by Anisur Rahman February 17, 2010
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Uppsala University
I am grateful to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, its executive director Henning Melber, his colleague Karin Andersson Schiebe and others for every thing they have done to commemorate the UNESCO International Mother Language Day and promote the spirit of great humanist Dag Hammarskjöld. I feel honoured and privileged for offering me the space to be in touch with Hammarskjöld Foundation. Thanks are always due to my friend and cultural affairs officer at Uppsala Kommun Annika Strömberg.
For the first time, I visited Sweden in 2006 on an invitation from the Swedish Writers’ Union. At that time, my boss at my newspaper where I used to work, suggested me to know much about Dag Hammarskjöld and Olof Palmo. During the one week stay in Stockholm, I tried to collect some books in English on Hammarskjöld but I did not find any. Even it could not be possible for me to be in Uppsala then. I was little bit unhappy for that at the end. In fine, this occasion today is a great bonus to be the soldier in line with Dag Hammarskjöld spirit.
This is a thrilling privileged feeling in me to be here not as a poet or as a guest author in Uppsala, but as an ordinary voice from Bangladesh, my homeland as in the question of the east or the west during Dag Hammarskjöld days at UN, he always stood for the east to promote the values and realities for a troubled free world and making the UN a functional international organisation in true sense.
Our great Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore, who got Nobel Literature Prize in 1913, was the first Nobel laureate from the east. The time was British colonial occupation in India, Bangladesh and other regions in the east. Tagore was so disappointed at the colonial role and much more upset reading a book written by German priest Dr Theodor Christlib The Indo-British Opium at his youth. After more than fifty years of that Tagore wrote a book entitled as ‘Kalantar’ ‘Time Span’ at the backdrop of his visit to China. In it he made a comment, the European torch of civilisation outside of Europe is not to show lights but put the fires on. And the time was European colonies in different countries. After the end of the World War II, a great humanist from Europe had the vow to put the fires off. The humanist was from Sweden and his name was Dag Hammarskjöld.
In 1947, Indian sub continent was liberated from British colony as two separate parts India and Pakistan. Today’s Bangladesh was made a part of Pakistan. The distance between two parts of Pakistan---East Bengal (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan was 1200 British miles. Hindi majority people got the India as a Hindi state. Muslim majority people got the Pakistan as a Muslim state. There were many controversies and confusions what would be the state of other minorities in India and Pakistan who are not either Hindu or Muslim. That is still a big question in that region even after the six decades or so at the end of European colony there.
In Pakistan, there were many language community people including Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi and other more than fifty ethnic minority languages. Then West Pakistan controlled the administrative power in entire land. They tried to impose Urdu as the state language, though it was not majority people language. Bengalis from eastern part of Pakistan demanded Bengali to be the state language along side Urdu. The authority did not entertain the logical demand. Rather the police fired on a demonstration during the language movement on Dhaka University campus on 21 February in 1952. In 1956, Pakistan recognised Bengali as state language along side Urdu. In 1971, Bangladesh liberated from Pakistani colonial occupation.
In 1999, UNESCO declared February 21, as the International Mother Language Day to commemorate the Language Movement in Bangladesh as well as to promote the spirit of necessity for the survival of vulnerable languages worldwide. How dangerous colonial fires for language and culture could be, to show that I will just present some facts before you:
1. Aotearoa was the original name of today’s New Zealand and its language was te reo. After the long British settling there, now English is all in all and te reo is in life support!
(By the mid-20th century there were concerns that the language was dying out. Major initiatives launched from the 1980s have brought about a revival of te reo. In the early 21st century, over 130,000 people of Maori ethnicity could speak and understand te reo, one of the three official languages of New Zealand (the others are English and New Zealand Sign Language).
2. For helping a language survive, it must always be used by minimum fifty thousand people. The experts on language have made this observation. Gaelic is a language in Scotland and it is at its border line of fifty thousand.
One hundred years, back Gaelic had two hundred thousand users and twenty years back eighty thousands. It is used by 1.5 percent people in Scotland. Once it was the main language of Scottish people. As soon as, this language will have its end, Gaelic culture will grace the same fate.
3. In Europe, there is a sincere initiative to help languages’ survival. In spite of that languages are dying here.
4. As per the number of users the major languages in the list are: 1. Mandarin Chinese, 2. English 3. Hindi/Urdu 4. Spanish 5. Bengali 6. Arabic 7. Russian 8. Portuguese 9. Japanese 10 German 11. French. This serial has been showed considering their use as mother tongues. However, the scene of language use are different to it. At this back drop English is to be considered as white shark. And the list is as follows: 1.English 2. Mandarian Chinese 3. Hindi/Urdu 4. Spanish 5. Russian 6. Indonesian/Malaysian 7. Arabic 8. Portuguese 9. Bengali 10. Japanese 11. French.
5. Native English speaker is only 350 million. On the other hand, total users of English are 1900 million.
6. Two thousand years back, Latin had its strong position bolding out other languages in Europe. Now Latin is a dead language as Sanskrit is in South Asia. English is doing the same today. English is Lingua Franca. Noticing such trend of English, Mahatma Gandhi in 1946 said, ‘It seems people have been drunk at alcohol over English. European school students from different countries are using English during their excursion to any second land.
7. The Dutch are making debate as they think English should be the medium of higher education. Their argument is availability of reference books and doctoral thesis in English. May God bless them. I appreciate the love for French in France and Swedish in Sweden.
8. When Microsoft launched its Encarta World Dictionary, Bill Gates was so excited and made a comment, ‘One world, one dictionary’. I hope the human civilisation will not have such devastating ruination.
9. In 1867, Mathew Arnold made a comment as saying what we call the modern civilisation, requires similar level of English speaking world. To do this, it is urgent to ruin all cultural ethnicities. When a language dies, its culture gets ruination. Are we observing cultural ruination in the name of globalisation?
Sweden is now witnessing so many language minority communities from different parts of the world. That can be a great opportunity to build a multi language lab and language museum having attachment with major universities in Uppsala, Stockholm, Gothenburg and elsewhere. Sweden can also have expansion of exchange projects over language and translation with different countries.
In Sweden, I have observed as it is not clear to many either Sweden should promote multi cultural society or protect its Swedish tradition. I would like to say as there is no contradiction between protecting cultural tradition and multiculturalism. Multiculturalism does not mean, one will sacrifice her own culture. Rather it will help to enrich one’s own culture when people of different culture will meet and share those many things in life.
Cultural aggression is the other fact. If issues regarding language, literature and culture are subjected to be commodities for market competition, there is a great chance of inviting cultural aggression somehow. This may be a necessary pointer to be marked in the policy-making concerning language and culture in today’s Sweden.#
Photo courtesy: http://japetus.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/dag-hammarskjold-map.jpg
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Uppsala University
I am grateful to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, its executive director Henning Melber, his colleague Karin Andersson Schiebe and others for every thing they have done to commemorate the UNESCO International Mother Language Day and promote the spirit of great humanist Dag Hammarskjöld. I feel honoured and privileged for offering me the space to be in touch with Hammarskjöld Foundation. Thanks are always due to my friend and cultural affairs officer at Uppsala Kommun Annika Strömberg.
For the first time, I visited Sweden in 2006 on an invitation from the Swedish Writers’ Union. At that time, my boss at my newspaper where I used to work, suggested me to know much about Dag Hammarskjöld and Olof Palmo. During the one week stay in Stockholm, I tried to collect some books in English on Hammarskjöld but I did not find any. Even it could not be possible for me to be in Uppsala then. I was little bit unhappy for that at the end. In fine, this occasion today is a great bonus to be the soldier in line with Dag Hammarskjöld spirit.
This is a thrilling privileged feeling in me to be here not as a poet or as a guest author in Uppsala, but as an ordinary voice from Bangladesh, my homeland as in the question of the east or the west during Dag Hammarskjöld days at UN, he always stood for the east to promote the values and realities for a troubled free world and making the UN a functional international organisation in true sense.
Our great Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore, who got Nobel Literature Prize in 1913, was the first Nobel laureate from the east. The time was British colonial occupation in India, Bangladesh and other regions in the east. Tagore was so disappointed at the colonial role and much more upset reading a book written by German priest Dr Theodor Christlib The Indo-British Opium at his youth. After more than fifty years of that Tagore wrote a book entitled as ‘Kalantar’ ‘Time Span’ at the backdrop of his visit to China. In it he made a comment, the European torch of civilisation outside of Europe is not to show lights but put the fires on. And the time was European colonies in different countries. After the end of the World War II, a great humanist from Europe had the vow to put the fires off. The humanist was from Sweden and his name was Dag Hammarskjöld.
In 1947, Indian sub continent was liberated from British colony as two separate parts India and Pakistan. Today’s Bangladesh was made a part of Pakistan. The distance between two parts of Pakistan---East Bengal (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan was 1200 British miles. Hindi majority people got the India as a Hindi state. Muslim majority people got the Pakistan as a Muslim state. There were many controversies and confusions what would be the state of other minorities in India and Pakistan who are not either Hindu or Muslim. That is still a big question in that region even after the six decades or so at the end of European colony there.
In Pakistan, there were many language community people including Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi and other more than fifty ethnic minority languages. Then West Pakistan controlled the administrative power in entire land. They tried to impose Urdu as the state language, though it was not majority people language. Bengalis from eastern part of Pakistan demanded Bengali to be the state language along side Urdu. The authority did not entertain the logical demand. Rather the police fired on a demonstration during the language movement on Dhaka University campus on 21 February in 1952. In 1956, Pakistan recognised Bengali as state language along side Urdu. In 1971, Bangladesh liberated from Pakistani colonial occupation.
In 1999, UNESCO declared February 21, as the International Mother Language Day to commemorate the Language Movement in Bangladesh as well as to promote the spirit of necessity for the survival of vulnerable languages worldwide. How dangerous colonial fires for language and culture could be, to show that I will just present some facts before you:
1. Aotearoa was the original name of today’s New Zealand and its language was te reo. After the long British settling there, now English is all in all and te reo is in life support!
(By the mid-20th century there were concerns that the language was dying out. Major initiatives launched from the 1980s have brought about a revival of te reo. In the early 21st century, over 130,000 people of Maori ethnicity could speak and understand te reo, one of the three official languages of New Zealand (the others are English and New Zealand Sign Language).
2. For helping a language survive, it must always be used by minimum fifty thousand people. The experts on language have made this observation. Gaelic is a language in Scotland and it is at its border line of fifty thousand.
One hundred years, back Gaelic had two hundred thousand users and twenty years back eighty thousands. It is used by 1.5 percent people in Scotland. Once it was the main language of Scottish people. As soon as, this language will have its end, Gaelic culture will grace the same fate.
3. In Europe, there is a sincere initiative to help languages’ survival. In spite of that languages are dying here.
4. As per the number of users the major languages in the list are: 1. Mandarin Chinese, 2. English 3. Hindi/Urdu 4. Spanish 5. Bengali 6. Arabic 7. Russian 8. Portuguese 9. Japanese 10 German 11. French. This serial has been showed considering their use as mother tongues. However, the scene of language use are different to it. At this back drop English is to be considered as white shark. And the list is as follows: 1.English 2. Mandarian Chinese 3. Hindi/Urdu 4. Spanish 5. Russian 6. Indonesian/Malaysian 7. Arabic 8. Portuguese 9. Bengali 10. Japanese 11. French.
5. Native English speaker is only 350 million. On the other hand, total users of English are 1900 million.
6. Two thousand years back, Latin had its strong position bolding out other languages in Europe. Now Latin is a dead language as Sanskrit is in South Asia. English is doing the same today. English is Lingua Franca. Noticing such trend of English, Mahatma Gandhi in 1946 said, ‘It seems people have been drunk at alcohol over English. European school students from different countries are using English during their excursion to any second land.
7. The Dutch are making debate as they think English should be the medium of higher education. Their argument is availability of reference books and doctoral thesis in English. May God bless them. I appreciate the love for French in France and Swedish in Sweden.
8. When Microsoft launched its Encarta World Dictionary, Bill Gates was so excited and made a comment, ‘One world, one dictionary’. I hope the human civilisation will not have such devastating ruination.
9. In 1867, Mathew Arnold made a comment as saying what we call the modern civilisation, requires similar level of English speaking world. To do this, it is urgent to ruin all cultural ethnicities. When a language dies, its culture gets ruination. Are we observing cultural ruination in the name of globalisation?
Sweden is now witnessing so many language minority communities from different parts of the world. That can be a great opportunity to build a multi language lab and language museum having attachment with major universities in Uppsala, Stockholm, Gothenburg and elsewhere. Sweden can also have expansion of exchange projects over language and translation with different countries.
In Sweden, I have observed as it is not clear to many either Sweden should promote multi cultural society or protect its Swedish tradition. I would like to say as there is no contradiction between protecting cultural tradition and multiculturalism. Multiculturalism does not mean, one will sacrifice her own culture. Rather it will help to enrich one’s own culture when people of different culture will meet and share those many things in life.
Cultural aggression is the other fact. If issues regarding language, literature and culture are subjected to be commodities for market competition, there is a great chance of inviting cultural aggression somehow. This may be a necessary pointer to be marked in the policy-making concerning language and culture in today’s Sweden.#
Photo courtesy: http://japetus.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/dag-hammarskjold-map.jpg
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