Destruction and Resurrection

Here's the whole crew at Nazrul's grave

A Bangladeshi flag flies symbolically out the window of Jagannath Hall where dozens of students were massacred and raped in Bangladesh's war for Independence

My dear friends Misha and Annie at the Language Martyrs Monument

sculptor and survivor Ferdousi Priyabhashini

Bangladeshi Rashta Sheelpy (street art) depicting a scene from the Ramayana

I am totally exhausted from our all-day field trip but just had to post something about it before I fell asleep. Today we visited the Liberation War Museum, the Shaheed Minar (Martyrs Monument), Dhaka University and a whole slew of monuments to the Bangladeshi liberation and language movements. It was a difficult collection of stops. The Liberation War Museum recounted Bangladesh's struggles for Independence and for its Mother Tongue from the British empire through the battle for liberation from Pakistan. I certainly have no intention of waxing poetic either about Bangladeshi nationalism, guerilla warfare, or war in general but I will say that it is miraculous that a people who had no organized army and had just barely formed an organized government, had no training, no supplies and, until the last month of a nine month battle, no real allies, managed to obtain independence from a nation with a formidable army. I suppose it is a testament to the lengths to one might fight for their own voice and control. However, the cost of liberation was inconceivably high, as it is with any war. There was so much loss; so much sacrifice; so much death and destruction both during and after the war. Aside from the thousands of Bangladeshis (and Pakistinis) who were killed in battle, the war instigated the movement of nearly 10 million Bangladeshi refugees (Bangladesh's second major experience with mass refugee evacuation, following Partition) many of whom died from cholera or starvation in refugee camps. The museum had a 3 foot by 3 foot circular piece of concrete (see below). In my naivety I thought that maybe it was art installation or a piece of a bridge destroyed by the Pakistani army. But it was actually the temporary home that millions of refugees were forced to live in while Bangladesh was in turmoil.
Refugee "homes"

The heaviest part of the day was learning about the sexual violence that took place during the liberation war. One unfortunate truth of war is that a second war always takes place in addition to the war raged in fields and on streets; war, especially ethnic and religious war, is raged on the bodies of women. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls were raped in current Bangladesh and in the Indian refugee camps. This is a particularly potent and poisonous means of attacking an enemy because, unfortunately, a woman's loss of honor often means (like Sita pictured above) her family and community will reject her. Rape in Bangladesh in the conflict of 71 pulled apart and destroyed communities, families and women's lives forever.

Like I said, it was a heavy day. But God was present in all of it. Amidst all of these stories of domination and power and the horrific results of human violence and domination, I saw resurrection. We went to the home of a highly reknowned Bangladeshi artist named Ferdousi Priyabhashini. Priyabhashini lost her family during the Liberation War and spent well over a month in a Pakistani prison; she suffered horrific emotional and sexual abuse. After the war, the family that she did have rejected her and she was "eka", alone. While I didn't fully understand her complete personal story (my Bangla was a little too weak to catch all of the nuanced), she eventually remarried and became a mother again. However, she began to work through the loss and pain of that experience using art and started a new life as a mother and artist in the aftermath of the war.

She expresses the theme of resurrection in much of her work; I see God working out resurrection in her life too. Priyabhashini takes old tree roots that wash up with the Bangladeshi monsoon season and she gently pulls life out of them, though she told us that she doesn't like to do much to the wood, just bring out the life that is already present in them. The final result is a beautiful piece of art. She has a few pieces that directly deal with her war-time experiences but many of them are simple expressions of everyday life.

A Sculpture in Priyabhashini's home

Bangladesh and the people who live here have faced, and in all honesty continue to face, incredible struggles- economic, natural, and political. And the developed nations' role in their current economic and environmental struggles must be recognized and dealt with (for example, Dhaka and it millions of residents will be under water in 30 years if global warming is not reversed-the global warming that the developed nations play a central role in furthering). However, I have seen God hard at work here. Love and resurrection are always possible, even when we humans really screw it up. There is so much love, so much possibility, so many inconceivable blessings...

This is most certainly not to say that we should sit by and let God "take care of it", but rather, that this is God's place too, these are God's people too, and I hope that I can structure the rest of my life, my own existence back home, with that in mind.