DHAKA: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday said the people country do not want any conflict rather they want peace.
“Our key goal is to build a peaceful country where people of all walks of life will stay happily,” she said.
The PM was addressing the inaugural program on the occasion of legendary artist Shilpachariya Zainul Abedin’s birth centenary at National Museum auditorium in the city on Monday.
Sheikh Hasina said that the main objective of Bengali culture is non-communalism. Humanity gets priority in our culture fighting the discrimination of caste, color and creed, she added.
She also said that there is no place of militancy, fanaticism, impatience and violence in Bengali culture. The main ideology of our culture is to create fraternity, equality and hospitality among each other, she added.
The premier also showed her concern about militancy and killing people in the name of religion. She also criticized the attacks on the national mosque last year.
Only our culture can help us to get remedy from this sort of inhuman behavior by a section of people, she added.
Sheikh Hasina urged the artists, litterateurs and cultural personalities to take effective initiatives in this regard.
She welcomed everyone to enjoy the masterpieces of the country’s one of the major artists Zainul Abedin at the function.
People at home and abroad will be filled with joy after seeing the mesmerizing artworks of Shilpachariya, she added.
Different government and non-government institutions and socio-cultural organizations have taken elaborate programs marking the day.
The programs include colorful procession, discussion, painting exhibition, art competition, workshop, photo show, screening of documentary films and reception to the prominent artists of the country.
Zainul Abedin, pioneer of modern art in Bangladesh and world renowned artist, was born on December 14 in 1914 at a village in Kishoreganj.
The artist had earned fame during the early 1930s when he was a student of Calcutta Government Art College.
The important role of Zainul in later period as an artist-cum-teacher at the same college was highly commendable. His sketches on famine and poverty were a milestone in career of this soft-spoken artist whose humble qualities and admiring features of compassion, self-sacrifice and sincerity were worth mentioning.
The dreadful famines of Bengal during the early and mid 1940s were a major turning point in Zainul’s life and career.
The deplorable conditions of the people starving and dying made young Zainul crying from the very depth of his heart while he sketched agonizing scenes of death and disaster.
The versatile artist died on May 28, 1976 after suffering from lung cancer for few years.
BDST: 2139 HRS, DEC 29, 2014
