, I want to deliver this message to the world through you to establish the right for these innocent people. I want to deliver this message, so that the people or institutions who think and work for people can listen to us, understand and help those poor innocent lives. I want to send this message as I consider myself as a voice for the under privileged and tortured human lives.

My warm appreciation is there for all of you present here as a representative of Bangladesh and I convey my respect and love from Bangladesh to all of you as I am about to finish my speech. May all of you live long and may Bangladesh live long. Thank you.

Writer: Bakhtiar Shamim.
Journal poet and columnist, Dhaka, Bangladesh.