If we are called to fight against the caste system in India and not attacked as racist, xenophobic, fearmongering Hinduphobes then why are we in the West attacked for pointing out the intolerant treatment of millions through the teachings of Islam?
The great Ronald Reagan once said that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” These wise words are more true today than ever before. We are the free men and women of the West.
We are reminded over and over that to talk negatively about Islam is to be a fearmongering, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobe. I finally looked up the meaning of Islamophobia: dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.
It is a crime to dislike aspects of Islam. To dislike the values or behaviour taught by this Culture to whom there are 1.6 billion followers is to be racist. It seems somewhere along the way to diversity and tolerance the Royal We decide that all cultures have to be treated equally. To criticize a Culture is to be xenophobic. So let’s take a look at the caste system in India.
I was first introduced to the Dalit in India by the esteemed journalist, Stephanie Nolan, of the Globe and Mail who wrote about this group of people several years ago. It was her article that informed me about a group of people treated as “Untouchables;” not because of their actions, but by dint of birth. By birth! I remember the articles and the horror I felt. She was writing about the discrimination based on caste and gender that continues to bedevil India. It seems few want to talk about it
And recently Amrit Dhillon, a New Delhi journalist wrote about the Dalit; again in the Globe and Mail. Did you know that there are 160 MILLION Dalit on India? That “the Dalits (earlier known as “untouchables”) of India were exploited, demeaned and oppressed by the Hindu upper castes for 2,000 years?”
Did you know they had foods they were forced to eat, clothes they were told to wear and that they had musical instruments they had to fashion for themselves because they were not allowed to play certain kinds of instruments?
Or “Dalit women, for example, had to wear their sari in a particular way and were allowed to wear only certain ornaments, such as tin bangles. Dalits had to wear a bell around their necks, which they had to ring to alert any oncoming Brahmin of their presence lest it pollute him”?
Does any of this remind you of another ideology that did the exact same thing to another group of people-by dint of birth? Nazism and the Jews. The markings on the clothing-the Yellow Star- the Jews had to wear to demarcate them from their “betters” their “Superiors”? The exploitation and the oppression by the Nazis of the Jews for being Jews? The scraps of food made available in the ghettos. The removal of freedoms that were afforded to the “Right” people through laws implemented by the Nazis. LAWS.
We have stood up against Nazism and now there are those standing up against this treatment of the Dalit. Can any of you imagine someone being called a racist for being against this behaviour? Did anyone call Ms. Nolen a xenophobe? No. Has there been a campaign of Hinduphobia to stop us from speaking of this treatment? No. Why not? Why is it appropriate for journalists to raise the issue of the abuse of 160 million people in India but say nothing about the way of life of 1.6 billion Muslims, many of whom follow Sharia Law which calls for the unequal treatment of gays, women Jews and Christians?
Islam, today, remains an ideology that promotes the idea of supremacy and superiority of one people over all others as practiced in 22 Muslim countries and being brought into the west-with demands for halal food and prayer rooms and the right to treat women as second class. We are being asked to accept the right to treat women as less than human. And that attitude continues regarding gays and Jews.
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If we are called to fight against the caste system in India and not attacked as racist, xenophobic, fearmongering Hinduphobes then why are we in the West attacked for pointing out the intolerant treatment of millions through the teachings of Islam? Why the double standard? Could it be money? That the Saudis have flooded the world first with Wahhabism and then with a publicity campaign that attacks those who do not agree with the teachings while at the same time encouraging the disparaging of the west?
Think about this. We attacked Nazism that said white people are superior to all others-and only certain white people at that- and we are now being encouraged to stop the treatment of the Dalit in the caste system of India but we are held back from critiquing Islam by the very same people-the media the academics and the politicians. While the Dalit live in India and the caste system is not being imported into the West, the ideology of Islam is coming here. It is changing our behaviour-by putting a chill on our freedoms-freedom of speech and our decision as a country to remove religion from the public square.
We live in a country with an ethic that is extraordinary in its ideology-that all people are born with equal intrinsic value-no one person or group of people is better because of birth or race or religion. Yet we are allowing that great teaching to be undermined by a Culture that does not agree with the first principle while being shamed into silence for disagreeing with it.
Why?
Diane Weber Bederman is a blogger for ‘Times of Israel’, a contributor to Convivium, a national magazine about faith in our community, and also writes about family issues and mental illness. She is a multi-faith endorsed hospital trained chaplain.
