Culture stands
for the pre-determined notions, norms, values, beliefs, customs, conventions,
music, language and ways of behaviour of persons living in a particular zone.
It denotes what is good and bad, what is to be done and what is not to be done.
It is determined by the society through the day-to-day activities. It does not
stand still and it varies from society to society, country to country and time
to time. We can rightly boast of an affluent cultural heritage. We have our own
cultural traits and its identity. We have miscellaneous songs based on rural
and idyllic pictures of life. We have jari, sari, kobi, bhatiali, polligeeti,
Lalongeeti, Nazrulgeeti, Rabindrasangeet, marufoti, swariati, murshidi and
local jatrapala. We have our own food habits like rice and fish as well as ways
of eating. We have our traditional dress like
longyi, dhuti,
shirt and punjabi for the male and sharee and blouse for the female. Eid, puja,
Buddha Purnima, Christmas Day, Victory Day, Pahela Baishakh, Nabanna and
Halkhata are some of our
distinguished
festivals. All these are our culture and cultural traits. On the contrary,
culture which is not known and practised in a society is called alien culture.
All alien cultures are not detrimental to a society. A native culture may be
enriched and ameliorated enough with the influence of some alien cultures. But
some cultures have profound impact on other cultures that might be harmful and
then it will be a cultural assault. Cultural assault means bad influence of
foreign cultures on any native culture. In the present global world it is quite
tough to impede this cultural aggression. With the development of hi-tech
media, it
has been very
easy for a society to be infiltrated by alien cultures. Many of the cultural
elements may be influenced in this way. Our Bangladeshi culture is mostly
affected because of cultural assault of other countries. Our dress pattern
especially for teenagers and young generation has altered a lot. Now people like
pop song and band music sung in the western style and with western musical
instruments. Besides, our eating habits are also being changed. Today many of
us like to take fast food outside home using
chopstick, fork
etc. Now our young generations prefer celebration of 31 December to that of
Pahela Baishakh. They never mind celebrating the Valentine‘s Day. However, to
get rid of the invasion of alien culture, we should be very much strict to
exercise our own culture and flourish our cultural elements. In addition to
that, we have to accept miscellaneous alien cultures selectively, which will
make our traditional culture more affluent.