“la parole exportée”

Ekushey February (”on the 21^st of February”)

What happened on this day, 56 years ago?

Ekushey has become a symbol dear to the heart of all Bangladeshis, but it is very important for the rest of the world too, which is why UNESCO chose to make this date the International Mother Language Day.

From its birth on 14 August 1947, Pakistan, including its Eastern province, later to become Bangladesh, has been plagued with a difficult political situation. In that context, the Bengali Language Movement was part of the political struggle for the Eastern province to achieve recognition from the central government in Lahore, of its importance in terms of population size and resources, in order to achieve political representation, and the right to its own identity, including to having Bangla, its language, declared an official language of Pakistan. This would have for instance enabled a large number of Bengalis to be employed in the country’s administration, instead of being locked out of government employment because Urdu was a foreign language to a majority of them.

21 February, 1952 was the day when those who rebelled in the name of the Bengali Language Movement lost their lives under the repression from the central powers.

This shows that the recognition of mother languages is not there just to satisfy intellectual or idealistic dreams. Languages are part of the components of a nation. They can be used by a dominant group to impose its rule on other groups. There were similar battles in many countries, including mine. French is the main language of France, but for a long time it wasn’t the only one.

The poem below, is known to be the first poem written after the Ekushey events. It is published in full (in its translated form) here.

Part of it is recorded here, in Bengali. Mahbub Ul Alam Chowdhury, the author, died in December 2007.

THE FIRST POEM ON EKUSHEY
Mahbub Ul Alam Chowdhury

Translated from Bengali by Kabir Chowdhury

The poem was written at 7.00 pm on 21st February 1952.

I have not come, where they laid down their lives
under the upward looking Krishnachura trees,
to shed tears.
I have not come, where endless patches of blood
glow like so many fiery flowers, to weep.

Today I am not overwhelmed by grief
Today I am not maddened with anger
Today I am only unflinching
in my determination.

The child who will nevermore get a chance
to rush into his father’s arms,
the house-wife who, shielding the lamp
with her sari, will nevermore wait
by the door for her husband,
the mother who will nevermore draw
to her breast with boundless joy
her returning son,
the youngman who, before collapsing
on the earth, tried again and again
to conjure before his eyes the vision
of his beloved,
in their name,
in the name of those brothers and sisters,
in the name of my language,
nourished by the heritage of a thousand years,
in the name of the language in which
I am accustomed to addressing my mother,
in the name of my native land,
I say, I have come today,
here on the open grounds of the university,
to demand their death by hanging,
the death of those who killed
my brothers and sisters indiscriminately.

I have not come here to weep for them
who gave their lives under Ramna’s
sun-scorched Krishnachura trees
for their language,
those forty or more who laid down their lives
for Bangla, them mothertongue,
for the dignity of a country’s great culture,
for the literary heritage of Alaol,
Rabindranath, Kaikobad and Nazrul,
for keeping alive the bhatiali, bawl,
kirton and the ghazal,
those who laid down their lives
or Nazrul’s unforgettable lines:
“The soil of my native land
is purer than the purest gold”

In a previous post, I mentioned Neil Kramer’s excellent and fun idea of getting people to interview each other, and publish the result in their blogs. The Great Interview Experiment is still on, I believe, so if you are interested in participating, just head here: http://www.citizenofthemonth.com/2008/01/18/the-great-interview-experiment/

So here is my interview, based on a series of questions sent to me by Sarah of http://sarah.bloghorn.com

1. You seem to really enjoy your profession, but if you could go back to school and start over, would you choose the same or something else?

The same, definitely. At the age of 15, it dawned on me that you could learn a foreign language and communicate with people from a different country. Until then, English was just an abstract school subject. Communication means a lot to me and I believe that it is much more complicated and difficult than it is made to appear these days. Machines cannot take in or produce all the fine nuances of human diversity. So that has never deserted me. Later, of course, I found that reality does not always support your ideal as you dreamed it. I did go through a crisis some time ago, but the dream is still alive, or I would have another job now. I recognize that in today’s world, sticking to one profession for your entire life is not necessarily seen an advantage. You are expected to be able to swiftly change lives, jobs… that is why it is important to keep the dream alive.

2. In your opinion, what is the best thing about France?

Paris. Paris is seen as a romantic city. I have a slightly different view: Paris (and I live in the suburbs) can be very hard. A poet coined this sentence, almost 50 years ago: Métro, Boulot, Dodo (subway, work, sleep… The actual quotation is longer.) That sums up the lives of millions of people in and around Paris, not to mention those who are without a job, or a home, or both.

If you come as a visitor, however, my suggestion is to take a cruise on the Seine by night, it is quite cheap if you don’t buy one of these romantic dinners, and you will see the old buildings along the river, all lit up, and if you are at the foot of the Eiffel Tower at the right time (on the hour, for a few minutes), you will see it twinkle in the dark. How uncanny that Gustave Eiffel had this strange thing built to showcase France’s engineering expertise at the time; now it is just a tourist attraction, albeit a very valuable one.

But I would also like to recommend Provence, in the South of France, with its totally different atmosphere, a different way of life, I love the dry smells and the sounds of Summer, the lavender, open air markets with dozens of varieties of vegetables and fruit and cut flowers, all the colors, olive trees, and the cicadas ’singing’ in the fields, the long evenings, taking in the night, listening, watching the stars.

3. How has blogging impacted your life?

Believe it or not, blogging is quite challenging for me. Spending a lifetime translating other people’s ideas, good or bad, has robbed me of the habit of putting my own ideas on paper; more importantly blogging has made me realize that I now prefer the spoken word. I used to write a lot when I was very young. Now, I listen to the radio all the time, I watch videos on my computer, and I don’t take the time to write for myself. With translation, the only creativity that you are allowed is within very strict boundaries. You are not delivering your own message; you are doing your best to convey someone else’s message. In other words, you are following the path laid by the author. When I started this blog, it was difficult for me to focus; my ideas were running all over the place, there was no way for me to keep them contained anymore. It was so weird!

4. What do you hope to accomplish in the next 5 years?

French society, and I with it, is going through a major change, some kind of revolution and a break-up from the accepted ways that came with the end of World War II. I was hoping to retire in about 6-7 years, but this is not likely to happen. With an ageing population and the retirement issue in France, my generation and those after us are going to have to work longer and retire later. So in the next 5 years I do not expect any major change, and I will probably be busy working, and seeing my younger child through her studies.

My vision, and my purpose in life, is one that has been developing for the past 5 years or so. I am looking for a way to provide good, free translation for the charities I want to support. I haven’t found a satisfactory business model yet, in order to do this and earn a living at the same time, but I’m working on it.

5. What is your favorite travel destination and why?

I don’t actually have one favorite travel destination. As a child, in the 60s, my parents took me almost everywhere in Europe, it was quite an achievement at the time. Later, I traveled a little further, but I don’t take extended holidays as a rule. So let me offer you a mosaic of the destinations that impressed me most: Algeria and the Sahara Desert, Alaska, Moscow many years ago, Niagara Falls, Manhattan… My next destination is going to be, some time in the near future… Bangladesh.

6. Are you the same person online as in person? How do you differ?

I hope to be the same person everywhere. I enjoy being alive, even though I’m a quiet person. But I am more outspoken than before, I have a responsibility to try and make things better, if I can. I am past the stage now that I can just be an on-looker and get on with my own life without thinking of the implications.

7. What is the strangest job you have ever had?

I can’t think of a strange job as such. But let me tell you one anecdote. There is one district in Paris that didn’t have a good reputation. One year, I was interpreting for a group of foreign members of Parliament investigating the issue of public safety, and we were taken there. No interpretation during the visit, so the group was walking along and I fell behind, having a chat with one M.P., commenting on how empty and quiet the district was by day, discussing the strange goings-on at night, when I noticed that we were followed at some distance by two rather dirty and suspicious-looking individuals. When I mentioned them to the M.P. who was walking with me, he responded in a casual tone: “These? They are undercover cops making sure that we are safe.” I swear that I had never seen policemen in such a state before…

8. Have you ever been paid for any of your blog posts? If so, did you contact the advertiser, or did they contact you?

No, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t even know how to do it. This has to do with earning my living by translating, not writing.

9. What are you most proud of?

Mmmm… I don’t really know, I am not a proud person in general. My two daughters are certainly who, not what, I am most proud of.

10. Do you edit or proofread your blog before posting? Why or why not?

I do a lot of editing and proofreading before and after. I am hopeless. My ideas run ahead of me and when I stop and look back, there are all these typos, awkward sentences, etc. to clean up, because I type too fast. English is a second language for me and I have to edit and prune typically one half of each post. I write, and then I cut and I cut. The end-result is still spontaneous, but better written.

This is completely off-topic, but because I work for children’s charities, I feel involved, in a way.

If you want to find out more, click on the badge in the sidebar. This will take you to Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian’s website on Congenital Heart Defects.

‘Congenital Heart Defects (CHD) are a lethal constellation of birth defects of the heart that affect millions of newborn infants and children worldwide; a killer that claims thousands of lives every year. Eight of every 1000 children born alive (0.8%) will have some form of congenital heart defect.’