Intangible Cultural Heritage and Peace-building in Bangladesh

UNESCO Convention 2003 emphasizes on the role of ICH for building peace in the society by bringing together the people of different culture, faith, and ethnicity and by establishing an environment of mutual understanding, respect and sharing(See, UNESCO, 2003). The goal 16 of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development(SDGs) of UN focuses on the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for all. It emphasizes on the inclusion of all individuals and groups in the development and peace-building process. The promotion of various ICH elements of different groups especially the marginalized ones and sharing of those elements among all the groups of the society are the main thrusts of this inclusiveness.Bangladesh, as a country of South Asia, has been a place of religious and cultural harmony for centuries. The vast displays of cultural and religious properties on show here have been shaped over the last 5,000 years, following a number of political and religious reigns including those of the Pals(Buddhist), Sens(Hindu), Mughals(Muslim), and British(Christian). Many of our ICH elements which are based on emotion, sentiment, belief, ideology, fraternity, history and identity are not always visible but we can definitely feel and understand those. As important elements of ICH, both religion and ethnicity have always been crucial for building peace in Bangladesh. Increasing differences among different religious and ethnic groups are also considered as major reasons behind the political differences both at the micro and macro level. People with different ideologies, culture, beliefs, thinking, idea and philosophy are now-a-day becoming under attack by other opponent believers, though most of the rural and common people are found maintaining a good understanding among themselves. In recent years, the conflicts among the inter/intra ethnic and faith groups have resulted in large scale political and social unrest by killing people of various religious and cultural identity. Various tangible heritage sites which in retrospect represent larger intangible heritage have also been destroyed as a result of these conflicts.Thus, the paper primarily intends to examine how different elements of intang ible cultural heritage have been used for building peace and harmony in society; and how peace and harmony has been disrupted as a result of lackluster management, protection and promotion of various elements of ICH. The paper further attempts to analyze how newly created various cultural elements and spaces are being increasingly used for strengthening harmony and building peace in society with special reference to Bangladesh.