IRAK DIE WIEGE DER ZIVILISATION

LE MONDE BANGLADESH
An up-and-coming country
Text: Petra Stix
GUEST ARTICLE
The decision by the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to
open an Embassy in Vienna for the first time represents a
significant milestone in the planned expansion of bilateral
relations between Austria and Bangladesh.
Bangladesh today is actually still a young country.
It was only in 1971, following a bloody
war of liberation the country then known as
East Pakistan gained independence from Pakistan
and became Bangladesh. Although the country may
only have existed for 44 years, its cultural and historical
roots actually extend far back into antiquity.
Today’s Bangladesh was once part of the historically
significant Bengal Empire.
Bengal was inhabited by Hindus, Buddhists, and
some animists until the thirteenth century, when
Muslims invaded from the north-west, bringing
their faith and culture with them. The British assumed
political power in Bangladesh from 1757 onwards,
ruling the country’s destiny for almost two
centuries. After the Second World War, when the
British planned to give up colonial power, they decided
to partition the Indian Subcontinent into Hindu
and Muslim regions, namely India and Pakistan respectively.
The region once known as East Bengal was
renamed East Pakistan in June 1947. Overnight, the
new Muslim country was created out of British India,
but split in two: West Pakistan lay to the far west,
and East Pakistan to the east, separated by almost
1,600 km of Indian territory. This was not the only
problem, however. Irrespective of the geographical
distance between them, East and West Pakistan had
absolutely nothing in common other than the fact
that both were Muslim; they did not even speak the
same language. After years of political marginalisation,
ethnic discrimination and economic neglect, a
war of liberation finally broke out in 1971, and the
country gained its independence from Pakistan. This
was followed by decades of deprivation for the newly-founded
state of Bangladesh, characterised by poverty
and natural disasters as well as political unrest
and military putsches. The country’s new age of economic
progress could only begin in earnest once democratic
elections began being held again in 1991.
Economic growth
Today, Bangladesh is one of the five fastest growing
developing countries in the world. In the years
2011-2014, the country saw average rates of economic
growth of 6.3 percent. In the years since it gained
independence from Pakistan, Bangladesh’s economy
has evolved from being primarily agrarian-based, to
one focussed on the industrial and service sectors.
The traditionally dominant agricultural sector is now
only responsible for around one-fifth of the country’s
PHOTOS: GETTY / TANVIR IBNA SHAFI, YAHSANUL HOQUE CHOWDHURY ANAND, CD
GDP. Despite this, three out of every five working
people continue to be employed in the agricultural
sector. For the rural population in particular (approximately
three-quarters of the popula tion as a whole),
agricultural production still represents the most
important way of earning a living.
The most important staple crop by far is rice.
Something like 11.3 million hectares of land (around
73 percent of the total area devoted to agricultural
production) is used for the cultivation of rice. Increasingly
large areas have been devoted to cultivating
grain in recent decades, and production currently
stands at over 36 million tons.Another important
staple is jute. Even though its production is being
steadily reduced every year, this continues to be an
important source of revenue on the world market.
“In 44 years we have made tremendous progress in
food production. We have almost tripled the
country’s production of grain since 1971,” said Md
Abu Zafar, Bangladesh’s Ambassador in Vienna.
The growth in the industrial sector is essentially a
result of the booming textile industry. The success
story began in the 1980s, when South Korean textile
producers tried to get around quotas for textile imports
in industrialised countries by moving their
production to Bangladesh. Today, Bangladesh is the
world’s second-largest textile producer as a result.
The textile industry now employs over four million
people. In addition, Bangladesh has entered into the
ship-building industry with supplying ocean-going
ships to the western world.
International relations
The foreign policy priorities of the government,
unequivocally guided by the fundamental principle
of foreign relations were outlined four decades
ago by the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – ‘Friendship
to all and malice to none’. The foreign
policy accents and diplomatic
initiatives were also essentially guided
by the principal tenets of foreign policy
as enumerated in the Constitution of
Bangladesh and further shaped by the
present go-vernment’s foreign policy
pledges contained in its ‘Vision 2021’
manifesto. Accordingly the government
has launched proactive and multidimensional
diplomatic initiatives to
reaffirm and add value to Bangladesh’s
Md Abu Zafar, Bangladesh‘s first Ambassador in Vienna
His Excellency Md Abu Zafar talks about the natural beauty of his home country and
the economic potential this could have, the role of religion in Bangladesh, and the
social position of women there.
Bangladesh’s coastline has the potential to
support a successful tourist industry. Nowhere is
the natural landscape more stunning than in the
far south of the country. The coastal town of
Cox’s Bazar is particularly blessed, for instance:
it boasts the longest unbroken, natural sandy
beach on Earth, with a gently sloping, sandy
shore snaking along the coastline for more than
125 kilometres. Bangladesh’s foreign tourism
sector is still relatively small, and few
Bangladeshis themselves have had the resources
to travel within the country until recently.
Internal tourism is now growing, however, as the
economy develops, Austria is a world leader in
providing such services, of course, so it will be in
the interest of both countries to build up levels
of cooperation in areas such as tourism.
Although approximately 90 perccent of the
Bangladeshi population are Muslims, it is far
from what one might imagine as a conservative
Islamic country. Bangladesh is a People’s
Republic, in a similar way, in fact, to Austria.
It is a secular country by constitution, where
all religions co-exist peacefully. There is no
religious discrimination of any sort here. The
best thing about Bangladesh is that it is a
tolerant society, and one of the most liberal
Muslim countries in the world. The United
Nations has described Bangladesh as being a
model for other Muslim countries.
The other important achievement of
Bangladesh is women empowerment. The past
four decades have seen increased political
empowerment for women, better job prospects,
and more opportunities for girl’s education and
new laws to protect their rights. In Parliament
we have 50 seats reserved for women. As of
2014, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the
Parliament, the leader of the opposition are
women. And not forgetting, they were elected
by a majority of men. We have women football,
cricket and hockey teams. This speaks volume
for the liberal, democratic ethos of Bangladesh.
Md Abu Zafar and
his wife Salma,
wearing the
traditional Sari.
62 Cercle Diplomatique 1/2015
Cercle Diplomatique 1/2015