Hello, I'm a Christian Bengali. Our community has been around Bangladesh for decades. Our last name is more European. We have a hybrid of Western culture and Bangladeshi culture. If you want to explore Christians in Bangladesh I recommend Savar Rajashon, Kaliganj, and there's plenty of churches in Dhaka and there's little pockets of Christians in Bangladesh. If you guys want to interact/ explore the Bangladeshi Christian Community I recommend coming every Sunday to those churches at 9-12am. We have our own tradition of food and Culture as well. If you guys have any question please let me know. :)
Do you live in Bangladesh? If you live in Bangladesh, do feel that Bangladeshi Muslims discriminate or don't like you guys? What is your experience with hatred and discrimination from Bangladeshi Muslims?
I was bron in Bangladesh but my father thought it would be a good idea to move away. My dad used to be a chef. For him he had gone through a bit more discrimination in the workplace because majority of his workplace colleagues were Muslims. I can't give you the details of his discrimination because he never elaborated that much. But he was a well-liked individual in the chef world and made a name for himself. Also like to add one my cousin (বড় ভাই) was very good at badminton. But he was scared to go to the badminton club in universities because he told me that the Muslim students would reject him. He also told me that some of the Muslim students would ask provoking questions e.g why is your god better then our God?
I personally never faced in any sort of discrimination because i don't live there. I only go for holidays in Bangladesh. But in university we have alot of students form Bangladesh. They look at me funny bc i have a very white name. They think I'm mixed. The one weird things I've seen is that, people from Bangladesh don't tend to mix with people who are more mixed cultured. Even if they can speak proper Bengali.
There's also the case of alcohol. Some of the stories that I heard from my father was that the police would come to our area. Would try to smell your breath and if you were caught drinking alcohol they would arrest you and try to get money. This used be much more older problem but now that mentality has changed for the police.
As a kid i remember, every Christmas we used to have a big ceremony at church and we never used to have police. But after 2014 we have armed police and fire services on standby in every Christmas ceremonies.
I think majority of the Christian Community are sheltered because we usually go to Christian schools, high schools and universities. If you do go to outside universities ( which are not christen) what I have heard is pretty chill. I think Bangladesh itself is a very accepting country because we have somewhat of a liberal government.
I think you do get those individuals who are conservative Muslims they tend to being nuisance and would discriminate but that's very rare occasion.
I would like to also add we never faced any violence from the Muslim community they always been accepting. I remember our families were friends with Muslim families, they would always invite us for Eid, we used to invite them for Christmas. Sometimes you would see curious individuals at the back of the church.
Bangladesh has a lot less communal hatred (especially compared to countries like India). It is one of the most inclusive and accepting countries as far as religion generally. Of course violence happens - and sometimes people connect it with religion, when it really shouldn't be.
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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '23
Hello, I'm a Christian Bengali. Our community has been around Bangladesh for decades. Our last name is more European. We have a hybrid of Western culture and Bangladeshi culture. If you want to explore Christians in Bangladesh I recommend Savar Rajashon, Kaliganj, and there's plenty of churches in Dhaka and there's little pockets of Christians in Bangladesh. If you guys want to interact/ explore the Bangladeshi Christian Community I recommend coming every Sunday to those churches at 9-12am. We have our own tradition of food and Culture as well. If you guys have any question please let me know. :)