A serious crisis
Mohammod Irfan, Denver, Colorado, US
As we all know by now, Bangladesh is going through a serious crisis. Some ideologues are abusing religion and poverty to spread violence in the civic life. While the secular culture and rich heritage of Bangladesh make it a very unlikely breeding ground for a Taleban-type regime, I am concerned about the insincerity of our dominant political leadership and the inefficiency of our state machinery. I am not sure what we, the non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs), can do in addition to the face saving works we do in our everyday interactions here. One of the things I have found out by reading some of the online Bangladeshi newspapers is that the masterminds use the "Qaomi" madrassahs as their recruiting ground. One of the leaders of those madrassah associations (and an active partner of the present regime!) recently said that they get their funding not from the government but from outside, a major outside source being the NRBs around the world. I don't suggest that the NRBs stop funding their less advantaged compatriots. However, we can add conditionality to that funding by asking the recipient to pursue their studies in mainstream schools (or at least in "Alia" madrassahs with more up-to-date curricula) rather than in Qaomi madrassahs, where, I gathered, the curriculum is more biased towards rote learning with a very limited worldview. Wishing the best to all Bangladeshis back home.
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