Surprising!

Mr Justice Muhammed Momtaz Uddin Ahmed

On monday evening we had an interesting visit - the visit of Mr Justice Muhammed Mamataz Uddin Ahmed  - a high ranking official from Bangladesh! A friend of ours organised for him to come to Café Forever as part of the London Language Club which celebrates international mother language day every year. This all sounds like a mouthful I know - just try and say it! Your mouth will be full! But when you get under the surface of the big title you find that it is celebrating the day in which Bengali people were allowed to have their own language apart from Urdu - the language of Pakistan, and began the course for the people of Bangladesh to gain independence. The division came because children learn to speak the language that their mother speaks at home and this should be the language that the nation speaks. Mr Justice Muhammed Mamataz Uddin Ahmed was a freedom fighter in the war for independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Bangladesh

We ate a fantastic curry together and heard about the struggle for independence. I chatted with another gentleman who had come to visit he was a lawyer, in fact the place was full of lawyers! I spoke about the fact that in the Torah we learn a story about how God confused the languages of men when they tried to build a tower up to the heavens to reach him (babel). I said that here in Café Forever we have an example of that situation being reversed - that different cultures and languages are being shared and understood through the grace of Jesus.