At a time when religion has taken centre stage and is not short of surprises and scandals, it is now that people need to go back on the drawing board to find out what causes tempers to flare when two opposing religions meet.

What pushes someone to enter into a mosque, synagogue or church and bombs it or opens fire indiscriminately killing anyone in sight, all in the name of God?

Though Rwanda was spared the religious wars that are flaring up in many parts of the world, it has its own religious ghosts.

Without going back in history and the role the Catholic Church played in forging Rwanda’s political nightmares, more recent history puts nearly all religions in the same basket; that of dabbling in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Only the Muslim community, as an institution, did not condone the killings even though individual Muslims took active part in the Genocide.

Muslims have begun the holy month of Ramadan where even the not-so-practicing type put aside their vices and return to the fold; that is the true definition of piousness

While we may congratulate ourselves for having escaped the Islamic fundamentalism wave that has engulfed the region, it was only through vigilance and close cooperation with the local Muslim leadership that potential dangers were thwarted or nipped in the bud.

That is what is meant by positive cooperation for the sake of maintaining peace and security in the country, not the kind we saw in 1994 where Christian religious leaders joined the Government’s plans to eradicate those they thought were not like them.

Ramadan Kareem to you all!