Deepa Bhookhun
31 Juillet 2008
éditorial
Port Louis — I wonder - what makes a person decide to become a politician?
More to the point; what made Shakeel Mohamed decide to become a politician?
So far this otherwise brilliant lawyer has only managed to make a name for himself by defending what I personally would qualify as dubious causes - Mohamed has gone out of his way to defend three main causes so far - the Supreme Court judgment on the use of loudspeakers in mosques, the ban of "The Satanic verses" and only recently on the introduction of summer time. His arguments - if you're interested - are reported in yesterday's edition of "l'express". He is against the introduction of summer time because he thinks this would be detrimental to Muslims.
Note a recurring theme somewhere?
His religion. His people. His cause.
I don't know about you but there is something that irks me about this.
The question again - does one become a politician because one wants to defend the people who share one's religious views?
You should have been in Parliament on Tuesday when the "Time Bill" was being debated. It was rather surreal.
A young man - a supposedly intelligent young man at that (the operative word being "supposedly" of course) - stands up and pronounces himself against a government decision, not on rational grounds but simply because this will cause some hassle to practising Muslims in the exercise of their faith. Understand by this that they would need their time off to go to prayer at a later time and this might be inconvenient in terms of their professional timetable.
There is absolutely no question of people not being able to enjoy their constitutional rights - that to practise their religion in all freedom. If there were, even I, who am allergic to religions (ALL OF THEM), would have thought debates - even heated ones - would have been warranted. No, the question was not that rights were being trampled upon. The question was that saving energy would cause some inconveniences to people of Muslim faith. Because of this, Shakeel Mohamed stands up in Parliament and makes a speech about "us" and how "no country has the right to upset the habits of its people" and how "we" will "not stand for this."
I have a few questions for the "Honourable" MP.
Who exactly is "we"? What should be this country's priorities? And whom exactly is he threatening when he says "we" will not stand for "this"? So what is he going to do now that the "Time Bill" has been voted? What is he going to do if government doesn't give in to his "threat" and doesn't issue a written guarantee that every Muslim will be entitled to time off so that they can pray?
To be fair, Mohamed wasn't the only one holding those extremist arguments. But I don't propose to waste precious, expensive paper on Sam Lauthan and Showkatally Soodhun.
Shakeel Mohamed is different; he is young, he has the gift of the gab and he is clever. This makes him dangerous.
But clearly not as smart as he thought.
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