Chief Advisor of the Interim Government, Prof. Muhammad Yunus today (November 3) called on young people to make decisions and dream of bringing positive change to the country.

“I especially encourage young people to decide, solve and dream. Dreaming is the beginning of change. If you dream, it will happen. If you don’t dream, it will never happen.” Members of National Defense College National Defense Course and Armed Forces Warfare Course (AFWC) at their office in Tejgaon, Dhaka.

Greeting the trainees and wishing them success, he said to the young people, “Ask yourself: ‘What can I do for the world?’ Once you decide what you want to do, you can do it because you have that power.”

He said that the young generation on the planet right now is the strongest generation in the entire history of humanity. “Not because they are smart enough, but because they have tremendous technology at their disposal.”

“When you look at the student revolution, it’s all about technology. They (students) were able to communicate with each other very quickly. They didn’t have any command structure.” Prof Yunus said, adding that technology is Aladin’s lamp.

About the student-led revolution, he said that young people in the country want to see a new Bangladesh. He added that young people are not politicians and are not pursuing some political goals, but they want to establish a new country for themselves.

Touching on global peace, the Noble Peace Laureate said that many times people kill each other in the name of peace. “…but we promise ourselves every day, all our statements and all our philosophies. We want peace. Peace within the country, peace between countries and peace globally.”

He said he found it extremely funny that every government in the world has a ministry of defense, literally a ministry of war, but no ministry of peace. “If your goal is peace, shouldn’t you have a ministry of peace?” he asked.

Observing that people should protect themselves against attacks, Prof Yunus emphasized that there are both ministries of peace and ministries of war in world governments. He suggested that peace attacks should be brought to the agenda in addition to defensive attacks in foreign relations.

The chief advisor said that this planet is a self-destructive planet because “we are doing everything to prepare to kill ourselves.”

Citing an example, he said humans are destroying the environment to destroy the planet.

“We have created a wrong civilization; a civilization that destroys itself.” he said, adding that humans are destroying the planet every day.