Handout

NCH Conceptual Framework

What is heritage?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘heritage’ as ‘property that is or may be
inherited; an inheritance’, ‘valued things such as historic buildings that have been
passed down from previous generations’, and ‘relating to things of historic or cultural
value that are worthy of preservation’. The emphasis on inheritance and conservation is
important here, as is the focus on ‘property’, ‘things’ or ‘buildings’. So (according to
the Oxford English Dictionary, anyway), heritage is something that can be passed from
one generation to the next, something that can be conserved or inherited, and something
that has historic or cultural value. Heritage might be understood to be a physical
‘object’: a piece of property, a building or a place that is able to be ‘owned’ and ‘passed
on’ to someone else.

In addition to these physical objects and places of heritage there are also
various practices of heritage that are conserved or handed down from one generation to
the next. Language is an important aspect of who we understand ourselves to be, and it
is learned and passed from adult to child, from generation to generation. These invisible
or ‘intangible’ practices of heritage, such as language, culture, popular song, literature
or dress, are as important in helping us to understand who we are as the physical objects
and buildings that we are more used to thinking of as ‘heritage’. Another aspect of these
practices of heritage is the ways in which we go about conserving things – the choices
we make about what to conserve from the past and what to discard: which memories to
keep, and which to forget; which memorials to maintain, and which to allow to be
demolished; which buildings to save, and which ones to allow to be built over. Practices
of heritage are customs and habits which, although intangible, inform who we are as
collectives, and help to create our collective social memory. We use objects of heritage
(artefacts, buildings, sites, landscapes) alongside practices of heritage (languages, music,
community commemorations, conservation and preservation of objects or memories
from the past) to shape our ideas about our past, present and future.
Culture

When someone says the word culture, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Some
of us may think about certain beliefs, such as religious or moral beliefs. Others may
think about the way people dress or decorate themselves, like wearing turbans or having
facial tattoos. Additionally, some of us may think of the artifacts from ancient cultures,
like the well-known statues from Greek or Egyptian archaeology. All of these things are
tied to culture in one way or another. But what does culture mean to the anthropologists
who study it? Well, the truth is that anthropologists often disagree about the precise
definition of culture. However, for the purposes of this lesson, culture can be defined as
sets of human behavior that are passed down from one generation to the next. This
transmission of culture isn't always purposeful, and may take place anywhere that young
people can interact with older people.

Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain
their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the
wider culture provided they are consistent with the laws and values of the wider
society.
A pluralistic society is a diverse one, where the people in it believe all kinds of
different things and tolerate each other's beliefs even when they don't match their own.

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's
own culture. Ethnocentric individuals judge other groups relative to their own ethnic
group or culture, especially with concern for language, behavior, customs, and religion.
These ethnic distinctions and subdivisions serve to define each ethnicity's
unique cultural identity. William G. Summer defined it as "the technical name for the
view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are
scaled and rated with reference to it." He further characterized ethnocentrism as often
leading to pride, vanity, beliefs of one's own group's superiority, and contempt of
outsiders. This may occur for the differentiation of people between in-groups and
out-groups. Two main view points of ethnocentrism are the social sciences and the
genetics. In anthropology, cultural relativism is used as an antithesis and an antonym to
ethnocentrism. In biology, ethnocentrism is considered a natural condition of mankind.
 Who is a refugee?
A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of
persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for
reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular
social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so. War and
ethnic, tribal and religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their
countries.
More than half of all refugees worldwide come from just three countries: Syria,
Afghanistan and South Sudan.

As of December 2017, an estimated 655,000 to 700,000 Rohingya people fled

to Bangladesh to avoid the persecution from Myanmar's military, which started on 25
August 2017. There are more 300,000 Rohingyas living in Bangladesh who fled in
earlier waves violence from the Burmese government over the last three
decades. Moreover, Rohingyas in Hydarabad feel insecure in India, they also try to enter
into Bangladesh as the Rohingyas in Myanmars do.

Rohingya refugees
Rohingyas are a Muslim minority in Myanmar regarded by many Myanmar
Buddhists as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar
for generations and the Bangladesh government has called for Myanmar to take back
the refugees. They are denied citizenship in Myanmar and have been described as the
world’s most persecuted minority. Rohingyas are persecuted in Myanmar by security
forces and Buddhist extremists. Myanmar has denied persecuting the Rohingyas.

Since the 1970s Rohingya refugees have been coming to Bangladesh from Myanmar. In
the 1990s, more than 250,000 resided in refugees camps in Bangladesh. In the early
2000s, all but 20,000 of them were repatriated to Myanmar, some against their
will. This respite ended in 2015 and by 2017, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Rohinya
refugees were in Bangladesh. Most of the refugees are located along the Teknaf-Cox's
Bazar highway that is parallel to the Naf River, which is the border between Bangladesh
and Myanmar. Most of the refugees are located in or near Cox's Bazar, a coastal area
dependent upon tourism.

Bangladesh blamed the refugees for crime and 2012 Ramu violence in Cox's
Bazar. Bangladesh also follows a policy of making the country unwelcome for
Rohingya refugees.]The majority of the refugees are unregistered, with only 32
thousand refugees registering themselves with UNHCR and the Bangladeshi
government. An estimated 200,000+ refugees are living unregistered in
Bangladesh. Amnesty International reports have stated that the Myanmar security forces
are committing rape, extrajudicial killing, and burying homes belonging to the
Rohingya in a December 2016 report. Refugees have been displacing the indigenous
people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts

In 2015 the government of Bangladesh proposed a relocation plan for the Rohingya
refugees in Bangladesh to the remote island of Thengar Char in the Bay of Bengal. The
plan was pushed back following criticism by human rights activists and the UNHCR.

Between October and November 2016, about 65,000 Rohingya refugees arrived from
Myanmar. The government of Bangladesh decided to revive the relocation
plan. Thengar Char submerges during high tide and was formed in the 2000s by
sediments from the Meghna River. It is not included on most maps, and is located 30
kilometers away from Hatiya Island, the nearest inhabited area. The Bangladesh Army
has been tasked with making the island habitable for the refugees

Secularism

Secularism is one of the four fundamental principles according to the original

1972 Constitution of Bangladesh. Over 90% of Bangladeshis are Muslims, the rest
being Hindus 8%, Buddhists 1%, Christians 0.9%, and others 0.1%. People in
Bangladesh observe various secular festivals at different times throughout the year. The
ethos of secularism in South Asia is in many ways different from that of Western
versions that assert complete separation of church and state. Rather, it is the freedom of
individuals to practice the faith he or she desires without being subject to any form of
state or communal discrimination.

At present The Constitution of Bangladesh declares Secularism as one of the four

fundamental principle of the state policy in Article-8 of Part-II and also declares Islam
as the state religion in Article-2A of Part-I In Article 12 of Part -II of the constitution
which was restored by the 15th amendment states –

The principle of secularism shall be realised by the elimination of -

1. Communalism in all forms;

 2. the granting by the state of political status in favour of any religion;
3. the abuse of religion for political purposes;
4. any discrimination against, or persecution of, persons practising a particular
religion

Delta
A river delta is a landform that forms from deposition of sediment carried by a river as
the flow leaves its mouth and enters slower-moving or standing water.[1][2] This occurs
where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more rarely) another river
that cannot transport away the supplied sediment. The size and shape of a delta is
controlled by the balance between watershed processes that supply sediment and
receiving basin processes that redistribute, sequester, and export that sediment. The size,
geometry, and location of the receiving basin also plays an important role in delta
evolution. River deltas are important in human civilization, as they are major
agricultural production centers and population centers. They can provide coastline
defense and can impact drinking water supply. They are also ecologically important,
with different species assemblages depending on their landscape position.

Social movement
A social movement is a type of group action. Social movements can be defined as
"organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to
mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They
are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on
specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist, or undo a social
change. They provide a way of social change from the bottom within nations.

Modern Western social movements became possible through education (the wider
dissemination of literature) and increased mobility of labor due to
the industrialization and urbanization of 19th-century societies. It is sometimes argued
that the freedom of expression, education and relative economic independence prevalent
in the modern Western culture are responsible for the unprecedented number and scope
of various contemporary social movements. However, others point out that many of the
social movements of the last hundred years grew up, like the Mau Mau in Kenya, to
oppose Western colonialism. Either way, social movements have been and continued to
be closely connected with democratic political systems. Occasionally, social movements
have been involved in democratizing nations, but more often they have flourished after
democratization. Over the past 200 years, they have become part of a popular and global
expression of dissent.

Modern movements often utilize technology and the internet to mobilize people
globally. Adapting to communication trends is a common theme among successful
movements. Research is beginning to explore how advocacy organizations linked to
social movements in the U.S. and Canada use social media to facilitate civic
engagement and collective action. The systematic literature review of Buettner &
Buettner analyzed the role of Twitter during a wide range of social movements
(2007 WikiLeaks, 2009 Moldova, 2009 Austria student protest, 2009 Israel-Gaza,
2009 Iran green revolution, 2009 Toronto G20, 2010 Venezuela, 2010 Germany
Stuttgart21, 2011 Egypt, 2011 England, 2011 US Occupy movement, 2011 Spain
Indignados, 2011 Greece Aganaktismenoi movements, 2011 Italy, 2011 Wisconsin
labor protests, 2012 Israel Hamas, 2013 Brazil Vinegar, 2013 Turkey)

Sources: Banglapedia, UNDP Handout etc.