Weekly holiday

I will not comment on his suggestion about English as second language. But I disagree with him on his ideas about reverting to Sunday as weekly holiday. As far as I know Malaysia had always Sunday as holiday. However, as regards Pakistan, the then Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif suddenly changed from Friday to Sunday although he had no election mandate on this and the people of Pakistan including business community seriously protested this action. Mr. Nawaz Sharif most likely did it to please the West though Friday as holiday hardly created any problem for Pakistan's industry or business and nor it did or does for Bangladesh.

Observance of a particular day as weekly holiday from point of view of any religion is too strong to be ignored. Sunday and Saturday are considered holy for prayer and supplication etc by the Christians and Jews and hence they observe these as holidays.

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Now the question arises if the Christians and Jews could follow rigidly theirs, why can't we, the Muslims whose number is also considerable (one billion plus)? Likewise on religious ground we have also strong reasons to observe Friday as holiday. Among other things it helps one to better prepare for the Friday prayers, listen to Khutba (Sermons of Khatib-- the learned person). Friday sermons are specially designed for the Muslims to properly guide their lives -- both mundane and spiritual. One may argue that Friday prayers can also be said during the recess allowed when Friday is a working day. True it is. But the problem is that in that case, as the experience shows, that people would like to find excuses and pretexts to miss it. The other important thing is that while Friday is holiday, the children accompany their fathers, brothers, guardians to mosque for prayer and thereby prayer culture is instituted in them to make them better Muslims and a better persons. Further if Friday is observed as holiday in all the Muslim countries of the world then it will be shown as unity and strength of Muslim ummah.

When the then Pak-PM reverted to Sunday as weekly holiday, some people in Bangladesh become up and doing in pressing the government and the civil society to toe the Pakistani line. The then Awami League government deserves thanks for not yielding to the whim. And they did no wrong for as could be understood from the survey carried on then by an organisation called Democracy Watch with regard to observance of weekly holiday/s. The survey though was limited yet is inductive of the people's will to keep Friday as holiday.

Last but not the least Farhat Ahmed says that the Pay Commission has recommended for allowing two days weekly holiday on Saturday and Sunday. And that perhaps also encouraged him to register his support to go for Friday as working day. Perhaps he is not aware that of late, the concerned authorities have reviewed their decision and recommended Friday and Saturday as weekly holidays in view of the merits that go with Friday as holiday. The issue with regard to Friday being the weekly holiday (as is in vogue now) is a settled one. There does not seem to be any necessity to re-open any discussion or debate on it.