Immediately after the London terrorist bombings there were plenty of comments left on numerous SM posts that all seemed to express a particular opinion that was VERY distasteful to me, and to some other readers. To paraphrase, the opinion went like this: “We need to educate the public better so that when a racist or bigoted backlash occurs following a terrorist attack, they will be wise enough to target Muslims instead of people that only look like Muslims.” I thought that such an opinion would find no support at all but I learned that I was wrong. Dave at DNSI points to an article in the Guardian that shows just how wrong I was. Some Sikhs and Hindus facing the prospect of a backlash are taking unusual approaches:
The explanation as to why Sikhs and Hindus are targeted…is quite simple: “your average hate-crime perpetrator isn’t going to stop and ask what religion you are before attacking you – or even care, for that matter, about such distinctions.”
If you travel on London’s public-transport system you may have spotted them: stickers and T-shirts with “Don’t freak, I’m a Sikh” written across them. On the tube, they tend to be greeted with wry smiles, but they have sparked heated debate on Sikh online message boards. “Don’t wear these T-shirts, they’re anti-Muslim,” writes one contributor. “We should wear the T-shirts,” says another. “We need to think of ourselves first – let the Muslims take care of themselves.”
In the weeks following July 7 it was widely reported that hate crimes against Asians had increased dramatically. They were not just attacks on Muslim Asians, of course: they were attacks on Asians of all faiths. The fact is that your average hate-crime perpetrator isn’t going to stop and ask what religion you are before attacking you – or even care, for that matter, about such distinctions. But this point seems to have been lost on the media. There’s been a huge focus on the impact on Britain’s Muslim community, but the plight of Britain’s 560,000 Hindus and 340,000 Sikhs has been largely ignored.
Sure, it’s easy for me to judge. I sit here safe and don’t have to endure suspicious eyes checking me out on the Underground every day. Still, this rubs the very heart of me. I think these t-shirts should all be burned. Prior to WWII, Hitler forced the Jews to wear the Star of David on their clothes so as to single them out with ease. Here it seems some citizens are volunteering for that sort of indignity in order to make their lives a bit easier, at the price of a higher ideal. We shouldn’t be declaring that we are different from Muslims. If anything we should be educating people on how similar they are to us. I fully support declaring that you are Sikh, loud and proud. To do so in order to differentiate yourself from a Muslim, specifically to avoid a potential hate crime, is just loud without the proud.
This doesn’t mean that Hindus have had an easy time of it. “There are issues of security for Hindu temples, Hindu students at university and Hindus walking on the streets who risk being assaulted,” says Ramesh Kallidai, secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain, which speaks for 240 Hindu organisations.Ishvar Guruswamy is a Hindu who has lived in Kent for 32 years. He had never experienced racism until shortly after the attempted bombings in London, when a group of teenagers spat at him while shouting, “Bomb, bomb, bomb.” A few days later, a family at his local supermarket shouted the same thing at him. When he told his sister what had happened, her advice was simple – to shave off his beard and wear a large crucifix so no one would mistake him for a Muslim.
So what’s the alternative? Dave suggests an approach:
This debate is identical to the one that took place within the Sikh community after 9/11. After the terrorist attacks, some of Sikhs in the United States, myself included, began to discuss how we should respond to the backlash and protect the Sikh community. Combating ignorance through education was, of course, of utmost importance. While we wished to inform others as to who Sikhs were and that the turban was a symbol of the Sikh faith, we ultimately did not want to send the message that, ‘now that you know we are Sikhs, leave us alone, but going after Muslims is acceptable.’ Thus, we settled on a two-pronged approach: the first more of an isolationist one, namely to educate and inform others about Sikhs and Sikhism; the second was to submit a broad appeal for tolerance, emcompassing not only Sikhs, but Muslims, Arabs, South Asians, and anyone else who may be perceived as a “terrorist.” This is not to say that this position is morally superior to the one that attempts to draw a thicker line between Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims, as one can understand the more pragmatic approach of protecting one’s own community that one is a member of.
Also, Sunny has more on this topic here.
Each group is the same and, given the conditions, behave exactly the same.
Oh, you mean like those merry bands of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims blowing up trains in the spirit of brown solidarity? Or the Hindu and Sikh priests exhorting their co-religionists to kill non-believers? Or perhaps you mean the widespread movement to legally impose Hindu and Sikh religious law and create a parallel justice system?
Read PB’s posts and pull your head out of sand, will you? If that’s not sufficient, read the following story and educate yourself as to why claiming that all brown is all same is such a pile of horse manure.
A muslim woman’s Sharia ordeal
Sunny is a textbook example of what I am talking about.
Gujjubhai
I probably dont make myself clear – I believe we should link up with our Pakistani cousins and support them when they need support and I do believe we should strive to have a secular and brown community vibration of Unity going on – but unlike some people I dont believe in covering up and denying that there are problems in the air making excuses and refusing to call a spade a spade – it is all about degree and proportion – and everything is laid out in my two posts above.
Anyway I am not going to write any more on this thread and will not be returning to read it in case I am tempted to add some more hot air after other people bring the nonsense – I just want to say also that I think this t-shirt slogan comes from a place of dark humour – you know the type of joke that seems to make the rounds after a major disaster or catastrophe and some extremely black humour comes out of it. It relieves tension and then people move on. Well I think this t-shirt slogan comes from the same place and is also a poke in the eye of all those pompous people who talk this that and the other and patronise and talk down to those and profess to hold certain values whilst being in a state of huge denial about the ten tonne elephant in the living room.
They are false and superficial.
====The End====
Lol, a who huge denial over what exactly? You want to me to post articles I’ve written about Islamic extremism? Poking fun at religious fanatics?
The big elephant in the room isn’t extremism by one specific religion, and to dismiss me as an apologist is laughable to the people I know in the UK. I’ve been on the Islam Channel here, cussing and arguing with Hizb ut-Tahrir over the sheer stupidity of their stances, over the propaganda they sell to young impressionable kids.
The big elephant in the room is all these Asians who go around with a tone of moral superiority.
1) They are either liberals who look at religion as something to be ashamed about or laugh at… or
2) Think that its only people of other religion who can descend to the depths depravity and terrorism.
It was funny to see how the Gujarati newspapers here refused to mention anything about their brothers in gujarat raping Muslim women, or setting them on fire or killing people en-masse.
Too focused on the train burning Gujjubhai? Did you stop reading the news after that? Maybe you’d like to read the HRW report on what happened in gujarat? Or the Amnesty I report?
Oh I forget, the BJP govt stopped Amnesty International going to India to conduct their investigations. Or did you hear about that British foreign Office report that was leaked? Probably not because the BJP govt told the FO to mind their own business and despite our efforts here, they won’t reveal it fully.
Instead you should go to India and get evidence collected there by secular groups, which I did and can lend you guys if you come to London.
This is the problem with South Asians. No moral equivalence. Are Hindus not capable of terrorism? What about Sri Lanka then? What about Gujarat? What about Orissa? Read the report by AI on Bajrang Dal harassing Christians in South India?
I don’t want this to look like an anti-Hindu rant. The Sikhs in the UK ain’t any better. Maybe you should listen to the recent Radio Five Live documentary on the rise of Sikh militancy in the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/misc/birmingham_rep.shtml
Oh, and don’t try too hard patting yourself on the back on your stance against Shariah Law. We can all feel smug laughing at Sudanese female genital mutilation and abuse of women in Saudi Arabai – but things in India are not much better. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1218922.cms
I’d even cite the name of the book I read on female infanticide in South India but I forget the name.
Asians sometimes have this habit of thinking there’s only one big elephant in the room.
PS – ignore the word “laughing” before Sudanese genital mutilation. That’s not appropriate.
Like I said, “black & white perspective”.
And as Punjabi Boy said, “textbook”.
Sunny
While your feelings are justified, I think there are many here who do recognize that intolerance does not come in certain religous packages.
It has a universal color and faith in one’s righteousness., however misplaced. Isnt that what all the discussion is all about. Recognizing one’s own limitations, through dialouge with others(who hopefully point out inconsistencies in our beliefs.)
Last time I checked, Moral superiority was not a trait listed under the category “Asian” in the encyclopedia. so why the anger?
Sumita
Some people have their heads completely in the sand and will take political correctness to their grave.
Better yet, they will take other people to their grave all the while laughing their way down the street
I complete agree with PB and Jai Singh
Some attitudes are made to pick up the pieces and tell everyone else what to do; too many human rights workers are totally impervious to understanding the lowly people who don’t make policy or tell others what should happen, but are just living their lives.
When you have the priviledge to stand above it all and choose what will happen to you, you can afford to hold no allegiences and make no compromises. At some point though you will find life slightly messy if you do choose to live as part of soceity, rather than constantly talking down to it.
Many people would love that kind of life, critizing this and that and always having all the answers. Those kinds of people live in a culture of their own, and they have their own obligations. Their obligation is to their own ethos of always having the right solution.
What will happen when your family is turned aside by a trend outside your control?
They are unbeatable in arguement because argument is what they do
Sumita, no anger – that’s how I always reply to pseudo-liberals who use a few URLs to form their world-view and ignore the rest.
Re: the last post.
Such narcissism allied to such ignorance and hysteria – a heady brew for the myopic and preening and ultimately clueless.
I agree with Punjabi Boy, Jai, Raju – hysterical narcissists should read their posts carefully and discover what they are really saying rather than allow their ignorance take over.
As someone said, he actually is the proof of what they are saying.
Sikh charity:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77778&headline=At~this~Sikh~langar,~it%E2%80%99s~ready~meals~for~Katrina~survivors
Is that it?
Sorry, let me expand on the last post from myself.
It’s almost a year on, and look at what is happening now. I am Sikh, I live in the UK. I am a very sociable person who has been born and bought up here in the south of England. I see English idiots that think I am muslim. Over the last week I feel very uneasy when going out to enjoy myself. Most of my friends are English/Irish/American/Canadian/Norwegian/Polish/Russian. And now, this is where I am going to sound just as bigotted as those ‘English idiots’ I mention earlier. I have adopted a slight hatred towards muslims. They have not (as a community) worked towards eradicating a hatred within. They have been entirely unco-operative with national security forces. And we, the British tax payer, pay for their behaviour, as well as support their families and every-day life.
This is not justice in any way sense or form. This is certainly not the way I want my taxes to diverted, to support those that wish to eradicate the shear material that this culture is built from.
We (unfortunately) have a very weak government and judicial system to (somehow) abide by, and also have no real opposition because of the PC-way they wish to perform.
As a proud, hardworking, tax paying British Sikh, who loves to live here and born here, I still see myself as a welcome guest of this country, and respect it that way, no matter how others may perceive or treat me.
In conclusion, I am sorry to say this, but the muslim community has put all of us (law abiding brown people) to utter utter shame.
Its a good thing forums/chat pages are out there,if only the “religous leaders” would engage in dialogue instead of filling empty heads with hate.I must say that having lived in britain for 35 years I can say 90% of the time this country and the way of life has been very good to my family & me.So the numbnuts that committed the mindless acts of 7/7 really had issues that deeper than just the “foreign policy” excuses being used by all those that have junped on the anti west bandwagon.Generally speaking the Sikhs/Hindus have intergrated very well into the british way of life.The muslims have always wanted “halal” this and “muslim” that,they are critical of the way the british people drink and go to bars/clubs,you dont have go or look at the drunks.They are always distrubuting leaflets and propaganda outside university/colleges.WHY ? If you or I were to even express opinion contary to islam in britain we would be persued with venom by the “believers.” If you were to even open a place of non islamic worship in an islamic country…you would be in deep trouble..i know i’ve lived in Dubai for a while. So the “dont freak” tee shirt is no bad thing,muslims refer to non believers as “Infidals.” OK so would they prefer us to wear “I’m A Infidal ” t-shirt? If i have offended any muslims out there I am sorry that I have had to.You guys have to reducate your people to accept all faiths…no muslims are not secular if non believers are infidals.So adapt and intergrate some of the good things of western society & loose your hate of infidals. Peace & Respect.
The user “sunny”‘s comments are an unforgivable and blasphemous tragedy on this page. He or she gives to understand that he/she thinks he/she knows everything about all the things!
A) I do not support these t-shirts. B) I do not oppose this t-shirt. C) I do not prefer taking the yes-no approach. I like this t-shirt – consider it to be more fun than what you think it is. You think that the creator of this design would’ve spent hours thinking about all the apparent words-in-gold you said just above.
i) Do you think, you can ban people from wearing clothes they like ? ii) When the apparently “sunny” derivations and “deductions” are not explicit on the t-shirt, why create the issue in the first place ? iii)It is indeed tragic that so many people (atleast me) have wasted their time to write on this issue which would see end.
http://www.punjabijunction.com