Sunday was traditionally the weekend until 1984, when the military ruler HM Ershad changed it to Friday. This was an attempt to win the hearts of pious Muslims for whom Friday is the holy day of prayer. It didn’t do him much good as he was ousted in 1991.
But even though he was booted out, Sunday was never reintroduced as the weekend holiday. None of the democratic governments that followed have dared to reverse it. Why? Because they’re afraid an opponent will one day use it as a ‘religious trump card’ in a general election.
In Bangladesh, it hasn’t just been about which days; it’s also been about how many days.
The government led by the Awami League first introduced a two-day weekend in 1997. It was reduced to Friday only by the BNP-led government in 2001. But then they were forced to restore a two-day weekend in 2005, as an austerity measure to reduce pressure on the national economy when fuel prices and the dollar exchange rate rose.
Officially, the two-day weekend still holds in Bangladesh though in many places, especially rural areas and private sector industries like garments factories, only Friday is the weekend.
The demand to be in step with most countries and include Sunday as part of the weekend still looms large among various section of society. It’s certainly my preference. As Friday is weekend for most people, all kinds of family, social, Church or national programs are arranged on that day. I’ve been missing most of them since 2008, when I started my career as a journalist which meant work on Friday. When I was in the seminary for nine years I also missed a lot of family and social programs such as weddings and anniversaries, because seminary directors were reluctant to allow extra holidays.
Wouldn’t it be great if we all had the same time off?
**This post was originally published on UCAN Blog on August 23, 2011
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