Outcry for Kalifa

Opposition MPs and social activists have added their voices to the outcry against the transfer of 12- year-old Kalifa Logan from St Charles High School in Tunapuna to a Government junior secondary school because of her Rastafarian/African hairstyle. Leader of the Opposition Basdeo Panday yesterday said the Ministry of Education must say why Kalifa has been transferred. Panday declared: “If it is merely prejudice, it cannot be tolerated. It is wrong.” He said it was wrong to deny Logan her place at the school simply because of her hairstyle. He added, however, that if clear reasons for Logan’s denial at St Charles and subsequent transfer to Five Rivers, such as her dreadlocks being either a health or security risk, could be clearly spelt out, then the matter could be viewed differently. Barataria/San Juan MP, Dr Fuad Khan, described the ban as “discrimination steeped in a colonial mentality.” He said Kalifa had chosen dreadlocks for religious reasons developed from a consciousness through Rastafarianism, a legitimate form of worship and lifestyle.

He said: “It is unfortunate that Kalifa has to suffer the trauma of this experience.” Khan urged fellow MP, Junior Minister of Trade, Fitzgerald Hinds, who wears a Rastafarian hairstyle, to use his good office to positively intervene in the matter. Working Women for Social Progress (Workingwomen) hit the inaction of the Ministry of Education and Roman Catholic Church. The lobby called on the two agencies to act decisively. After denial of entry to St Charles, Kalifa has reportedly been placed in Five Rivers Junior Secondary School. Workingwomen said: “To take the spineless option of transferring this child is to cave in to prejudice and discrimination.” Workingwomen said that St Charles receives State funds and therefore the ministry cannot argue that it is a private school which can enforce its own rules.

“Schools cannot make rules which are in conflict with principles that govern the larger society.” Any debarment of Kalifa, they said, would violate our country’s  principle of respect for racial and cultural diversity. “In our society generations of children have grown up thinking that their natural hair was somehow offensive and that hairdressing meant getting your hair not to look like African hair.” Workingwomen said the school’s remarks about morality and discipline was an insult to Kalifa, her family and sections of the national community. The group urged the ministry and church not to take a hands-off attitude to the controversy. “Let this be the last time that anyone attempts to bar a child from school in Trinidad and Tobago on the grounds of ethnicity.”