Historically, Bangladesh has the reputation of maintaining peaceful law and order and communal harmony. The country remained one of the safest and comfortable places to live in. No conspiracy has ever deviated the people of the country from this historic course.
The international community has come to know about Bangladesh's new identity as one of the safe places in the world through two recently published reports. The Global Law and Order 2015 report has presented Bangladesh as one of the safest countries in the world. The report says that Singapore with 89 points is the safest country in the world followed by Uzbekistan (88) and Hong Kong (87). The worst-ranked countries are Liberia with 40 points and Venezuela with 42 points. Bangladesh with 78 points is one of the safest countries of the world, according to the report. The country is closely followed by the United States and Australia with 77 points. Even France, the recent epicentre of global attention due to deadly bomb attacks, was ranked lower than Bangladesh with 75 points. The ratings for other countries of South Asia were, however, not inspiring with India scoring 67 points and Pakistan 60 points. The Gallup's report presents the results from its latest measure of people's answers to following three questions, based on more than 142,000 interviews with adults in 141 countries in 2014.
On the other hand, the Institute for Economics and Peace carried out Global Peace Index (GPI) that measures the state of peace in 162 countries. The GPI report shows that Iceland is the most peaceful and Syria is the least peaceful countries in the world. Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh registered gains in ranking compared to last year. The position of Bangladesh is 84 while rankings of Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan are 114, 143 and 154 respectively. The GPI considered indicators like population, CO2 emissions, national police personnel (per 100,000 residents), traffic deaths (per 100,000 residents), assaults (per 100,000 residents) and life expectancy (in years) in ranking the 162 countries.
A few sporadic incidents can never tarnish the image of a country. People in Bangladesh hardly face political instability in the form of violence, rampage and vandalism. Even the most developed countries like the US and South Africa now cannot claim to be the safest places for living and visit as rapes and murders are committed there frequently and regularly. The key factors behind Bangladesh's good image are strong family bond, brotherhood and neighbourhood, respect for others' religions and cultures etc. The Global Law and Order Report 2015 and the GPI Report 2015 show that Bangladesh is one of the safest places. This has effectively set aside unjustified debates over the issue by some countries very recently.
The writer is working for primary education in Bangladesh.
