class act

It happened at one of the country's most exclusive schools. A school where the students’ family names reveal a roll of who’s who of the super powerful, the very rich, and -sparingly- the ultra successful. The recent, now famous incident started in a crowded corridor, when one student apparently got in the way of another. Tempers flared, and swearing and high-pitched insults were traded. A common occurrence that should have ended there. Except...

Except that one of the two students involved was anything but common; he was a favourite son of the very first and foremost family. Deeply affronted, he left the school earlier, and returned with several of his personal servant-guards “fedaweya”. The troupe heads towards the boy in question (a son of owner of a chain of restaurants), converge upon him and beat him, badly. Four fellow students tried to intervene to protect him, but they too got beaten, badly.

The school board met, and a disciplinary committee decided to exclude the favourite son from school. His caring mother was obviously not bemused by this second indignity. In short order, His Excellency, the Minister of Education summons the School’s Principal and orders him to reinstate the princely son. For the significant others to see it, next day's papers carried a photo of the meeting and quoted the honourable minister as stressing on the school the importance of adhering to true norms and authentic values of the society. The school seemed to oblige.

Except that many among the students remain furious over the incident, and are threatening to boycott classes when and if the boy gets reinstated. Left to pass one time, they will be open season, open prey, big time. What’s a privilege of high class if you feel unsafe in - or around- class?

Nay sayers will be quick to jump on this incident to rehash history, and recount how the populace at large was always deemed open season for use or abuse “halayel”. They will say this is a troubling incident with wider implications beyond school walls. But these radicals who dream of fairness and just order here and now are -as per usual- just blowing things out of all proportions. He is just a kid after all, for royals’ sake. Besides, it took other societies several hundreds years from their Magna Carta to arrive at a semblance of state, or kingdom, of law. Patience, as the Arab proverb would say, is just beautiful.