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BANGLA CULTURE
Burhanuddin Khan Jahangir
Culture preserves the experience of social
structure. The complex of social situations; thoughts and aspirations
remain at the backdrop of this experience, experience which
is the mainspring of ideas. This experience is not just a series
of events or happenings. These events bear the chronology and
sometimes the contradiction of history and geography. These
obscure, far flung and memory laden indications create the inner
working of culture that forms the historical pattern. The interaction
of these various elements within the pattern, compels the historical,
traditional flow of a continuity which carries with it the dissimilar
and the separate. For, in the inner interaction of various cultural
forces, the element which becomes predominant, does not as a
rule, devour the other existing tendencies; rather it tends
to accommodate the many different elements. Under a favorable
historical condition the stagnant or the neglected element plays
an outstanding role. This role of necessity is modulated by
the need of the social norms. Otherwise, these elements may
keep on going in a parallel way. If the conglomeration of social
experiences is culture then the abstract, deep, rough and uncut
- all these are the reflection of a total social situation.
Any discussion of the social structure should be based on the
goal of a particular society - this goal is the sum of the interaction
of needs, ideas and aspirations. The atmosphere of thie interaction
determines the foundation of material culture and the pattern
of its behaviour is determined by the society. This pattern
of culture containes the practical experience as well as the
experimental expression of the imaginative world. The creativity,
continuity and fading out of cultureal patterns are evolved
through the practical expression of these complex, interacting
experiences.
The cultural pattern of Bangladesh is the
gift of her social structure. The historical and geographical
ecology has created the subtle blend and sometimes clashes of
many different shades. The same culture or contradictory cultures
are expressed in diverse shape and colour in different classes
of society since the individual'd thoughts and actions are guided
by the group that he belongs to. The relation of the group to
the society is its attitude. This is true in both the rural
and industrial society. In Bangladesh the folk culture is trying
to progress towards a more mechanised society without destroying
the roots of that older folk culture. Myth and religion are
the life symbols of folk culture and the sense of time and chronology
is the time sense of machine-dependent society. So, both these
time sense are coexisting in bangladesh. Sometime harmoniously
and sometime in discord they create the pace of Bengali culture.
Choronological clock time along with the sense of infinity and,
alternatively, fragmentation of the wheel myth of the religious
sense of time cannot blend together. In the history of culture,
these two conflicting beliefs have limitless influence and impact.
The rural attitude contains Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim traditions
and customs and the effort of the modern Bengali culture is
to accommodate modern gadgets in a parallel fashion without
having to give up the traditional belief. Naturally, the society
as a whole is facing questions that affect in depth and totality.
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