By Marty Logan
MONTREAL, Jun 7 2002 (IPS)

The province of Quebec is fighting a court ruling that would have allowed a Sikh boy to wear a ‘kirpan’, or ceremonial dagger, to school as long as it was kept in a wooden holder under his clothing.

Justice Minister Paul Begin announced the appeal 11 days after a judge in Montreal delivered what was supposed to be a compromise between freedom of religion and safety in schools.

The judge said the steel dagger, which has a 10-centimetre blade, would have to be secured in the sheath, which would be sewn into the boy’s clothing.

The kirpan is one of five symbols that Sikhism says must be worn at all times by devout males.

Focus fell on Gurbaj Singh’s kirpan when it tumbled to the ground as the 12-year-old played outside his school in southwest Montreal. A parent who spotted it alerted the principal, who ordered the boy not to bring it to school.

Gurbaj refused and spent two months at home studying with a tutor until a lower court judge ordered the school board to let him return until another court could rule on the case. Last month, the compromise was announced, followed by the notice of appeal.

Justice Minister Begin will not comment on the matter except to say the government will not tolerate any weapons in schools.

But a Sikh community leader says that singling out Gurbaj shows the government has other motivations. “Why is a kirpan dangerous and a pair of scissors is not?” asks Manjit Singh, head of the Canadian Sikh Council.

He says the government, which has suffered losses in recent by-elections, is motivated by both politics and racism.

“It is racism in the sense that (the school board and government) only want to stay open to their own practices and beliefs. They don’t even want to hear why the kirpan is important,” he says.

“I challenge any one of those people to come find me and ask ‘please explain about the kirpan’ because it hasn’t happened,” Singh says.

Parents have not approached the Sikh community to discuss the kirpan because the issue is not religion but safety, says Anne-Marie Gauthier, mother of two students at the school.

“They are very respectful and we are too. We don’t have anything against those people or what they represent,” she says. However, parents are not willing to compromise because “it’s a weapon and for us, weapons shouldn’t be allowed in our schools. That’s the bottom line.”

“Unfortunately, very often something bad has to happen before we make major changes. We don’t want that to happen here,” adds Gauthier. “Our children are too important and we won’t compromise their safety.”

The mother says she has collected 10,000 signatures on an Internet petition to forbid weapons of all kinds in schools. Another Internet petition backing Gurbaj, ‘In Support of Religious Freedom in Quebec Schools’, showed 2,245 signatures as of Friday.

The principal of the school, whose pupils come from numerous ethnic backgrounds, says that other Sikh students have always agreed to replace the kirpan with a pendant symbolising the dagger.

Singh says Gurbaj should have the religious freedom to make that decision.

Other Canadian provinces have already grappled with the issue. In neighbouring Ontario, the human rights commission in 1991 ordered a school to permit a teacher to wear the kirpan in class, while schools in western Alberta and British Columbia provinces allow the practice with certain conditions.

Large-scale immigration has come later to Quebec, Canada’s only province with a French-speaking majority, and there have long been murmurs that its people are less accepting of newcomers.

While many parents who have protested the kirpan say they only want to protect their children at the school, others say it is a question of immigrants following the rules of their new land.

When Gurbaj temporarily returned to classes, a group of adults yelled insults – including ‘Paki’ – at the boy.

“The people here in Montreal and the school board and government are saying ‘we are not going to be guided by how (other provinces) have acted, we want our own solution’,” says Singh. “Their own solution is being closed-minded.”

But Gauthier says there were only three adults who hurled insults at the boy and they “are not parents at our school and don’t represent us”. She says Quebec may be treating the issue differently because the world has changed in the past decade, especially after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

“This child will be going to high school and things are different there. Who can say if a gang could take (the kirpan)?” she adds.

Others say that if Sikhs are willing to remove the kirpan for airline flights they can also do it at school. But Singh says there’s a difference between not wearing the object once in a while and daily. “The restriction they want to impose would prevent (Gurbaj) from practising his religion.”

Since returning to school, the boy has maintained he is simply happy to be back with his friends. But Singh says Gurbaj has recently complained of headaches that a doctor says are a delayed reaction to the stress. For that reason he suggested the boy not be interviewed for this story.

No date has been set for the appeal.

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