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Projonmo '71

Awakening of a Lost Generation

Looking for Common Ground

By Sabir Mustafa
TRUTH can sometimes be so harrowing, so painful. that just to narrate it means reliving the agony in Its fullest horror But to suppress it means allowing Its presence to become a haunting one; almost subconsciously, the mind races out of the present, back Into the past, and the nightmare begins all over again.
Ute has been like that for SAIDUR RAHMAN for the past 20 years, and ■ that is one reason why the 29 year old bank officer has never been able to open his heart and tell the tragedy that befell his family on April 15. 1971, to
He has spent his entire childhood, his entire youth harbouring the anguish that was Pahela Biashakh of 1378. being forever tormented by the memory of how his father, a railway engineer In Syedpur, his mother and three brothers were brutally murdered by the Pakistanis and their Bthari allies.
Neighbours later said his mother was still alive when the Pakistanis buried her in the garden in front of the bungalow in which they lived; his three brothers were stabbed, taken to hospital and then dragged out of there and murdered.
But Saldur Rahman needed to talk, as much as everybody else needed to breathe. But
who would be able comprehend the depth of his sorrow, the enormity of his toss? Who would understand the afiguish he felt every time he thought about the way the memory of his family's sacrifice and those of countless other martyrs was being slowly erased? Who would care about the ideals, the consciousness for which three million Bengalees sacrificed their all, enough to share his frustrations about how those very ideals were being deliberately uprooted?
‘1 often used to look at a poster on a wall at the university, about martyr intellectuals. Every time I saw that poster. I used to think that they too, must've left behind children, who thought like me, felt like I did*. Saldur Rahman said.
For him. the thought constantly flickered like a beacon of hope at the end of a long, dark tunnel. He was convinced that, If no one else cared, then the children of martyrs would.
They would care, not only
because of the loss of their near ones, but also because they knew that the ideals for which they gave their lives had to be upheld in free.
independent, sovereign Bangladesh. A Bang-ladesh bom out of the ashes of the gigantic funeral pyre that was 1971.
Unknown to Saldur Rahman. children of many other martyrs were going through the same agony and looking for an answer in the same way. Families of martyr intellectuals. for whom the university authorities put on a show of remembrance every time, were going through great torment.
Many were being threatened with eviction from university quarters they were given, many were facing a halt to the allowances they received. For some, even more serious was the change In the
attitude of the university authorities and an increasingly large section of the teaching community towards shaheeds.
When Saldur Rahman contacted SHOMI KAISER, daughter of shaheed journalist-novelist Shahidullah Kaiser. he found he was not alone. Shomi contacted the few people she knew living on the Dhaka University campus.
T have often thought about how we could do It. but I was never really sure as to how to go about building an organisation. and I hadn't really thought about an organisation or even what an organisation could do to help the situation*. Shomi said frankly, adding that Saldur Rahman's phone call made her think more posi-
tively and she took upon herself the task of getting in touch with as many children of martyrs as she could.
She found that everyone she
contacted was thinking along virtually the same line — the need for the martyrs' children to have a platform, a voice, so that they could carry forward • the torch lit by their parents with their supreme sacrifice 20 years ago. Projonmo '71 was born.
Shomi said: 'What I liked most was that, by doing this organisation. I came into contact with many other children of martyrs whom I'd never known. When I realised how so many families were going through great financial, social and personal difficulties, f felt terribly guilty that we could not. or have not been able to do anything about it.
“And I am talking about families mostly in Dhaka, many of them well-known. So. you can imagine what those thousands of shaheeds spread across the country are going through. I am sure, if we can help one another and do something, then the departed souls of the martyrs will And some
peace at last. This will be our revenge’.
Twenty years later, the next generation Is waking up. and the children are getting together. To let the people know how they came to be a free nation; to remind them that some — millions — were there to stand up for what Is just and sacrifice their lives so that other, millions of Benga-lees could lead a dignified existence as a free people. And to remind society and the government that they have an obligation — we have an obligation — towards the well-being of the families of the martyrs.
And justice, yes. Justice must be visited upon those who. out of racial hatred, religious bigotry, ideological blindness and criminal prejudice, robbed the country of so many of its finest souls in an effort to cripple the country at birth. There cannot be any forgiveness or amnesty for crimes against humanity.
Those worked against independence, those who took away my father, are all walking around freely." Shomi Kaiser said, "the Razakars are all sitting pretty now and doing just fine. But why should that be ? In Europe, they are still catching and putting on trial those who committed genocide during World War II. The Razakars and Al-Badrs must be tried and punished tn this country.