Bangladesh is one of the happiest countries in the world for living good lives. The country ranked eighth among 140 countries globally in the Happy Planet Index (HPI) 2016 far ahead of other countries in the region. World community has also come to know about Bangladesh’s new identity as one of the safest places in the world by Gallup and GPI published reports in 2015. The Global Law and Order 2015 report, carried out by Gallup presents that Singapore with 89 points is the safest countries in the world and Bangladesh with 78 points is closely followed by the United States and Australia with 77 points. France, the recent epicentre of global attention, was ranked lower than Bangladesh with 75 points. On the other hand, Institute for Economics and Peace carried out Global Peace Index (GPI) that measures the state of peace in 162 countries. GPI report shows that Iceland is the most peaceful and Syria is the least peaceful countries in the world. The position in ranking of Bangladesh is 84 while Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan’s positions in ranking are respectively 114, 143 and 154. GPI considered indicators like population, carbon dioxide emissions, national police personnel (per 100,000 residents), traffic deaths (per 100,000 residents), assaults (per 100,000 residents) and life expectancy (in years) for ranking & scoring the 162 countries.
Historically Bangladesh enjoys the reputation of maintaining peaceful law and order and communal harmony that enable the country to make the safest comfortable place for living. The country is renowned for its secular traditions as well as its peoples’ harmonise coexistence. People of the country are well known for their hospitality, neighbourhood and secular attitude. Year after year the nations of the country are struggling hard to protect this reputation of peaceful coexistence amongst people with different religions, colours, races and castes along with peoples from abroad. It is really very tough for the nation of a densely populated country like Bangladesh with people of multi religion, race, caste and colour to maintain peaceful law and order with a view to making the country a safe place for living and visiting. The valiant country of friendly but kind hearted populace can claim to the world community for introducing the country as one of the safest places for living and visiting in the world. No conspiracies can ever divert the people of the country from this path.
A few sporadic incidents can never futile achieved reputation of the country. Compared to other countries even developed countries in the world we feel proud for maintaining peaceful law and orders with insignificant numbers of law & order enforcers. The recent unwanted incidents never reflect Bangladeshi peoples’ desire and views. These are the activities by some miscreants. Every citizen is ashamed for this heinous attacks and protesting continuously to resist. But Bangladesh is not the only country in the world facing this sort of problem. Several such attacks in France as well as in Belgium, USA and UK etc have taken place recently.
Developed countries and some people all over the world are blaming Islam and Muslim militants for committing worldwide heinous attacks including Bangladesh. But Pope Francis very recently said that it was wrong to identify Islam with violence and that social injustice and idolatry of money were among the prime causes of terrorism. He too told that in nearly all religions there is always a small fundamentalist group. “Terrorism grows when there is no other option and when money is made a god and it, instead of the person, is put at the centre of the world economy,” he said. He also said that lack of economic opportunities for young people in Europe was also to blame for terrorism. So, causes and factors behind worldwide militant attacks are mysterious and still unidentified and might be the effect of discrimination in getting social status and inequity regards to owning money & assets by peoples with different religions, races and castes as well as outcome of world complicated politics. It might be a very tough and time consuming matter for resolving the crises. Therefore, Bangladesh with other countries can’t expect the crises to be resolved overnight despite strong efforts and initiatives taken by the government immediately after the attacks took place. Hopefully, the country will address the issue if world community supports the government’s initiatives and inspire the people of the country in continuing their financial and technical assistance in various projects.
On the other hand, people of the country nowadays hardly face political instability in the forms of violence, rampage and vandalism as a result of government’s tough actions. In a densely populated country like Bangladesh with inadequate number of law & order enforcers incidents like rape, assassinations, killings, rampages etc happen in very few numbers compared to those in developed countries. Only patriotism, humanity and attitude of respecting people enabled to maintain peaceful law & order despite of having lesser resources. Even the most developed countries like USA can never claim proudly to consider the countries as the safest places for living and visiting as crimes, rapes, killings etc committed frequently and regularly there.
Some international sports events held in Bangladesh in the last few months again proved country’s peaceful atmosphere for live in. Successful completion of Bangabandhu Gold Cup & Sheikh Kamal International Football Tournament, World Cup Qualifier matches (especially between Australia & Bangladesh), bilateral cricket series, Bangladesh Premiere League (BPL Cricket) and ICC U-19 World Cup Cricket once again proved peoples’ traditional warm hospitality to foreigners. At present tourists, donor agencies consultants, educationists, football players recruited for Bangladesh Premiere League (Football) and national cricket, football and hockey team coaches/staffs from abroad are moving frequently in the remotest parts of the country nowadays without facing any trouble.
The prime reasons behind developing Bangladesh as one of the world’s safest places for living are strong family bondages, trustworthiness in brotherhood & neighbourhood, respects to others’ religions & cultures etc. Despite of having huge number of peoples with different religions and more than forty five ethnic minorities, peoples here are living peacefully. Harmonious coexistence has become possible because people here do believe in the spirit of “religions are for individuals, but festivals are for everybody”.
The Happy Planet Index 2016, The Global Law and Order Report 2015 and GPI Report 2015 revealed the fact to the world community that Bangladesh is one of the safest places for living and visiting. Every citizen of the country must be aware of the importance of protecting the reputation and justifying the authenticity of the aforesaid reports. So, people all over the world may consider Bangladesh as a safe and secure place to live and visit.
Md Bayazid Khan, Dhaka
