Bangladesh
Cleans Up
Good
Morning, my name is Manu, and today my purpose is to inform all of you of an
event, or better, a catastrophe that happened during the first half of last
February in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is not a well known country, since
it's just a small piece of land, east of India,
with an area of
just 55,600 mi², smaller that Oklahoma
by 14,360 mi². what changes a lot, is the
population, since it is of 131,270,000 inhabitants, 40 times the population of Oklahoma; in practice, half of the US population.
And in this
country happens that the famous sentence "That government is best which governs
least" - written by Thoreau in Civil Disobedience - would actually be a
blessing for its inhabitants.
But since we
cannot just go to the conclusion without knowing some history, I'll first
illustrate, very briefly, the main stages in the history of this country and
the main reason I decided to talk about this event.
The Independent State
of Bangladesh, once known as
East Pakistan, was created in 1971, after a very bloody war for its liberation. The main religion is
Muslim, which caused the population to be divided in cultural castes: rich
people, poor people, and outcastes. The rich people (10% of the population) own
the 90% of the national resources of the territory, while the other 10% is
owned by the resting 90% of the population. The distinction between a poor
person and an outcaste is very strong. The outcastes are impure for everybody,
and just by touching one you would become "one of them", too.
The reason
that drove me to talk about this, is because my Grandfather first (Romano
Maglioni), and my father now (Daniele Reggi), lead a committee of missionaries,
called Committee Of Twinning And Cooperation Between The
People. It was founded in December of 1977, after a trip to Bangladesh to visit some friends
that had just started a mission centre in there.
"COMMITTEE
OF TWINNING AND COOPERATION" - says Romano in the letter of presentation of the
committee - "means to us a friendship sign: as Christians, we want to give an
example of love toward the other, basing ourselves on the gospel of Mark 'Love
your neighbour as yourself', and, so, make yield those talents that everyone of
us received as a gift from God."
And the
scope of this committee is to help people all over the world, especially in Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Congo,
Colombia, and Tanzania,
giving children the opportunity to go to school and have an education that will
literally change their lives, giving them the
possibility to have a respected job and sustain their family, once they grow
up. The system used by this institution (ONLUS - Non Lucrative Organization) is
that of Adoption At A Distance: people in Italy, France, and soon even America,
hopefully, adopt a child, for who they pay an annual "price", less than $0.60 a
day, in order to pay for his school. This system has being working since the
beginning and the money has always arrived to the correct destination, since
it's not sent by mail or anything, but it's given to people that joined the
committee, who go personally to the place where there are the missionaries that
will receive the money.
The
percentage of poor people in the country increases every year, and with that
increase even the number of different projects to help them, even if not always
these project are easy to be realized. The necessities of these people increase
at such a high rate that usually is not easy to keep up with it, especially
this year.
This year
happened that the government of Bangladesh,
tired of the usual traffic jam, decided to find a solution to it. Instead of
limit the number of cars in the country, that would have been easier and it
wouldn't have hurt anybody, the ministers decided to widen the roads. In order
to have the room to do this, it was established a demolition drive of all the
illegal housing that were found on the state territory (in practice all of
them).
The law was
passed on February 10, 2007,
and it asked for all of the illegal building to be destroyed by the 11th.
Millions of people had to tear down their house or their shop, usually the only
source of income in the family, by 48 hours, with their own hands, otherwise
the government would have done it and they would have had to pay for it.
"Like after
an earthquake, the street were plenty of rubble, that covered not just the
ground, but also hopes and lives" - writes Rudy, missionary in Bangladesh
since 1998, in a report from the mission, written on February 12, 2007. For this matter, the
committee started a new project, in order to give a house to those who lost
their in this catastrophe. The project consist of
buying a plot of land with an area of 30 acres, and build on it bamboo houses
in order to host the families. Each house would be just 16 feet wide and 13.5
feet long, but it would be better than nothing, at least until the families
have the possibility to raise some money and find a new one.
"In this
situation of disaster, what moves everything and everybody is the will to go
on, a strength often untouchable, but that has
fortunately affected everybody in here." With these words, Rudy describes the
atmosphere in which these days are spent in the mission centre in Chalna, Bangladesh.
" . really, if
our neighbour's house would suddenly get in these conditions, wouldn't we have
the courage to take $180 and give it to him?" - concludes him in the report,
asking for help from everybody.
Fatima Mernissi
said "Dreams can change your life, and eventually the world". Well, these
people's dreams have been destroyed by an unscrupulous government that works
for the good of the country, meant as land, instead of working for the good of
the country, meant as people. Now it's our turn to bring will of life, and a
new hope to those people affected by the mistakes of this government.
Works Cited
'Bangladesh Launches Massive Demolition Drive.'
Yahoo! News (2007). 27
Mar. 2007
<https://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070310/wl_afp/bangladeshcorruptiondemolition_070310065727>.
'Bangladesh.' Wikipedia.
22 Mar. 2007. 23 Mar. 2007
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh>.
Franca, Rudy. 02.15.07
Bangladesh
Report. Trans. Emanuele Reggi. Community
Pope John XXIII. Chalna, Bangladesh: Rudy Franca, 2007.
Maglioni, Romano. 'Committee
of Tweenning - About Us.' Committee of Tweenning and Cooperation
Between the People. Trans.
Emanuele Reggi. Ed. Daniele Reggi. 22 Jan. 2001. Onlus. 24
Mar. 2007
<https://www.webalice.it/dreggi/comitato/ita/comitato/comitato.html>.
Montoleone, Raul. 'Asia - Order of Area, Population, Density.' Global Geografia. Winter 2001. De Agostini. 23 Mar.
2007 <https://www.globalgeografia.com/asia_eng/asia_sup.htm>.
Montoleone, Raul. 'North America - Order of Area, Population, Density.'
Global Geografia. Winter 2001. De Agostini. 23 Mar.
2007 <https://www.globalgeografia.com/asia/asia_sup.htm>.
'Oklahoma.' Wikipedia.
23 Mar. 2007. 23 Mar. 2007 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma>.
