Bangladesh is rapidly moving towards development in all aspects to realize the ‘Vision-2041’ initiated by the government. Even amid this Covid-19 pandemic, we have been able to retain the progress rate overcoming all obstacles.
However, on the way of our advancement there is a notable obstacle that has been pulling the society backwards. The obstacle can be identified as social primitivism. This particular trait is preventing people from developing their minds simultaneously with their economic and technological progress.
With the overall economic development of the country undoubtedly every single citizen of Bangladesh is moving upwards along the ladder of socio-economic status. But, if they fail to liberate themselves from social dogmatism they can not flourish to their fullest potential as human beings. Therefore, they will not be able to take active roles in moving the nation even further.
With the fast growing economy of the country, a man can easily gain economical independence and take part in the economic activities to take the country ahead. However, a large number of people in the country has not been able to advance themselves socially along with economic development.
We all should work together to remove the
primitivism rooted in the minds of the
backward thinking population
These are the people that are unconsciously hindering the development process, as they can be easily manipulated. Their backward thinking is keeping their minds captive to primitive, medieval ideals which in turn obstructing the overall social advancement of the whole society.
In the recent event of cricketer Sakib Al Hasan attending a Kali Puja programme in India, we saw a somewhat violent reaction from the group of people that are still burdened with backwardness.
Although, he attended the programme as a token of religious and cultural harmony between Hindu and Muslims in this region, he had to face death threats while thousands have condemned his action. But, this type of violent reactions contradict the century old tradition of communal harmony between Bengali Hindu and Muslims. This shows that with the passage of time, many people in the country has gone backwards in thinking instead of moving forward.
Moreover, this intolerance of other religion and culture also contradict the teachings of Holy Al-Qur'an. In the last line of Surah Al-Kafirun it is said, “Lakum Dinukum Wa Liya Din” which translates to, ‘To you is your reckoning, for me mine'. This verse indicates that, Muslims are not to interfere with the religious activities of other religion and culture.
But, a group of people in the country are still clinging to medieval ideas and beliefs and showing intolerance to people of other culture. They seemingly do not understand that we are not living in an age of darkness rather in an age of technology and digitalisation and their ancient mind-set does not fit in the 21st century world.
Besides religious dogmatism, social dogmatism also plays a great role in hindering the progress of the nation. Various ludicrous beliefs are still stressed among the backward population of the country. Such an example we witnessed when rumours were spread that child heads are needed to complete the construction of Padma Bridge.
It is astonishing to note that how quickly that rumour spread and created a state of panic among the backward thinking population. Manipulating this group of primitive thinking people another group of cunning people are always trying to create a chaotic situation to slow the speed of development.
Not only in this particular incident, we see this kind of behaviour from the primitive thinking group of people in most socio, political, economical issues of our country and it seems to be increasing day by day. This is a complicated problem for us to solve. However, we must try and eradicate primitivism from amongst us in order to keep the country on the way of progress.
On the one hand, we are advancing to become a middle income country with all our technological, industrial and economical development. On the other, a huge part of our total population is not moving forward socially due to the primitivism rooted firmly in the back of their mind.
This sort of social problem is a huge hindrance on the way of our overall development as a nation. All of us should work together to remove the primitivism rooted in the minds of the backward thinking population. Otherwise, even if we achieve our desired progress in all other sectors we won't be able to turn the country into a developed country in all sense.
We are a nation with a long going history of cultural harmony and we pride ourselves in that. But, without eradicating the social primitivism we will not be able to retain this harmonious environment we cherish so much. So, it is high time to take steps in this regard.
Nourin Ahmed Monisha works at Bangladesh Post
