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The NRB conference: A good idea that can be bettered

Monzurul Huq
As an idea, it cannot be said to be something new and unique. .And in reality, too, the trend has its own history tracing back more than half a century. Bangladeshis have been venturing around the world since the 1950s, when the first group of expatriate Bengalis settled in England and gradually expanded their own world by taking their family members and close relatives.
But it was during the first half of the!970s that the mass exodus of Bangladeshis really took off. The oil money concentrated in the hands of Middle Eastern kings, monarchs and strongmen after the first oil shock of 1973 necessitated their dependence on foreign hands for all kind of menial and intellectual work. Bangladeshis did not hesitate to take the opportunity and rushed to the promised lands without much delay. This was followed by a second wave of exodus. particularly of young Bangladeshis, to Europe and then to the United States.
k Unlike their fellow citizens who went to the Middle East, many of those who travelled further are by now among the most successful NRBs, both professionally and financially. So. the concept of NRB is indeed very closely associated with the emergence of independent Bangladesh.
The political independence cleared much of the hindrance in overseas travel, and many left the country in search of a decent earning and security, and also for higher education vis-i-vis professional satisfaction, ever since the country emerged as an independent state after fighting a powerful enemy that once put so many barriers in obtaining passports for the people of Bengali origin. The independence of Bangladesh, thus, opened the floodgate to the wider world and the once 'Ghorkuno' Bengalis took the opportunity to look for whatever possibilities the outside world offered.
I was among the first group of Bangladeshis that left the country for a longer period, though 1 never had the idea that the stay overseas would eventually become much longer. It was also the time when most of the West, including Japan, allowed us entry without any visa requirement. We had our problems and agonies, and in most of the cases we resorted to our respective embassies for finding a desirable solution to those problems.
Those were the early days of non-resident Bangladeshis in the true sense, and the diaspora was a relatively smaller one. That humble beginning has now expanded to an extent where the number of Bangladeshis living abroad is presumed to be more than the total population of many smaller coun-
tries of the world.
The idea of an NRB conference, too, is not a new one. I'm sure a number of expatriate Bangladeshis living in different parts of the world are well aware of an initiative taken by the well-known Bangladeshi media personality Mohammad Jahangir more than five years ago. Mr. Jahangir floated the idea of forming committees in various countries where expatriate Bangladeshis are concentrated, and run a coordination body back at home that would serve the interests of expatriates on issues considered to be crucial for Bangladeshis living in various parts of the world.
Some of us in Tokyo met informally to discuss the idea, and were waiting for the arrival of Mr. Jahangir for further briefing. His visit, unfortunately, was eventually cancelled at the last moment as he contracted hepatitis and was hospitalised. With that came an abrupt end of a noble idea, which now, after a lapse of more than five years, has fortunately been revived by a set of completely new people who eventually were successful in organising the first NRB conference in Dhaka, participated by almost a thousand delegates from around the world.
The three-day gathering provided a unique opportunity to grasp the depth of Bangladeshi diasporas in different parts of the
world, and also underlined the necessity of forming a truly representative body that would not only facilitate the proper utilisation of the expertise of expatriates for the benefit of Bangladesh, but also look after various needs of that scattered community, some of whose members have made significant breakthroughs within their adopted societies and beyond.
The true spirit of organising such a conference in Dhaka was supposed to reflect that global nature of NRB, which unfortunately did not happen, as the focus was narrowly concentrated mostly on North America right from the beginning to the end of the conference.
There is no denying the fact that the United States has already become the focus of attention for a majority of Bangladeshis, and our expatriate community in the States is now considered to be the second largest concentration of nonresident Bangladeshis. But when we talk about the rationality of forming a global body, there is the need of including others in that set-up.
The opening event of the conference was a failure on part of the organisers to broaden the concept of NRB beyond the narrow idea of American dominance that they all along were very much influenced by. Among seven NRB representatives who were initially allowed to speak at the opening event, no less then three were from the United States.
Of the rest, two were from Australia and one each from Saudi Arabia and Spain. The latter was also introduced as being the representative of the whole of Europe, though he rightfully focused on expatriate Bangladeshi community within his own circle in Spain.
There was no place for any speaker from Britain, the country that pioneered the exodus of Bangladeshis in search of a better life.
Neither was anyone invited to speak from the vast territories expanding from Iran in the west to Japan in the east, where we all know the concentration of Bangladeshis has increased many fold in recent years and where, in a number of countries, Bangladeshi nationals had made significant headway no less than that of many other parts of the world. It was only after strong protest from participants from Britain and Japan that their representatives were squeezed in and allowed to speak very briefly in between the speeches of guest speakers.
This pattern of US dominance continued throughout all the sessions as well as eighteen seminars, and most of the participants from other parts of the world were compelled to feel that the purpose of their participation was just to show that the conference did contain a global colouring.
This is a very important aspect that future organisers of NRB gatherings have to give serious thought to if they cherish the desire to continue the pattern of holding the gathering on a regular basis in Bangladesh. There is no need to bring a North American Bangladeshi conference to Dhaka and whitewash the whole thing by mere participation of others from different countries as spectators at the opening and closing sessions.
To ensure that the same mistake is not repeated, there is also a need for the organiaing body to be made transparent with the participation of representatives from various countries. Unless this can be ensured, the same mistakes are bound to be repeated in all the future gatherings.
A quick look at the papers presented at the seminars, and the topics chosen, also confirms the dominant role played by the US based NRB, which at times turned
funny and meaningless. A very distinguished NRB from Washington, who was an honourable speaker at one of those seminars, not only declared loudly how proud he felt to be an American, but also asked the US embassy representative attending the seminar to take the seat at the front row so as not to miss the important statement he was making. As a humble member of the audience I had no other option but to wonder what brought me over there.
There is also a need to decide the working language of the conference in the future. There is nothing wrong in making the gathering a bilingual one, as Bangla is our mother tongue; it is also our NRBs who took the leading role in the global campaign of declaring February 21 as
International Mother Language Day. It was quite ironic that English was the language of almost all the sessions, despite participants in each and every session being people of Bangladeshi origin, except for a few foreign guests in one or two sessions.
Instead, the language that we love to declare so dear to us was pushed to the cultural corner only, giving an idea that NRBs love to speak in English and only enjoy singing in their mother tongue. This annoyed some delegates so much that a professor from Aichi Gakuin University of Japan attending the seminar on education was compelled to make a comment that the Japanese experience of education shows that no significant breakthrough in the educa-
tional field is achievable unless directed in the vernacular.
Despite these few drawbacks, the conference itself was a breakthrough as, for the first time, a mean -ingful discussion was initiated on how the country could benefit from the rich expertise and active involvement of NRBs. It is quite significant that the government took special interest and provided much needed logistic support to the organisers. Continuity, now, is what should be expected, to transfer the speeches of the seminars and other events into real practice. Only then could many in Bangladesh and abroad see the NRB conference as a timely venture, reaping benefits for the country.
Mozurul Huq writes from Japan.