Contagion?

Article 32 says a few things on the freedom of conscience, religion, belief and opinion. The United States, in the First Amendment to its Constitution, provides for both freedom of speech and freedom of worship. In recent months, the United States Supreme Court has made rulings that have greatly affected the manner in which Americans enjoy the protections afforded them by the First Amendment. Kenya's High Court, is yet to grasp the nettle that Article 32 is bound to become.

It s reported in some of the less-rigorous fact-checkers of Kenya's Fourth Estate that Muslim students at a school in Eastleigh have been prevented from attending school by the school administration because they violated a rule made by the Ministry of Education against the conversion of students from one religion to another. Apparently students of Maina Wanjigi Secondary School converted a female Christian student to Islam. Her parents were not amused. They protested to the school administration. The school administration locked out the Muslim students from the school. They demonstrated against the action of the school administration. The police intervened. The school was closed. And Article 32 took a walloping.

First, obviously, is the rule that states a student cannot be converted. Would such a rule apply if a student converted to another religion without being compelled or persuaded by another? Would the rule apply if the student converted as an act of protest against the school or the parents? What is a student converted in secret? Would then conversion have been so drama-filled if the conversion was from Islam to Christianity? The Ministry of Education rule is a violation of the constitution, regardless of the explanations that the Ministry exists to protect the students, even from themselves. It purports to know without a doubt that the religious feelings and beliefs of a student can remain static until the student is no longer a student or that it can prevent a student from believing what the student believes. In any case, the obvious solution would be to segregate students on the basis of their religious sentiments. Which would run afoul of Article 27 on equality and freedom from discrimination.

Second, it seems that the Ministry and the school's administration overreacted. This seems to be a particular brand of reaction of the Government of Kenya, whether one is in the Executive arm, or the Legislative of Judicial arms. In an increasingly cosmopolitan metropolis, the interactions between children of different cultural, economic and religious backgrounds will be more and more common. There are districts that will have more of one or the other. It is inevitable, especially when one includes the class considerations that will be inevitably in play. As a consequence, children will increasingly come under influences greater than what they experience in their families or homes. An event that is set to become more common will be conversion from one faith to another, whether through proselytising or admiration. If the Ministry and the schools' administrations react by sending in police, we can expect conflicts to multiply.

Finally, while Article 32 is not an absolute rule, any derogation from the rule would have to be reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic secretary based on human dignity, equality and freedom. The rights of children have not been derogated from simply because they are below the age of eighteen years. Therefore, while the Ministry, the school's administration and the parents were responsible for the welfare of the student, when she exercised her inalienable right to believe in another faith and expressed her desire to worship under a different tradition, their reactions should not have been to place the students they blamed for the conversion under siege, but to determine, as far as they could, why the student agreed to abandon Christianity for Islam. If there were psychological factors involved, as there usually are when dealing with hormonal teenagers, perhaps the student could have been persuaded that what she did was not necessary. Instead what was a cultural event was quickly militarised, children were traumatised, and the embarassment the public officials wished to avoid became a snowball.

The recent fulminations against Islamic fundamentalism and radicalisation in Kenya have polarised the country. Parents are now worried about sending their children to schools with large populations practicing faiths that are not theirs. If we do do not pull back from the edge, parents will start pulling out their children from one school and enrolling them in another simply because of the number of Muslims or Christian present in the former or the latter. Will this contagion spread to places of work, places of entertainment, hospitals?