Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Of­fi­cials of the An­ju­man Sun­nat-Ul-Ja­maat (AS­JA) will meet this week­end to dis­cuss the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to con­sid­er mak­ing the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen's Is­lam­ic Ed­u­ca­tion­al Com­plex a de­nom­i­na­tion­al school. Chair­man of the AS­JA Ed­u­ca­tion­al Board Ya­coob Ali said he did not want to re­veal his per­son­al views on the is­sue with­out first con­sult­ing with fel­low Mus­lims.

If the Ja­maat school be­comes de­nom­i­na­tion­al, the min­istry will have to pro­vide two-thirds of the school's fund­ing, in ac­cor­dance with the Ed­u­ca­tion­al Con­cor­dat of 1960. "We have sched­uled a meet­ing this week­end and once that is com­plete, AS­JA will is­sue a state­ment," Ali said.

Sev­er­al peo­ple have ex­pressed strong dis­agree­ment with the pro­pos­al to pro­vide gov­ern­ment fund­ing for the school. Promi­nent among them is vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Raoul Pan­tin who spoke about the mat­ter in ev­i­dence be­fore the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 1990 coup at­tempt. "Why is my tax­pay­er's mon­ey go­ing to a school of Ji­hadists? Is the min­is­ter aware of what is be­ing taught at these schools?" Pan­tin asked. In­ter­im leader of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen, Lor­ris Bal­lack, con­tend­ed that the re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion was a vic­tim of dis­crim­i­na­tion. "In 29 years we nev­er get a pen­ny. We were nev­er giv­en fund­ing by the State," he said. Bal­lack said since the Ja­maat's Is­lam­ic Ed­u­ca­tion­al School was es­tab­lished in 1978, the Gov­ern­ment had dis­crim­i­nat­ed by re­fus­ing fund­ing. He claimed the school had pro­duced out­stand­ing lawyers and doc­tors in­clud­ing Fuad Abu Bakr, son of Yasin Abu Bakr. "We want to thank all the Mus­lims in this coun­try for com­ing to­geth­er and those who in­tend to come to­geth­er," Bal­lack said.

He said since some Mus­lims were tar­get­ed and ac­cused of be­ing in­volved in a plot to kill Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Mus­lims across the coun­try are be­gin­ning to unite. "Be­fore you on­ly had to hear some­thing about the Ja­maat and many of our Mus­lim broth­ers used to con­sid­er that the truth. Since the truth has reached them, almighty Al­lah def­i­nite­ly will guide us to have strong uni­ty, Bal­lack said. He added that the Ja­maat Ed­u­ca­tion­al Com­plex fol­lowed the guide­lines of the min­istry's cur­ricu­lum. For­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Adesh Nanan said dur­ing his time in of­fice dis­cus­sions were held about mak­ing the Mu­cu­rapo school de­nom­i­na­tion­al. "Cur­ricu­lum of­fi­cers were sent to the Ja­maat school to en­sure they were fol­low­ing the min­istry's cur­ricu­lum and guide­lines. There was a cri­te­ria for fund­ing, but it seems they did not meet that cri­te­ria be­cause they were de­nied fund­ing," Nanan said. He could not re­mem­ber fur­ther de­tails. Nanan said he was in full sup­port of Min­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh's ap­proach. He said once the Ja­maat ful­filled all re­quire­ments, the school should get the same en­ti­tle­ments as oth­er bod­ies. Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat­nar­ine Ma­haraj said the Ja­maat's in­sur­rec­tion of 1990 was a dif­fer­ent is­sue to that of ed­u­ca­tion­al fund­ing.