Eid-ul-Azha
Cyclone Sidr has killed over 450,000 livestock and poultries, wiping out a major source of income for millions of affected families. Bangladeshi people and their friends all over the world have responded to assist the affected people in restoring their lives and livelihood. Even the poor people have come forward with whatever little they have to help the cyclone-affected families. Most impressive was a gesture from some VGF card holders in non-affected areas who volunteered to give up their cards as their contribution to cyclone relief activities. This is the Bangladeshi spirit that we are all so proud of and has been upheld again.
Now Eid-ul-Azha is coming in less than two weeks' time. Millions of livestock--cows, goats and sheep in particular--are typically sacrificed on this occasion. I was watching recently a late night TV talk show. In that show, Farida Akhter, a prominent woman leader, suggested that perhaps this year we could sacrifice these livestock not by slaughtering but by donating them to families who have lost their livestock in the cyclone. I think it is an excellent idea.
This way we do not incur any additional cost for helping the cyclone affected families while at the same time complying with religious requirement of sacrificing our wealth on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha. After all, the spirit of Eid-ul-Azha is to sacrifice particularly to favour the poor and the deprived.
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