FIRDAUS3's Posts

Uniform of religion
by Femi Macaulay,. in Femi Macaulay FacebookTwitterSMSWhatsApp
As could be expected, the June 3 ruling by a High Court in Osogbo, Osun State, in favour of religion-related veil-wearing by female Muslim students in public primary and secondary schools in the state, has resulted in absurdities.
A background report: “The court, presided by Justice Jide Falola, in a 51-page judgment…held that any act of molestation, harassment, torture and humiliation against female Muslim students using Hijab constitutes a clear infringement on their fundamental rights. Folala cited Section 38 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended) to rest his ruling.” It continued: “Osun State Muslim Community on Feb. 14, 2013, dragged the State Government to the court. They sought an order of the court to allow female Muslim students to enjoy their fundamental rights by granting them order to use veil in public schools.”
Following Justice Falola’s decision, a secondary school in Iwo on June 14 became a theatre of comicalities. A report said: “Students of Baptist High School, Iwo, who wore vestments, caused a stir in the school as other students who were in uniform hailed them. Some female Muslim students who also appeared in hijab equally gained access to the school without restriction. Also, some male students donned white robes around 8:30am before other students joined in donning white and purple choir robes…Also, some students dressed in white Celestial Sutana were hailed by their classmates…”
Considering that things have reached this theatrical stage, it remains to be seen how far the comedy of errors and horrors can go. The errors are based on an erroneous understanding of secularity; the horrors are based on a horrifying picture of what is possible when the question of secularity is not definitively answered.
In the final analysis, the legal endorsement of hijab in public schools in Osun State further highlighted the reality of ambiguous secularity. In this case, it is unclear why the judge could not distinguish between the uniform of religion and the uniform of secular education, and why he could not appreciate the incongruity of a combination of the two in public schools.
The students who wore church garments to school in Iwo “were allegedly children of some Christian clerics… in line with the directive of the Osun State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)”. The Christian body had protested, and had also called for a protest against the court judgement that endorsed hijab-wearing in public schools during school hours.
A report quoted the head of the Catholic bloc of CAN in Iwo, Cathechist Paul Olagoke, who said its members were in the school to ensure that no student was chased out. He reportedly said: “We are here to defend the rights of our children. Since female Muslim students are free to wear hijab, our children are also free to wear anything they want, too.”
The plot thickens. Secularity needs to be clarified, so that clarity can put an end to unclear ideas about the limits and limitations of religion in a secular society pursuing social progress.
It is clear that the dramatic news pictures of some students who attended school in church garments cannot change the existing court decision validating hijab in public schools in the state. Clearly, the authoritative intervention of the highest structures of justice would be necessary for the needed clarity.
Ultimately, the path to take is the straight and narrow pathway of the law, particularly because the issue has not been settled by the final court, and the current decision can be still be challenged at higher levels of the justice system. The Christians cannot expect to change the current court judgment by their forms of protest outside the courts, and they should understand that and be guided by that reality.
Interestingly, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) responded to the adoption of unhelpful self-help by the Christians. It observed that some Christian students of the Salvation Army Middle School, Iwo, also attended school in church garments, apart from those that did the same thing at Baptist High School. The group advised the protesters in a statement: “If CAN is genuinely interested in protecting Christian interest, they should go on appeal, otherwise no matter their current protest (which will fade away with time like every other protest but only make the current CAN leaders get TV and newspaper popularity), the current judgement will remain the valid law of the land…the law will stand if Osun CAN doesn’t immediately go on appeal.” This is a developing story and Osun CAN should help it to develop further towards a definitive clarification.
It is said that History repeats itself. It remains to be seen whether the Osun Islamic scarf controversy would follow the course of the Islamic scarf controversy that arose in France in 1989 concerning the wearing of hijab in French public schools. For over a decade, the French controversy cried for clarity until President Jaques Chirac in 2003 “decided that a law should explicitly forbid any visible sign of religious affiliation in public schools, in the spirit of secularism”. A report said: “The law, sometimes referred to as “the veil law” was voted in by the French parliament in March 2004. It forbids the wearing of any “ostentatious” religious articles, including the Islamic veil, the Jewish kippa, and large Christian crosses. The law permits discreet signs of faith, such as small crosses, Stars of David, and hands of Fatima.”
What followed this important clarification of secularity? The report said: “In 2004, a year after the law was voted in, one organisation opposed to it, called the “Committee of the 15th of March and Liberty,” published a report on the law’s effects. The report cites the files of 806 students affected by the law. Of the 806 students, 533 have accepted the law and no longer wear their veils in class. The report also gives an assessment of students who have left the French school system because of this issue. Among them, 67 have pursued their studies abroad. Another 73 of those 806 suspended or expelled from schools over the veil have chosen to take government-run CNED correspondence courses in order to finish their studies. The number of those who have chosen to study via other, non-government forms of correspondence schools is unknown.” It added: “The opening of the 2005 school year passed largely without incident, and opposition to the law seems to have given way to broader public opinion. However, the actual number of those who no longer attend French junior high and high schools over their veils is unknown.”
There is no doubt that the French example is clearly secularist, and leaves no grey area that could be manipulated by those without a conceptual understanding necessary for a correct interpretation of the idea of secularity.
The secularity test in Osun State is useful. Hopefully, it would eventually help to further clarify the concept and practice of secularity for the benefit of the other states of the federation, and for the benefit of the state of the federation.

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