On Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh (Part 5)

On Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh (Part 5)

Md. Amzad Hossain

Perth, Western Australia

Email: A.Hossain@curtin.edu.au

Prelude

The discourse (part 5) deals with Sustainable Development Goal 5  - Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. It includes 9 target areas[i], and they are required to be achieved by 2030. From our previous discourses on the first four sustainable development goals (SDGs), we found that they lack implementation practicability from diverse points of view.[ii]  In the case of goal 5 (women’s empowerment), it lacks considerations of natural and cultural limitations with respect to implementation.

.  ”You cannot foul your nest and not be affected by your own excrement” (Skomolowski, 1993). In Bangladesh both man and woman tend to follow the above wisdom for co-existence. It gives crude message as to how man and woman should behave with each other. Secondly, the increasing rhetoric of human rights or women’s empowerment is modern and uniquely Western in origin. All Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian and Islamic sources refer more typically to ‘Duties’ rather than ‘Rights’. Strictly speaking, the exact equivalent of the phrase ‘human rights’ in the Western sense cannot be found anywhere in Buddhist literature. On the other hand, the principle of ahimsa (non-violence) is the Buddhist principle of respect for all forms of life and indirectly respect of the land where they live (An-Naim et al., 1995). In the eyes of the Shariah (exoteric Islam) women are higher in status, as the Prophet Mohammad said that the position of a mother to her child is three times higher than that of a father.[iii] Esoteric Islam emphasises that a woman is always the Guru of her husband and can also be a Guru to others, for "women are Gurus by their nature" (Dimock, 1966).

Thus, the currently perceived gender inequality is the product of human ignorance i.e. lack of appropriate religio-spiritual education. Religiously speaking, the stakeholders of women’s empowerment movement are “clinically alive, yet, despite all appearances, spiritually dead (Shah,1987)”.

This research develops primary research questions and remarks (PQRs) on the basis of practical philosophy of life of men and women in the context of natural and cultural context of Bangladesh.

The primary research questions and remarks (PRQs) follow:

What are the existing visible aspects of gender inequality?

Clearly, gender inequality exists in terms of women’s pro-sustainability and men’s anti-sustainability roles.

Naturally women are more worthy in the aspects of regenerative sustainability management than men.  Women are also better than men in contributing to social coherence and aesthetics of life. Conversely, as men are more physically mightier than women, so they are (ignorantly?) engaged in all sorts of violence such as fighting and environmental destructions – in all ages and places.

Does socially and politically constructed gender inequality require addressing?

Of course, yes; for it is due to ignorance; it is self-destructive and anti-sustainabIlity

Are the socio-economic aspects of gender inequality achievable?

Yes, for “Man (and woman) has an infinite capacity for self-development” through moral and spiritual education (Shah, 1972).

At what levels do gender inequality exist?

It exists in family, social, economic and political domain.

What are the clear and unsustainable impacts of inequality at family level?

It causes degradation with respect to loyalty, respectful reciprocity, child rearing, procreation, happiness.

What are the clear and unsustainable impacts of gender inequality at social level?

Mainly it is linked to degradation of: sexual sanctity, social justice and cohesion, economic morality, and political stability.

What are the clearly unsustainable impacts of gender inequality on economic affairs?

Increase in family feuds, immoral and indecent body exposures by women for economic gain resulting in family violence and breakage, social crimes and political timidity.

Do the prevalent approaches to eliminating natural gender inequality conform to the spirit of sustainable development?

No. The concept of sustainable development urges for a future generation that is universally a product of family system. The emerging equality concept for life management in western secularism is resulting in the negative population growth which alone is enough for the extinction of the civilization in due course. The secular mind is completely denuded, insensitive, gripped by the fear of death and obsessed by the elusive criteria of efficiency. It stupidly undermines regenerative foundation base on which the human civilization rests (Skolimowski, 1993).

What reformation do we need to do to address the above issues?

Education for sustainability emphasizing on the sustainability issues in ‘human obligations or duties’  over ‘human rights’ needs to be urgently functional.

Arkoun (1999) observes that the Scriptural education gives humanity an ideal code of human rights (freedom) within the framework of sustainability: human rights that are deeply rooted, aimed at eliminating exploitation, oppression and injustice to all in nature. Human rights in religions are deeply rooted aiming at eliminating exploitation, oppression and injustice to all in nature.

What is the state of gender inequality in Bangladesh?

It is on increase with the increase of secular education devoid of socio-cultural realities.

What is the root cause of increasing gender inequality in Bangladesh?

It is due to decreasing state of self-reliance or self-reliant sustainability.

Why self-reliance is significant?

Firstly, self-reliance facilitates people to live healthy lives with contentment. The concept of self-reliance in a family requires no women to do physically hard work for meeting the basic needs - food, shelter, clothing, healthy lives and happiness.

Secondly, Bangladesh has to remain self-reliant, for it cannot, like some so-called developed nations, trigger wars between countries and procure resources from the waring countries in the name of peace and security.

Thirdly, to the people of Bangladesh self-reliance is comprised of independent or collective economic self-sufficiency, social justice, ecological harmony and spiritual contentment. Self-reliance is also integrally linked to the concept of ecological footprint – a sustainability accounting approach regarding what population of a given landscape can support sustainably (Rees 2000).

All this suggests that sustainable self-reliance is a ‘work-print’[iv] situation where earning of working male(s) per household is enough for happy and healthy subsistence.

 Who can take the initiative of removing secularism and restoring self-reliant sustainability?

Firstly, the UN body through the Government, and secondly, the government through the International Partnership (Goal 17) on behalf of stakeholders and the people at the grassroots.

Do the UN body know how to remove the ignorance of secularism through the education for sustainability?

Unlikely. It is laity’s understanding that the UN may not have adequate personnel with appropriate qualifications and values. The laity believe that the more a person studies the sustainability aspects in religious education curriculum, the more a person can earn qualifications, values and wisdom for removing ignorance about sustainability. The sustainability significance of gender equality-inequality rests purely with religious traditions. Every tradition has the guidelines in this respect conforming to respective geo-environmental and cultural sustainability context (Antons, 2009).

What can the UN body do to achieve this goal in Bangladesh?

We are confident that many practicing people educated in religious syllabus for sustainability of Bangladesh are available in Bangladesh and globally. The UN body can seek their assistance in this regard.

How should the education be dispensed in the rural masses?

In the form of Baul discourses linking to folkloric sustainability accounting.

Folkloric sustainability accounting is a need-based dynamic accounting principle linked to or rooted from the Bangla proverbial wisdom ‘Obostha bujhe babostha’ implying ‘act as required’,  ‘look before you leap’ or ‘cut your coat according to your cloth’. The rural people of Bangladesh appear to practice it in accordance with their day to day social and economic needs in one hand, and ecological sustainability situation, on the other. Perhaps, this is why Rogers et al. (2008) seem to understand sustainability as a matter of adjustments of human activities to the state of present resource availability.

What are the social characteristics of gender relationship in Bangladesh?

Women are traditionally more powerful than man. “The story of who is not afraid of his wife” reflects women’s power, indeed.

A folk story describes how the husbands should be loyal to their respective wives. One day a meeting with the agenda ‘who is not afraid of his wife’ was organized in the market place of a village. The organizer called to his side those who were afraid. All the men came to his side except one. Everyone curiously went to the man in the hope that they too might learn how each of them could likewise win over his wife. When asked, why he was different from the other men, he replied that his wife asked him not to participate in the meeting. The folk stories are the product of folk experience (Hossain, 2001).

 The above instance prevails in Bangladesh because, as the Bauls stress, women are the ‘inner-force’ while men the "outer-force" for sustainability. They together beget a fully integrated and cohesive social life. Chittister (1998) maintains that both genders separately are only half of what they are. Napoleon is believed to have said: “Give me a good mother, I shall give you a good nation” (Values of the Wise, n.d).

What are the traditional power regime of women in Bangladesh?

Money remains generally with women. Women decide daily dietary menu. Women control the children. Bangladesh culture is enriched with feministic folk literature, both in oral and written form. Evidence of women’s respectable position in rural household management is traditionally inherent in village culture (Saklain, 1987; Hossain, 1990, 1995, 2001). Bangladesh’s political leadership by women is the example of women’s respectability in Bangladesh culture.

Why women are powerful in Bangladesh?

Because men’s spirituality is women bound (or women centred) manifesting “women’s power relative to men” in Bangladesh culture (Quisumbing, 2003) portraying that the male folks of the country have weakness to and for women with regards to social, economic, religious and spiritual objectives of life.

Why does such a tradition of women empowerment exist in Bangladesh?

Men’s passion of Maya (love, attachment, bondage) for women in Bangladesh culture is perceptible. Dasgupta (1976) observes that as the tree is fixed to the earth by its roots and the black-bee is attached to the lotus, so a man is bound to the woman – and all in love. The Hindu Sahajya cult (a pre-Baul mystic tradition of Bengal) claims that all women are venerable and no harm should ever be done to them, nor should any female animal be sacrificed (Dimock, 1966).

What are the characteristics of women spirituality?

In Bangladesh culture, women’s most important aim in life is to become a mother. Motherhood is the starting point towards achieving completeness in the purpose of being on this earth. Women's spirituality for nurturing their offspring and all in the environment is profound in Bangladesh culture. Ruether (1996) argues that for rural Bangladeshi women spirituality is basically earth-based. The relationship between women and earth is reciprocal.  Women take care of the earth while the earth in return provides for their needs. This earth-based spirituality is manifested in the day-to-day life. Hollows (2000) finds that the ‘traditional’ feminine traits such as domesticity and motherhood that can lead women to a position in which femininity is treated uncritically are still sought by Bangladeshi women. It appears that though women in ‘masculine’ roles are seen as a sign of ‘progress’, this can degrade women’s position and spirituality (Hollows, 2000).

Is the Purdah system in Bangladesh a sign of gender inequality?

No. The much-criticised Purdah system of Islam for both Muslims and Hindus of Bangladesh, is interpreted as an outcome of women’s intrinsic spiritualty. It is of interest to note here that Islam did not have much to do to introduce the Purdah system in Bangladesh. It already existed in the upper strata of Hindu society and there this was “related to the consideration of prestige and to the desire to maintain high rank, much like the Victorian cult of domesticity” (Duley & Edwards, 1986). In rural Bangladesh where 14% of people are comprised of non-Muslims (such as Tribal Animists, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians), purdah “displays richness of a family and elevates its prestige and status. As a result, the richer the family, the stricter is the purdah” (Women for Women Study and Research Group, 1979). Purdah also demonstrates the honoured position or higher rank of women in society. As women are precious to society for their procreative power and overall sustainability management, their chastity must be maintained. These women firmly believe that women who observe modesty are self-guarded. It is also well-versed in Bangladesh culture that marriageable girls who maintain modesty are in high demand for marriage without any dowry (Hossain, 1995).

What is the position of Bangladesh women in society?

Both in Islamic and Indian social value judgements, men and women are equal. An assignment of lower status to women in Indian culture is only the outcome of an inadequate understanding of this culture as a whole. Duley & Edwards (1986) note that in talking about the Indian subcontinent, there is the ever-present danger of oversimplification, for there are many Islamic and native syncretistic traditions within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan for example. There is a vast amount of literature on the status of women in the Islamic religion and on Islamic women’s formal freedom and relationships. Duley & Edwards (1986) in particular point out that historically Islam has adapted to and interacted with a wide variety of ecological, economic and cultural environments.

What is gender reality in Bangladesh?

Karim (1995) notes that Western themes of feminism cannot envisage a situation where male and female relations are managed in a way as flexible and fluid as they are in South Asian countries such as Bangladesh. In village Bangladesh, men work in the fields and women at home. Women’s jobs include the proper use and maintenance of household assets, processing of agricultural harvests, cooking and processing of food, hospitality, child rearing, house-keeping and treasury or money management.[v] “Happiness in family life depends on women’s quality” (Samsar Shukher hoy ramanir gune) – this secular saying is religiously believed in Bangladesh, perhaps, more widely than many other religious sayings. Women take decisions on most of the household matters. Above all, women’s desire, demand and decision in regard to household improvement have priority over men’s wishes. This is an established fact in Bangladesh.

Concluding Remarks

         Men’s spirituality recognizes women as a source of Sakti for men in order for spiritual development, regeneration, resilience, complementariness, and hence, holistic sustainability management to be maintained. This is why marriage is regarded in Islam as "half of religion", implying that its purpose is primarily spiritual and social welfare and development, and not an economic one. Material and economic conditions ought to be arranged to suit the social purpose and the social conditions are to be arranged to serve the spiritual purpose, not the other way round as is often the case in the West.

The promotion of globalisation that presently lacks sustainability education is responsible for presently perceived gender inequality. A revival of values-based educational system, which is on decline in the formal educational sectors of Bangladesh, could restore the losses. One laments: In those beautiful days of the Vedic period of India, the glory of which still surrounds the country like a faint halo, women took part freely in the social and political life of the country (Duley & Edwards, 1986). However, mothers are still the primary gurus (educators) of their children’s foundation education in rural Bangladesh where most people are not formally literate. Men’s Maya based spirituality for women is likely to enjoy long term sustainability in Bangladeshi pluralistic culture.

To be continued

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