If we can’t respect our own culture, language, art, and literature, we can never develop ourselves as a nation.
We truly wish all success of the month-long ‘Amar Ekushey Book Fair-2024’ which began on the Bangla Academy premises and Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital on Thursday.
The Ekushey Book Fair, a mega festival for Bangalis, plays an important role to help flourish our culture and history and above all, enlightening society.
It is the country’s biggest congregation of booklovers, authors, and publishers. The theme of this year’s Ekushey Book Fair is ‘Paro Boi, Garo Desh: Bangabandhur Bangladesh’ (read books, build country: Bangabandhu’s Bangladesh).
We pay rich tributes to the valiant sons of the soil who gave blood for establishing Bangla as the state language.
The Ekushey Book Fair is held every year in the month of February, commemorating the sacrifices of the brave sons of the soil who were killed during the Language Movement on 21 February in 1952.
It is a matter of pride and dignity for the nation that there is no example of such sacrifices anywhere in the world for mother tongue.
It has become an integral part of Bangali culture. Every year, the book fair organised by Bangla Academy creates a unique awakening among the writers, readers, cultural activists and people from all walks of life.
Indeed, the Language Movement had sown the seeds of the country’s independence. After 20 years of the Language Movement, we got independence on December 16, 1971 in exchange for the lives of three million people and the honour of two lakh women.
Therefore, this historic month still works as a source of inspiration to the people of the country. People, particularly the young generation, take a fresh vow to work unitedly for enriching Bangla language and making the country’s hard-earned independence meaningful.
We are imbued with the spirit of Liberation War and the Ekushey February still inspires us, teaches us the language of protest, gives strength of struggle for realising any lawful demand and shows us the road to victory.
However, in this digital era, our young people are now preferred to read on a computer screen or smart phone screen rather than a printed book or magazine.
So, the new generation should be encouraged to develop the habit of reading creative books as a healthy generation can only develop a nation.
Thus, all concerned including academicians and literary personalities have to inspire the young generation to build book reading habits to build them as worthy and enlightened citizens.
There is no alternative to reading books for building a knowledge-based future generation. Books can also act like a friend, and can pull one up from moral degradation.
