The real heroes around us
I am often fascinated by the magnanimity of the people around us. They do not normally hit the headlines, but their very presence comes to us as a great motivation. To my mind they are the unsung heroes of our society - they often set examples for others, but prefer remaining unnoticed.
To begin with, as a Bangladeshi I take great pride in the way our people welcomed Rohingyas, when, being persecuted, they were fleeing their own country and took refugee to Cox’s Bazar areas of Bangladesh. Despite ours being a small, poor and densely populated country, our people literally shared their food and belongings with the Rohingyas, even long before any foreign aid started arriving.
This gesture is quite unprecedented in the contemporary world, especially when countries are being driven by xenophobic or nationalistic feelings and are reluctant to allow outsiders in their own territory. Perhaps many other countries can take lessons from here, at a time when all are engaged in devising stringent laws and regulations to oust illegal immigrants. One can understand that Cox’s Bazar and adjacent areas are now in a mess as a result of accommodating more than one million Rohingyas - but still our people are tolerant. You seldom find them raising their voices against their presence!
In fact, unlike many other sectors, philanthropy is a sector that I still find alive in Bangladesh. Many schools, colleges and madrasas are financed by the well-to-do people of our society, for which they do not want any reward or recognition.
They might have their respective causes to donate e.g. to serve the humanity or to please God or something else but their activities remind us of the eternal human bondage of loving and caring each other. Thousands of children including orphans in the country live in the madrasas by selling the skin of the sacrificed animals donated during Eid Ul Azha. And people are doing it willingly. Through this and other donations they are feeding millions of children in madrasas or orphanages single day without being forced to do so.
This gives rise to optimism among us, driving away all the negativism and cynicism we often suffer in this country. We have many other examples as well. Very recently, most of the students arrested during the quota reform and road safety movements were granted bail. But many people do not know the efforts given by many journalists, writers, teachers, lawyers who spared their time, money to release these students from jail.
Their relentless campaigns for their release brought us joy. We have people in the society whom we can really trust for their roles as moral guides. History books may not remember them, but their such roles make us hopeful about our posterity and our very own future.
The resource for which Bangladesh can really boast is its common people - our villagers, garment workers, shopkeepers etc. Many times my own urban elitist approaches, attitudes are defeated by their simplicity and generosity. At times I go to a small local market run by the poor traders near my house in Mirpur, Dhaka. I often become surprised to see their honesty - they will tell you the good and bad sides of every item the sell. Sometimes fish sellers prevent me buying their own fish if the quality is not that good. You will not hear this in our elegant shopping malls, I do not know how many times I have brought rotten fish from there.
So it would be a misnomer to term all the people as greedy or corrupt in Bangladesh. There are abundant examples to the contrary. For any troubles related to my mobile phones, I go to a mobile phone service shop nearby my house. The shop owner, a young man of his mid twenties, always fixes my phones quickly. But the trouble begins when I want to pay him for the service. He often refuses as he thinks that his service is not worth the money!
How would you describe such a person? Or take the example of our housemaid. A few days back, when my wife wanted to pay her some extra money as Eid bonus, she was refusing. She said it was not necessary in this Eid. When we insisted, she took the money, but I heard she was repeatedly asking my wife if it would be an extra burden for us!. This is how we are often defeated by the bigheartedness of the people we often overlook.
If you are seriously sick and do not have enough money for your treatment in Bangladesh, it is very much likely that your friends, relatives and others would come forward if you allow them to help. I have seen many such cases where people collect money for the treatment of their near and dear ones, thereby trying to save their lives.
Recently, a relatively young university teacher of journalism in Dhaka died of liver cirrhosis and other complications. If sickness and death are parts of our life, what surprised me most were the efforts made by his friends and students to save his life. Through media and online campaigning they managed to collect the huge sum required for his liver transplant. But days before the transplant the teacher died of heart attack, leaving behind the examples set by the fellow colleagues and friends for which you will never think of living outside of Bangladesh!
I admit that we have many unscrupulous persons around us, including corrupt traders, teachers, politicians, government officials, etc. But if you have thousands reasons to be frustrated, you have many reasons to be optimistic as well. Keeping your eyes wide open you can see the real heroes of our society who are giving their services to humanity wordlessly. They are adding colour, bliss and mercy our day to day lives but the only problem is that we always chase after the fake heroes of the media, ignoring or not appreciating the plethora of real heroes surrounding us.
* Md. Shamsul Islam is a researcher and columnist. He can be contacted at [email protected]