The politics of emotion is back again. I think the government would do more and real justice to our Founding Father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman if they can work out the fundamental issue, as to why the picture of the Founding Father is removed as soon as the AL is out of power. My gut feeling says that whatever the AL government does, the BNP would never ever agree to that because of the ideological difference between the two. The remark of the secretary general of the BNP in the media recently is ample evidence of that gesture.
   Currently, the nation is watching the ideological fight between the two. If the white is somehow defeated, the black will come back with full force and might turn the table in favour of their ideological base — a state based on religion. We have enough examples of that in the region and near beyond. The question is: whether the transition would be peaceful or through severe unrest and human loss. Who will save Bangladesh?
   A reader
   Via e-mail

There is a long standing conviction among the conservative Muslim circle that madrassah education is holy and essential to continue Islamic teachings. This belief in the madrassah education was never shared by the majority in the Islamic communities around the world. The reality is that most of the Muslim children go for modern education avoiding institutional religious learning. But the demons created in the madrassahs around the world harvest on the fear factor. To be frank, madrassah education appears to be there to produce some most reactionary minds ready to challenge the changing times and modern enlightenments.
   In a sleepy village of Bhola in Bangladesh arms and ammunition has been discovered in a madrassah funded by a fundamentalist from London. Who is the enemy in Bangladesh? An 85 per cent Muslim nation? Or those who are being bred in madrassah? Time has come to realise that each and every extremist is potentially destroying a minaret of Islam. It is just a matter of time when the whole structure will come down.
   Akbar Hussain
   Canada