The nations of our times cannot prevent the conditions of men to becoming equal, whether the principle of equality leads them to freedom or servitude, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or poverty. The machinery that drives the awesome principle of equality is Democracy. Recently, we have twice witnessed, in our small republic, the inevitable triumph of Democracy at the political and educational levels. Triumph sparked by The Mauritian People and by our Courts of Law. Sadly, at the educational level, some form of hostile attitudes arose following the ruling of the Supreme Court. Hostility that defies, to the dismay of the population , legal rights and the concept of unity among diversity.

When the verdict of the Privy Council sounded the bells of modern democracy a few days before last Christmas, attitudes remained hostile and bitter. The confusing reactions of the lost party and its supporters were mostly of insipid taste: ?Comment un système qui etait légal pendant 20 ans peut être illégal maintenant?? cried out a Father. And ?Ce qui est légal n?est pas nécessairement légitime? wrote P. Dinan.

However, it is an amusing irony that the above rhetoric has found an answer in Dinan?s article. Less amusing is that the applications of the aspects treated in his article would eventually make History repeat itself. It was precisely the manipulated & inflated considerations of historical, political, social, economic aspects among others at the expense of legal rights that led the Church into quick sands: for these are the most unstable and volatile aspects of any state striding towards modern democracy.

The future of Education & Republic of Mauritius lies in the hands of citizens whose visions are within the framework of the concepts of modern democracy and secularity of the Republic. The application of the verdict of The Privy council (and Supreme court) is within such a framework. It is undeniable that confessional education has done its bit and flourished in times when Mauritian democracy was despised as the rule of ?doxa? over ?philosophia?, of opinion over knowledge. Times have changed from ?what pleases the Aristocracy is law? to ?what pleases the People is law?. Regrettably some people have not. Their instinct of conventionality, vested interests bound up with old beliefs and hidden hostility, all militate against the democratic turn of the Education sector as ruled by Courts of Law. When they cannot, they quarrel with it. It is, thus, of no surprise that our society will suffer a plethora of heretical opinions. There should be an attempt, therefore, to encourage the faith in laws of our Republic, rather than to hopelessly try to relegate the verdict of the Courts of law to mere interpretation in the minds of helpless people with a twist of words.

The concept of unity among diversity is a democratic one in only one way. Not just as one in which all components of the State are free to evolve within the limits of some laws. But as one in which the State is free to evolve within the limits of laws abstracted from the legitimate aspirations COMMON TO ALL components of the State. The final verdict brings us precisely to that aspect where Meritocracy is a legitimate aspiration common to all components of the Republic. As a side issue, the question of Confessional Education arises in a natural way. By a ?reductio ad absurdum? argument, it simply is out of place in the concept of unity among diversity at the State level. It has a place, though, at the component level , that is, only in one?s own privacy.

The Republic of Mauritius is unique. It has to be made safer for Modern Democracy. We cannot have men who seek the Law when it suits their purpose and defy it when it does not. Neither the constitution of India nor that of Israel would do us much good. We have here the rare opportunity of not making the mistakes they did and could not, or rather, would not amend in order to let sleeping dogs lie.

Dr Dreewin RITTOO