History can’t be erased: Hasina

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said that UNESCO acknowledgement of March 7 speech of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a world documentary heritage proved the history could never be erased.
Addressing a civic rally celebrating the acknowledgement, Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, urged people to stay alert so that ‘flatterers of Pakistan’ and ‘ghosts of Pakistani occupation forces’ could get no more scope for distorting the history.
She said that the March 7 speech was banned after 1975 and many AL leaders and activists had to face oppressions for playing the record of the speech.
Citizens’ Committee organised the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan, from where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered the speech on March 7, 1971.
The March 7 speech inspired the freedom-loving people to take arms against the occupation Pakistan army, said Hasina.
‘Despite hectic efforts to erase the name of Bangabandhu from the history of Bangladesh after the 1975 carnage, his name has been there and cannot be erased,’ she said.
‘The UNESCO recognition has proved that none can erase the history of the Bengali nation. The recognition has honoured every Bengalis –– the freedom fighters, families of the martyrs,’ said the prime minister.
She said that the glorified address had appeared as the pathfinder for Bengali nation’s freedom and emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation.
She also urged the people to remain careful so that none could lower the nation’s head in future as desperate efforts were made in the past to do so.
Without naming anyone, Hasina asked whether the vested interests felt ashamed after the UNESCO recognition to the March 7 speech.
‘Now the March 7 speech has been recognised. No address has ever been played for so many times. Whenever this address is played, it imbued spirit of liberation war among people,’ she said.
Dhaka University professor emeritus Anisuzzaman, who chaired the rally, said that Sheikh Mujib declared the war of independence of 1971 in the speech on March 7, 1971.
‘We had started preparation for taking part in the war of independence after the speech,’ he said.
History can’t be erased: Hasina
Moloy Saha
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said that UNESCO acknowledgement of March 7 speech of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a world documentary heritage proved the history could never be erased.
Addressing a civic rally celebrating the acknowledgement, Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, urged people to stay alert so that ‘flatterers of Pakistan’ and ‘ghosts of Pakistani occupation forces’ could get no more scope for distorting the history.
She said that the March 7 speech was banned after 1975 and many AL leaders and activists had to face oppressions for playing the record of the speech.
Citizens’ Committee organised the rally at Suhrawardy Udyan, from where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered the speech on March 7, 1971.
The March 7 speech inspired the freedom-loving people to take arms against the occupation Pakistan army, said Hasina.
‘Despite hectic efforts to erase the name of Bangabandhu from the history of Bangladesh after the 1975 carnage, his name has been there and cannot be erased,’ she said.
‘The UNESCO recognition has proved that none can erase the history of the Bengali nation. The recognition has honoured every Bengalis –– the freedom fighters, families of the martyrs,’ said the prime minister.
She said that the glorified address had appeared as the pathfinder for Bengali nation’s freedom and emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation.
She also urged the people to remain careful so that none could lower the nation’s head in future as desperate efforts were made in the past to do so.
Without naming anyone, Hasina asked whether the vested interests felt ashamed after the UNESCO recognition to the March 7 speech.
‘Now the March 7 speech has been recognised. No address has ever been played for so many times. Whenever this address is played, it imbued spirit of liberation war among people,’ she said.
Dhaka University professor emeritus Anisuzzaman, who chaired the rally, said that Sheikh Mujib declared the war of independence of 1971 in the speech on March 7, 1971.
‘We had started preparation for taking part in the war of independence after the speech,’ he said.
Anisuzzaman said that the speech should be translated into different languages and circulated across the world so that oppressed people of the world could get inspirations from the speech.
Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader thanked the UNESCO for the recognition.
Nazrul researcher Rafiqul Islam said that after the killing of Sheikh Mujib, politics of anti-liberation started to grow in Bangladesh.
Samakal editor Golam Sarwar said that the speech of the March 7 was the epic of the politics.
Shahjalal University of Science and Technology professor Muhammed Zafar Iqbal called on the youth community to study the correct history of the war of independence.
UNESCO country representative in Bangladesh Beatrice Kaldun said that the March 7 speech was a major turning point of the struggle for the liberation of Bangladesh.
Poet Nirmalendu Goon recited one of his poems on March 7 while cultural affairs minister Asaduzzaman Noor recited a poem of Syed Shamsul Haq and cultural activists rendered solo and chorus at the rally at the intervals of deliberations.
Cultural activist Ramendu Majumder and martyred intellectual Alim Chowdhury’s daughter Nuzhat Chowdhury conducted the programme, which was also addressed by Alim Chowdhury’s widow Shyamoli Nasrin Chowdhury, also a teacher.

Source: News Age.