Becoming Bangladesh: sleeping with a mosquito

Published : 31 Jan 2011, 04:41 PM
Updated : 31 Jan 2011, 04:41 PM

I have to admit it. Since I started writing for bdnews24.com, I have gauged the reach my articles have enjoyed by the number of facebook shares that appear next to the headline. I also count the number of responses generated. On the basis of these two statistics, I decide what to write about next.

My previous high score in terms of shares was my first article on Barack Obama, and questions concerning why he wouldn't be visiting Dhaka. Last week's article, the one I wish didn't have to be written, broke that record by over a hundred shares, generated some spin-off articles and was even featured in printed media there in Bangladesh. Before I move on to the main point of this article, I want to thank bdnews24.com for the restraint it showed when choosing a picture to accompany last week's offering. Some copies of what I'd written did appear on other media accompanied by a grizzly snapshot of Felani. I understand the outrage. I appreciate the power a photograph has to rally people to a political cause. But let's not forget that Felani is, first and foremost, as God made her, a human being, with a human family, and in all this rigmarole, we need to be sensitive to a real family, and its very human sense of loss. I know that if such a tragedy befell my daughter, I would hate to be constantly bombarded by the image that has been circulated. Can't anyone find a sweet picture of the girl Felani was? Must she forever be defined to the world by the last four torturous hours of her life?

I sincerely want to know what we, as a human family can do in the memory of that girl that would bring peace to her grieving family members and to her community. I want them to know that people of goodwill everywhere pray for them.

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Why did my article get such attention last week, when others that were written might have been penned by more able, more educated Bangladeshis? Why is it that since I started writing for this online newspaper, two of the three most shared articles have been those written by foreigners?

It has something to do with identity.

In the wonderful children's story, Horton Hears a Hoo, by Dr. Seuss, a tiny civilisation lives on a dust speck. It is invisible to all the jungle creatures, except the elephant, Horton, who because of his big ears, can hear what the people in Hooville are saying. None of the other animals believe that Hooville exists, and they devise cruel ways to separate Horton from his dust speck. Finally, with the dust speck about to be tossed into a boiling pot by the sadistic creatures of the forest, the entire population of Hooville tries to make enough noise to be heard, and then the last person in Hooville, a tiny girl, finally climbs to the top of the highest mountain and says, "Yopp". And that one little yopp is the tipping point. The animals finally hear, and acknowledge the civilisation, and the dust speck planet is saved.

Bangladesh is hardly a dust speck, and yet, hard news from Bangladesh, even very important events, barely ever surface on the international news feeds. Meanwhile trivial events, such as one Prime Minister's love affairs, are splashed across the global headlines. "Important Italian Politician Consorts with Beautiful Young Women". What kind of news is that?? It's like running a headline that says, "Italy is a Peninsula". Jeez, you could have run that headline two thousand years ago! In light of so little international press, I suppose it is natural for people there in Bangladesh to breathe a collective sigh of relief that someone, even some random dude from New Jersey, is watching, and cares.

I wonder if this lack of international interest has something to do with your own self-censorship. This may be an impediment to creating a national identity that the global community recognises as unique to Bangladesh. A long-standing credo among Americans is that an atmosphere of free expression must prevail in order to create a national identity, and that censorship of any kind be it of image, film or print, is counter-productive to the accumulation of personal expressions that eventually reach the tipping point and come to define a culture.

From the very beginning of my research and communication with Bangladesh, I marvelled at my connection to you. Everything about your nation, your news, your culture, your history moved me, sometimes even to tears. I wondered what the basis of our bond could possibly be. The reaction to my article last week gave me some more clue into what it means to "Become Bangladesh". With you, I share a tendency to self-censor. Americans do not worry so much about the fine line between self-censorship and rudeness. Americans tend to shoot from the hip; the more outrageous the utterance, the better. I'm more cautious in what I say, than the average American. I measure my words, endlessly edit, think about my reader, try not to give offence, try to write so that my own children and grandchildren may someday be able to read my words proudly. Sometimes, my self-censorship goes too far. Last week, I hesitated to submit my article, and when I finally hit the "send" button, I did so with great trepidation. But I'm glad I did. I added my "Yopp", and you heard me. I am still hoping we're heard in India.

I tell my friends that what I love about my readers in Bangladesh is that they are not reading for shock value. You all appreciate a clever turn of phrase. Your responses to my writing are well thought-out and many of your letters reflect wonderful wordplay and courage of expression, which reveals a wealth of intelligence and wisdom. You aren't so jaded that you forget to acknowledge God as the Source. And you do all of this in English, no less! I can't wait until I learn enough Bengali to understand what you do in your native tongue. Of course, exceptions will always exist, but I have come to see that for the most part, the culture of Bangladesh prizes subtlety over noisiness, in a way that American culture just doesn't.

As a result, I have never felt so free to express myself, to be released from my self-censorship and allow the better angels of my nature to have free rein as I do when I write to the people of Bangladesh. It feels like writing to my cousins. For instance, poetry is the literary form of nudity, something that could really, seriously embarrass you, but last week, I felt free enough to share my feelings in verse. The appreciation that I receive makes me want to raise my voice, even if all I can say is "Yopp".

But I am a foreigner. I have no clue if the courtesy you extend to me as an American is a quality that you, as a nation, extend to your fellow countrymen. I read, recently, in this very newspaper a piece written just the other day about censorship on a particular film, and I discovered for the first time, that official regulation of the media does exist over there. My humble belief, as an outsider who wishes to offer you his very best, is that censorship is really the potato in the tailpipe of a cultural renaissance. It belies the people's belief in themselves and their ability to self-regulate, and it moves the artistic vanguard of a nation into exile or underground. Censors seem to me to be the talentless little trolls that sit under the bridge to progress because they fear that if they were forced to be creative, they would lose their jobs.

Please forgive my very American commercial interruption, but I suggest you pour over the writing of your fellow countrymen. You can start right here, with this newspaper. I encourage all of you to do what I did this week — look back over the op-ed pieces written by your own citizens on these very pages. The article written on January 1 by Asfan Chowdhury, for instance, whose thoughtful articles I always look forward to, moved me to tears the first time I read it, and once again when I re-read it this week. Writing of this quality doesn't often find a marketplace in which to flourish. But it does in Bangladesh.

Walk down the streets of your cities, and imagine you are a foreigner. I have seen the pictures and I wonder where in the world are people, even during the coldest time of year, dressed more like the fields in springtime than there in Bangladesh? It is clear that this is a thriving, imaginative culture, whose creativity must be encouraged, not suppressed.

Please do not let your government, or your friends, or your own fear of rejection, sit in judgment when it comes to you, as an individual contributing to this beauty which is so becoming. Think of recent stories of censorship in your country: We are all afraid of China, we all fear commercial retribution for any solidarity with Tibet, but what is lost by bowing to pressure from foreign dictators, grey-faced and spiritually bankrupt, is too high a price to pay for economic benefits. We all despise the anti-Islam sentiment and racism which is part of European culture, but we should not ever let a government shut down our ability to communicate electronically. Why not, instead, do a clever youtube animation changing a Danish flag into a swastika and letting Europe know that what they did to the Jews in the 30's and 40's is very similar to what it does to Muslims in this decade? I'll tell you why you don't do that. You guys are way too polite. But you'll find a better way to express your outrage. And you'll create a critical mass of literature, art, music and expression that isn't crass or offensive. You will lift the dialogue to a higher level, and eventually, the world will understand the quality of your work. In fact, it will be a source of pride which will come to define you in the eyes of the world. The only obstacle possible to your success is suppressing, or worse, ignoring your own people's creative talent.

And when I say "creative talent", I mean YOU, dear reader, you the individual who secretly fancies himself a poet, or a painter or a cook, or a creator of a new art form. Raise your voice and declare your own "Yopp!" which announces your presence. Perhaps it is your self-expression which will make the beauty of your culture apparent to the world at long last. Even the tiniest voice can be the tipping point. Always know that you have friends in America who are listening.

As the much-censored Dalai Lama says, "if you think you're too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito."

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.