Be organised, do research, hold on to culture
To bring about a political change in the country, people will need to prepare themselves culturally, Professor Emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury said yesterday.
While delivering an autobiographical speech marking his 87th birthday at Bangla Academy, the Dhaka University professor also said the country needs a social revolution.
"To bring about that revolution, cultural activists should be organised, do research and continue cultural practices," Serajul said at the event, organised by Natun Diganta, a quarterly magazine edited by him.
Serajul proposed creating a socialist intellectual guild, under which libraries will be built and magazines will be published. It will facilitate games, cultural activities and juvenile movement.
The academic mentioned an article published by Cambridge University Press, which stated that in communism, the bourgeoisie are the villains, the proletariat the victims, and communist parties heroes, but this is all melodrama.
As a result of these thoughts, the leftist world is full of melancholy and frustration, he said.
He said the world has become incapable for humans to thrive. The people are standing at the transitional point. "The world will be saved if we have social ownership instead of a personal property system."
Serajul said the state is an important factor, and it tries to dominate, but none can leave it behind. A society can not run without a state.
"To some extent, we have solved the problem of the nation in 1971, but we still cannot solve the problem of class," he said.
He mentioned that he took part in the movement against felling trees at Osmani Udyan, as well as construction of a commercial building at the courtyard of Lalon Shah's shrine.
He also protested construction of an airport at Arial Beel in Munshiganj, which would have destroyed agricultural lands, not as an environmentalist but as a rights activist.
"Why would an auditorium be built in an open place like Osmani Udyan? Why would Lalon Akhra be destroyed? It is irrational and unreasonable to make an airport at Arial Beel," he added.
Serajul said he had been nominated for the three-member panel by the DU senate three times, but he refused to be included, as he was afraid that he would not be able to meet the undue expectations of many.
He said he also refused to take responsibility as director general of Bangla Academy and as member of University Grants Commission.
Serajul mentioned that he escaped death in the Liberation War, as Pakistani forces did not have his proper address. In 1971, Serajul was one of the six DU teachers who were warned by then Pakistani military rulers for their "anti-state" activities.
At the programme, Serajul's student Azfar Hussain, who is currently a summer distinguished professor of English and humanities at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, said Serajul led all social, democratic and progressive movements from the frontline.
"He is an uncompromising intellectual," he said.
An academic, essayist, literary critic, political analyst, activist, historian, translator and columnist, Serajul Islam Choudhury is known for being vocal against injustice and inspiring people to join the struggle for freedom of speech and against violation of fundamental rights.
He is the author of countless articles and more than a hundred books.
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