Freedom is not a reward for being good, nor is it something we can give exclusive rights to one group of people to first.
Our Liberation War was basically about human rights and dignity. It was a call to refuse to be oppressed, to fight on behalf of the right of self-government, and to struggle in support of the values that unite us as a people: freedom, justice and equality. We must take pride in this history on Victory Day, as it represents not only a past victory but also a promise for the future.
On this day, Bangladesh did not yet know what it would become. It only knew what it had endured. The newspapers recorded surrender, denial, diplomacy, return, and rebirth. The people carried something else entirely -- a heavy, wordless knowledge of survival. That knowledge, more than any headline, is what remains.
