Skip to footer
Equality
The Monitor's View

A familylike equality in Bangladesh

A spirit of inclusiveness is made real in a South Asian nation soon after a dictator’s ouster.

|
AP
A crowd gathers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during the Aug. 8 oath-taking ceremony of the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

One of the world’s most poignant scenes in August was that of students in largely Muslim Bangladesh guarding places of worship for the country’s religious minorities, mainly Hindus. A student movement, organized to bring about equality in job hiring, had ousted a dictator Aug. 5 and then extended its embrace of civic equality by protecting Hindus from violent persecution by radicals during a period of political chaos. 

A new interim government also set up a hotline for people to report attacks on religious institutions. “Bangladesh is a country of communal harmony,” said a new religious affairs official, Dr. A.F.M. Khalid Hossain. “There is no problem in observing [Muslim] fasting and [Hindu] puja at the same time in this country.”

The attacks on Hindus have largely ended, but the head of the new interim government, Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, has continued a drive for peace by visiting a Hindu temple Aug. 14. He delivered this message:

“I am here to say we are all equal. ... In our democratic aspirations, we should not be seen as Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, but as human beings.”

“Do not make distinctions among us,” he said. “Exercise patience and judge us later – what we were able to do and what we couldn’t. If we fail, criticise us.”

As he prepares his South Asian nation for free and fair elections, Dr. Yunus – globally famous for creating a system of microloans for poor people – keeps setting a model of inclusiveness, from the diverse makeup of his interim Cabinet to his assurance of support for the world’s largest camp of refugees.

An estimated 1.3 million mainly Muslim Rohingya who fled persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar live in a Bangladeshi settlement near the town of Cox’s Bazar. Dr. Yunus told foreign diplomats Aug. 18 that he will back ongoing humanitarian aid to the camp and work with other countries to eventually return the refugees to their homeland “with safety, dignity and full rights.” He has long been a champion for the Rohingya and is well known for urging people to break down the walls of prejudice based on religion, place of birth, or ethnicity.

He has also promised Bangladeshis that they would live as a family with no room for discrimination. So far, both he and the student antidiscrimination movement that brought him to power are getting it right: “Equality” is really a verb, not a noun.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to A familylike equality in Bangladesh
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2024/0827/A-familylike-equality-in-Bangladesh
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe