Are we for each other?

Thousands of people are floating on the sea. Water is accepting them but not the land. In fact, there is no objection from the land but the land animals are objecting. Though, the other animals have no objection. The objection is only from the animals called human. Those who are floating towards nowhere in the sea, are also human being.

People are suffering from hunger, thirst. But no country would take them or give them shelter. Bangladesh won’t accept Bangladeshis. Myanmar won’t take back the Myanmar people. They wanted to go to Malaysia. Malaysia said that they won’t accept them. Indonesia said they would not take them, Thailand said the same. No one wants to accept them, because they are poor. In simple terms poor people are outcaste, uncalled for. They have no one, they have nothing. The only thing they have is misery. If rich people were floating instead! Would anyone have stopped them from anchoring their boats in any shore? I don’t think so. Everyone would have welcomed and accepted them in no time.

Human traffickers have illegally floated their boats on the sea. Being trafficked through the waterway, they call it ‘Columbus Visa’ and being trafficked through the woodland is ‘Tarzan Visa’. Even their worst enemies won’t say that the traffickers don’t have any sense of humor. How much do the traffickers charge per head? Ten thousand rupees! Most people sell their homestead or even the last thing to pay those traffickers. They pay not only to the traffickers, after reaching the destination they pay rupees twenty five thousand per head to the owner of the bigger trawlers. People take the decision of leaving their motherland to the other land just to change their destiny a bit. Muslims would go to the Muslim countries. Haven’t they expected a lot for this to happen! Indonesia government ordered, No fisherman should rescue those people to the shore even if they see them downing in the sea. I’ve heard a lot about the slogans of Muslim brotherhood. In Saudi Arabia, In the name of verdict poor Muslims of Bangladesh are sentenced to death by cutting off their throat in one strike. But actually Muslims are leading far better life in non-Muslim countries. In Europe, the United States, Canada. The poor can’t afford to reach that far. That’s why they tend to reach in the neighboring countries. But here again, they have to float with uncertainty. Many have gone to water grave. When the Muslim countries are shooing the Muslims in full trawlers, then a Christian country named Philippines assured them for shelter.

Aung San Suu Kyi got the great Nobel prize in peace! What is she doing in Myanmar! Why there is no message of peace from her for the Rohingya Muslims? She is silent too in the greed of power. Such activities of these great leaders make me really upset.

Bangladesh government doesn’t feel any urgency to stop human trafficking. Human trafficking is extreme through the areas of Teknaph, Ukhiya, Maheshkhali; I’ve heard the Policemen of these areas, take bribe from the traffickers. Bangladesh Government is not going for any bilateral talk with Myanmar to stop human trafficking. Bangladesh Government doesn’t have boats to patrol the sea. People are being trafficked through eighty points of Teknaph and Kocks Market. The security is not enough in these eighty points. The traffickers use small trawlers to traffic people from Bangladesh to Myanmar and then they start their journey towards Thailand or Malaysia using bigger trawlers. Those trawlers move only at night and wait during day time, covered with a blue fishing net the trawlers merge with the color of the sea. So that no one can fathom out any people carrying trawler is floating on the sea. Taking huge risk of their lives they travel on the sea just to survive on nominal food and cloth. I feel my goose bumps when I think. The traffickers say, if you go to Malaysia you might be taken in prison as illegal intruders. However, there will be plenty of good food for them in prison. Malaysian prison is better than motherland. No job, no food, no cloth in the motherland. At least they would be able to get food two times in foreign prisons. At night, with a dream of food for two times a day, enchanting ‘Bismillah’ the poor people gingerly board the unfamiliar trawlers floating in the waves of unfamiliar surging sea. There is no freedom in the prison but to most of the people there is no bigger freedom than the freedom of food for two times. Keep in the prison but they would provide food, they would provide cloths.

I shiver when I see such horrible face of the poverty.

Good minded people want Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand to go for an agreement to prevent human trafficking. I don’t want to call this ‘Human Trafficking’ as human trafficking. Migration from one place to another is one of the major survival strategies of the human beings, this is the strategy that our early men and women had adopted and that’s why we the Homo sapiens survived. The Neanderthal species of human race had become extinct for not adopting this strategy. Where there is good food, where the environment and living is good, the tendency of going there is in our blood. This tendency is not only in our blood but also in all other animals. Those who can go, can survive, those who do not, they die. More we can cope with different environments more our species can survive. This is how the evolution has been going on over the billions of years. We want to prevent natural inclinations of human beings by our misrule. This is our fault.

Wanting to go and stay wherever one wish to, is one of the human rights. Binding human with chain one cannot speak in favor of human rights. Let the agreement between Bangladesh and it’s neighboring countries be like any one from any country can enter and live in any country. Let the system of Passport and visa be abolished. No trace of hatred, disbelief, uncertainty, fear should remain among the mankind. Let the love, respect, sympathy, to flourish for each other.

Translated from original Bengali by Avijit Das @66OV99