Roots We Do Not Forget

Bangladesh was born, in part, from a fight over language: the right to speak, teach and dream in Bangla. That history is not a museum piece to me. It is a living instruction about what a nation owes its own culture.

As we build highways and data networks, I have tried to make sure we are also protecting our folk music, our textiles, our festivals and our rivers, the things that cannot be imported or rebuilt once lost. Development that erases identity is not development at all.

Wherever I travel, I carry this with me: progress and heritage are not opposites. The strongest nations are the ones who manage to hold both at once.