Sorrow for Bangladesh, immigrant guilt

The Bangladeshi flag - the red spot symbolizing the blood of the millions who died during the war of independence against Pakistan in 1971, the green background representing the richness of the country's natural landscape.

The bodies covered in dust with limbs crushed under a corporation's concrete are arresting images to shock the world into silence, into confusion, into indignation.  But they provoke a more profound kind of sadness in me, a Bangladeshi who fled her country of birth at the age of two with her family. The country was in tatters, just emerging from the bloodbath that ensued when the country had ripped itself from the choke hold of Pakistani governance and Urdu-speaking elitism.

These images are not from the murder and mayhem of the independence struggle, but from the modern-day exploitation of Bangladeshi garment workers, who are forced out of economic necessity to work in unsafe conditions underneath faulty roofs, and under the glare of supervisors cracking their verbal whips snapping with threats of firings if quotas are not being reached.

I look at the Joe Fresh t-shirts hanging in my closet, and I'm reminded of how far I've strayed from that "old" identity of mine that I had long forgotten in the rush to be raised "Canadian".  Guilt overcomes me as I think about how much I have here, what I spend my money on, and how little I know of the culture and customs of my native land.

I would often turn a blind eye to the chaos happening in Bangladesh to avoid asking myself why I'm not there, in the thick of things, to assist, to support, to help my comrades make change happen in the country.  I certainly assist, support, and perhaps, make some change happen here in the work I do with the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention.  But my conscience prevails, exposing the (ill)logic I live by.

I've never experienced living in Bangladesh and don't remember my early toddler-hood there, but visiting the country (Dhaka) for two weeks as an adult was enough for me to be thankful that my parents left when they did.  I wasn't permitted to walk the streets to explore the neighbourhood around me due to the possibility of being harassed.  The beautiful dwellings I stayed at overlooked the shantytowns, and though the walls around me were sound, they could not prevent the aura of longing "down there" from permeating these privileged sanctuaries.

My parents opened up countless opportunities and privileges to me and my siblings by making the move to Canada: the free healthcare, the relatively stable political climate (though not without its Canadian brand of corruption), the education system (minus the ever-increasing tuition fees with loan re-payments that seem to stretch over a lifetime), the perceived freedom to be as we were without having guns pointed at us, the materialism that was accessible, albeit by credit, and the general sense of comfort and ease of movement within a vast landscape with so much to discover.

Growing up in Goosebay, Labrador and then Halifax/Dartmouth, Nova Scotia drew me further away from the language and customs of what now seemed a foreign country since all brown folks in Canada were seen as a homogeneous whole.  I learned to see us that way, too.  I listened to my mom and dad speak in Bangla, but I always talked back in English.  Soon, I just tucked away my humble beginnings altogether.

My race and ethnicity created a lot of confusion in school when I started making friends with black kids living in Cole Harbour. There weren't many brown kids here either, and my friends were curious to know exactly what race I belonged to since I didn't seem neither black nor white. I told them that I wasn't sure myself and that I'd be happy to be part of their community if they accepted me.

By this time, with the exception of my parents knowing some Bangladeshi couples in the South Asian community, I really didn't identify as Bangladeshi.  I was just a chubby brown kid into white pop culture.  I didn't want to be the "other".  I wanted to identify and connect with everyone, especially with white people. In so doing, I forgot my cultural heritage, my people's history, their art, their struggles, and their suffering.

But in the early 90s, I met a group of strong, socially-conscious brown Muslim women when my family and I moved for the third time to Vancouver. I became a part of this circle of friends, and was inspired to embrace Muslim feminist interpretations of Islamic practice and Quranic verse. But being Bangladeshi never entered the realm of identities I took on as I grew into adulthood.

My loyalty was to Islam and the Arabic language at the time.  I prayed the obligatory prayers five times a day, sometimes spending longer than usual on my prayer mat listing off all the people I wanted God to send blessings to. My friends and I staged "occupy the men's section" protests by disrupting EID prayers in mosques or by entering through the front door of the mosque instead of the back where women were supposed to come in through, or by taking part in board meetings to demand inclusion of women in governance and decision-making in the mosques.  We also challenged Western media for its constant racist constructions of Muslim women as passive, oppressed victims of Islam's brand of patriarchy and misogyny.

But where was the Bangladeshi in me?  It reared its sometimes when my parents took us to potlucks and parties hosted by Bangladeshi folks. During these warm, high-spirited gatherings, we could hear the language being spoken and taste food prepared the Bangladeshi way. And yes, there were always lots of fish dishes! That feeling of being Bangladeshi surfaced again when I left Canada for Japan to teach English.  There, I met some wonderful people from Bangladesh who encouraged me to reconnect with my language and culture. I felt in that particular ex-pat community the strongest sense that I was not being loyal to my "true" identity.

Merely speaking the language, eating the specialty dishes, or socializing with other Bangladeshis did not make me feel any closer to my country of birth.  In the wake of tragedies in Bangladesh, from massive floods to building cave-ins to political demonstrations and unjust detentions where hundreds, thousands perish, I am once again reminded of those long-forgotten roots as I feel the crushing weight of my own indifference/disconnection.

I often wonder how all my aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces who continue to live there do it.  Where do they find the courage to live in a country that is constantly on the brink of political and economic turmoil, uncertainty, upheaval, and natural disasters?

In the journalism program at Humber College, I've been fortunate enough to have met two young women who identified as Bangladeshi.  One went on to pursue her love of writing fiction.  And the other wrote about the politics and devastation happening in Bangladesh with fervour, passion, and despair.  I envied her commitment to her people, and wished I could feel as she did.  But I had moved too far away from it, in heart, in mind. And in memory.

I believe though my reasons for choosing a profession in the service of marginalized populations was an attempt to remind myself to never take life for granted. I wasn't looking for happily ever after. I wanted to continue working in solidarity with people all over the world who were deprived of a living wage, a safe and secure home, the freedom to express themselves, the freedom to move where they wished to or had to in order to escape persecution and violence and to voice their political views without fear of detention and/or torture, the right to organize and attend public protests and demonstrations, and the right to be who they intrinsically were without harassment.

I could take stock of my lifestyle in order to play some small role in changing things for the good.  I question how I spend my money.  I question the way I live - do I really need so many material comforts?  Can I survive on a minimalist lifestyle that doesn't demand so much from the earth, the factories, the animals, and the people?  Can I continue living in this small space, and never ask for the hedonistic "more"? Can I re-learn what it means to identify as Bangladeshi?  Can I reconnect with my his/herstory and the artistic temperaments and talents, the linguistic humility and cadences, the food, the mannerisms and customs, the traditions, the green hills of Chittagong (my birth home), and most importantly, the blood, sweat, and abject deprivation of the more than 30% of the population living under the poverty line?

"My brother has died.  My sister has died. Their blood will not be valueless," said one protester during the May Day demonstrations in Bangladesh.

Blood runs thicker than bottled water and the $15 shirts we "Canadians" can buy at Joe Fresh in the Loblaws conveniently located near my workplace. All readily and colourfully consumed in Canada. But painstakingly made in Bangladesh.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi garment workers lost their lives after the collapse of  a factory in Savar on April 30, 2013. COURTESY FRANCE 24