Lesson in dreadlocks

LIKE individuals, a nation is supposed to mature on the basis of its troubling experiences, on its internal or external conflicts, on its involvement in issues which disturb or challenge its formative principles. Hopefully, the unfortunate episode of 12-year-old Kalifa Logan and the St Charles High School will be one of these signal instances by which our society as a whole comes to understand itself more clearly and to grow a little wiser in the process. The anguish that Kalifa and her mother suffered from the child’s summary rejection as an SEA student assigned to St Charles is regrettable, but we expect that out of it may come some benefit for our country in the form of a deeper understanding among our people of the plural nature of our society, the inalienable rights and freedoms granted to citizens by our constitution and the importance of upholding the truth of our anthem’s declaration that “here every creed and race finds and equal place.”

Most essentially, perhaps, the force of all this is to ensure that, among their rights, citizens can enjoy the freedom to indulge in the religious faith of their choice and they must not be discriminated against in any shape or form for expressing such belief within the confines of the law. However irksome such a right may be to anyone in authority, there can be no deviation, no adjustment, no abridgement, no placing of conditions on and no penalty whatsoever in the enjoyment of this constitutionally granted freedom. We assume one purpose of the constitution framers in enshrining these rights was to lay down a framework for the evolution of a society such as ours, in which the adherents of our various religious groups would at least be made to accept the legitimacy of  each other’s existence if not managing to inspire mutual respect and regard among them.

It is unfortunate that the principal of St Charles does not seem to appreciate this and, instead, has chosen to stand simply on the rigidity of the private school’s dress code which, she claimed, would be breached by Kalifa’s Rastafarian dreadlocks to the point of presenting a threat to discipline at the institution. This decision was not only clearly wrong from a constitututional standpoint but the principal’s comments in rejecting the child revealed a bias against the Rastafarian faith which was just as unfortunate. The fact is that Rastafarianism is a religious belief that is now well established in our country and in many other parts of the world. We may not agree with the doctrine or tenets of those who follow this faith, but we must recognise their right to the freedom of practice that all other religious denominations enjoy in our country.

It was wrong for St Charles’ principal to reject Kalifa because of her Rasta dreadlocks and an unfair prejudgment to assume that child would create a disciplinary problem at the school. It is somewhat reconciling that Archbishop Edward Gilbert has intervened and ordered the St Charles principal to admit the Rastafarian child. But his order, apparently, will not undo the damage or assuage the hurt felt by Kalifa and her mother who want to have nothing more to do with St Charles. This episode, as we have said, is most unfortunate but hopefully our multi-religious country would become a more tolerant and understanding place because of it.