Transcriber: Jenny Lam-Chowdhury Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
So, I experienced my first identity crisis on a playground.
I remember my classmates coming up to me and saying,
"Samir, what religion are you? Are you Christian or are you Jewish?"
And I remember being very confused by that question.
I'd just moved back from Bangladesh,
I was living in the United States –
and I remember thinking,
I'm not Christian because I don't get Christmas presents,
therefore, if I had to choose between these two options, I must be Jewish.
So I would look up and said, "John, I'm Jewish."
And that was that, and actually went on those few months thinking that I was Jewish
– mind you, I was eight years old.
That is until Hanukkah rolled around
and I didn't get any presents on Hanukkah either. (Laughter)
My point is that identity matters.
And not only does identity matter,
your identity should be the story of you,
and one that is fitting of your highest aspirations.
So when I moved to Bangladesh two years ago,
I was looking for an identity that would help me meaningfully express
my connection to this land.
So I began to do all of the things that I was really interested in:
photography, travel, writing –
and I began to find a common thread here.
I began to see this vast diversity of this land
– but not only that, but within that diversity laid
the key to understanding what made Bengal so successful as a civilization.
Here I can find an identity that I can be proud of,
and it was an identity with a potential.
So last year, I made a long awaited trip to Tibet.
And when my Buddhist tour guide met me at the airport,
he was so excited to meet a Bangladeshi.
"Bangladeshi! Bangladeshi!", he yelled out.
And I couldn't understand this,
but it turns out that 1,000 years ago
the Tibetan king was so taken by this Bengali monk,
that he had a delegation sent down to Bengal
to ask for him, to come up to Tibet
and help reinvigorate and revive the practice of Buddhism there,
after years of its decline and suppression.
This was a tremendous task.
And this Bengali monk took up this task,
and he was so transformative and effective in his mission,
that Buddhists today, and Tibetans all over Tibet
regard him as Atiśa, the super Lord,
second only to the Buddha himself.
And everywhere I went in Tibet,
every monastery I visited,
we see the statue of Atiśa, a Bengali man, seated right next to the Buddha.
In fact, if you go to Mongolia, Japan –
even Australia and parts of the Buddhist world,
you will still find centers, monasteries and statues
dedicated to Atiśa – such was the profound influence.
Now, how many of you here today have heard of this story?
And how many of you here today know where Atiśa was from?
He was from right here, just a few miles outside Dhaka.
And if you're like me and you're wondering,
what kind of society gave birth to such a man –
Well, 1,000 years ago, Bengal was an international powerhouse.
It had an empire that extended as far west as Afghanistan,
it dominated the Indian Ocean trade,
and it built monastery university complexes like this at Paharpur.
This would have drawn in scholars from all around the region
to study at this prestigious campus.
And this is what it would have looked like back then – this is a 3D rendition, of course.
It would have served religious affiliations
– it didn't matter what religious affiliation you were,
you were welcome there.
And to this day, it is one of the largest.
And if it looks like dozens of other monasteries
that you've seen throughout South East Asia,
know that this one was actually the model that inspired all others.
And it's right here in Bangladesh.
See, if we think of our identity in terms of the nation-state construct,
then we have no option but to place so much emphasis on 1971.
And in doing so, we risk losing sight of a much grander narrative
of what it means to be Bengali.
See, when 1971 explains why we fought for our cultural identity,
it doesn't explain where our culture and identity came from.
And the 'where' is critical because it gives us that critical insight into
how we became such a civilizational force in the first place.
See, whether you believe it or not,
Bengal was once known for its international prestige,
its economic prosperity,
and intellectual sophistication.
And, so we see a pattern here that begins to emerge –
that it takes an open, inclusive and pluralistic society
to build the foundations for security, stability and wealth generation
that we saw in Bengal.
And the early rulers of Bengal
seemed to have figured out this winning balance.
So we see Bengal as this great diverse place
and the rulers and the leaders are able to channel this great diversity
towards productive means, openness,
inclusiveness, and pluralism.
So, if you're wondering,
where does this great diversity in Bengal come from –
I'm a big fan of maps and maps can help explain a lot.
So, if you see this map
and you notice the rivers that are coming down from the Himalayas,
how they're all coming right into the Bengal Delta –
These rivers, of course, in the ancient time would've been early roadway systems.
So, perhaps this map is a little bit clearer –
you see, from China, India, Bhutan, Nepal... all over South Asia,
all these rivers are going straight into Bengal.
So you have, from a very early age, Bengal teeming with people,
teeming with different ethnicities and cultures.
How do you harmonize this?
Pluralism doesn't just happen.
You don't just become a lovey-dovey utopia, just because you have diversity.
Pluralism requires active policies that are designed to engage that diversity,
and funnel that diversity towards socially progressive outcomes.
It's an active effort.
So we have, for example, during the Mauryan Empire,
2,300 years ago, King Ashoka
– I'm sure many of you are familiar with him,
he's tasked with the enormous responsibility
of ruling over a population of 50 million people,
including the borders of present day Bangladesh --
How does he do this?
He would turn to what it would become one of history's first examples
of pluralistic ethic officiated as state doctrine
when he inscribed this profound message on rock pillars
and have them placed throughout his empire.
"The faiths of all others ought to be honored
for one reason or another.
By honoring them, one honor one's own faith
and at the same time performs a service to the faiths of others –
So concord alone is commendable."
And Ashoka – he received great points for this inspired vision.
Not only do we regard him as one of South Asia's most benevolent and greatest kings,
but the Greeks and the Romans wrote about Bengal during this period,
they wrote about our prosperous ports,
they wrote about its quality merchandise,
they wrote about our fine quality pearls and muslin,
and not only that, but outside Dhaka recently
a coin was found dating 300 B.C. – precisely this time period,
and it was traced to Greece,
so you get a sense of this early cosmopolitanism
that Bengal engendered as a result of this pluralistic rule.
And we see the same kind of pluralistic ethic
embodied throughout the various rulers, throughout the ages of Bengal.
But in the 20th century a dangerous myth began to emerge.
And that dangerous myth was that South Asia's religious communities
somehow belong to different civilizations,
and it was best articulated by Muhammad Jinnah
in the Two Nation Theory when he said, essentially,
Muslims and Hindus belong to two different civilizations,
– their religions are different, their texts are different,
their histories are different,
and if you force them to live together,
that experiment will end in destruction.
As a result, South Asia is the most religiously polarized, fragmented,
and nuclear armed landmass of the planet.
See, that Two Nation Theory began to define our borders,
define our politics,
and as a result, we are suffering for it,
both in terms of our international relations,
but also in terms of our economic development.
In Bangladesh, we fought for a Constitution that was secular,
that represented the pluralistic framework of our society.
We are, after all, a society based on many different religious minority groups.
But then, within a generation we backtracked on that
and now we have declared a state religion,
and it's remained that way since.
And while that state religion does reflect the majority's sentiment,
what such narrow identifications do
is only empower extremist elements of society – not the majority.
So you see, for example, groups who get to decide
whether books are unholy or holy and should be banned or not.
And we've had incidences of book banning already.
We see, for example, groups who've decided that the celebration of Pôhela Boishakh
is not holy as well, so – bomb that!
And we've seen violent episodes taking place during these celebrations.
We've also seen the taking of land away from our minorities, again –
under the guides of religions but protected by these loose political terminologies.
Historically, these narrow identifications did not exist in Bengal,
in fact, Bengal was converted as a majority to Islam
under the rule of the secular Mogul regime
– a regime who could care less about what religion you belong to.
So we see during the Bengal sultanate,
when Muslims ruled over Bengal,
poets described, for example, in the 1,500s
how there were a Mahabharata in every home,
how whether or not you were Hindu or Muslim, it didn't matter – you read it.
We also hear great stories from that same century from another poet,
who talks about Muslims weeping
when they heard about Rahma's loss of his beloved Sita in readings from the Ramayana.
These Bengali sultans also patronized Hindu works,
so the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were translated into Bengali
for the first time in this period.
Also, Hindu humanist movements were supported by these Bengali sultans.
And we see these Bengali sultans during public ceremonies
using water – holy water from the Ganges, to purify themselves.
So in essence, while these Muslims came to the region as foreigners,
with the foreign religion in the 12th century,
they essentially became Bengali Rajas
as they were known affectionately by their subjects.
So you see this great source of strength and unity
that comes from this religious synthesis of the history of Bengal.
So when the British in 1905 wanted to partition Bengal in two
based on religious lines in the first time in its history,
you see people like Tagore taking a stand for unity
– for religious and political unity,
and you know what his response was when he first heard about this plan?
He composed the words that would become, 65 years later,
Bangladesh's National Anthem, "Amar Shonar Bangla" – My Golden Bengal,
How could you divide us?
And he went out to the street and he tied a rakhi,
a hindu band symbolizing kinship and fraternity,
on the hands of every Muslim he came across on the streets.
And then in the 1940s, when we had this partition of India,
we see an existential threat to the Bengali culture
come in the form of replacing the Bengali language with the Urdu language.
And it was also proposed that the Bengali script would be changed to the Arabic script over time.
And this began to rouse the masses,
all of the sudden, Bengalis began to see
the issue that comes with narrow religious identifications.
It was an existential threat to the Bengali culture.
So you see at this time – the Language Movement emerged.
And one of the heads and founders of this Language Movement was Muhammad Shahidullah,
who took a stand at Dhaka University
and declared the ancient and syncretic origins of the Bengali language
as a confluence of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian influences throughout the ages.
And in the similar spirit, you see Kazi Nazrul Islam
echoed the national consensus of Bengal when he sang the song –
"I sing the song of equality,
where all barriers have crumbled,
all differences have faded,
and Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians have come together and merged."
And you see posters like this posted throughout Bengal
during the revolutionary wars.
Once again, Bengal was driving its strength and unity
from this great pluralistic history.
So when we finally gained our independence in 1971
– sure it was about economic differences,
sure it was about political differences,
but really it was the culmination of a 2,500-year-history of pluralism
that was crying out,
that was refusing to be ignored any longer.
And now, once again, we are in charge of our own destiny.
And while loving thy neighbor may seem like good ethics, good moral ethics,
it''s also good business,
especially when you consider the rising opportunities that have come up all around us
with this new Asian century.
For example, you have India surrounding us on three sides
and its meteoric rise.
You see China to our north and the east,
the world's second largest economy,
to the south, you have the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean –
the Indian Ocean being the world's largest hub of international trade.
And this opportunity is further described by Robert Kaplan when he said,
"This ocean is once again at the heart of the world,
just as it was in antique and medieval times..."
So, what's our excuse for not tapping into this dynamic growth?
We know the solution, and we have a profound history
that serves as a precedent that we can live up to.
And if you look around yourselves today,
and you see this devastating reality of poverty that we're surrounding by,
know too that that poverty is a recent phenomenon.
See, in the history, the grand history of Bengal,
Bengal was always being written about in terms of its immense wealth,
its grandeur, its beauty –
So please, think about that, as you go out there,
and you become those ambassadors of change.
And I want to leave you with this image
– I assure you it is not Biman's latest flight offerings. (Laughter)
What you're seeing here is actually
all the civilizations and all the peoples that Bengal has touched
throughout its long history – and in turn, been touched by.
So again, as you go out there and become those ambassadors of change
for a more open, inclusive and globally engaged Bangladesh,
know that history is on your side
because the history of Bengal is the history of plurality and prosperity
and that there's no reason why our future does not hold that same promise.
Thank you. (Applause)