Whenever one reads the great poets and writers of China, India, Russia, Latin America, West Asia, or any other part of the world, they can find themselves inhabiting their worlds and seeing life through their eyes. Their experiences become part of my own intellectual and emotional landscape. In that sense, I cannot confine myself to being only an ethnic Bengali.
The country is no longer simply divided by class and by geography. It is now divided into four different kinds of society defined by education, language, migration, and access to power: expatriates, English-medium graduates, Bangla-medium graduates, and Madrasa-educated students.
The NYC mayor-elect did what Bangladeshi politics refuses to do: Connect democratic renewal to economic dignity. He showed that when people believe their material lives will improve, they don’t hesitate to show up.