M.D. Nalapat
MANIPAL, India, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Thanks
to the extraordinary burst of innovation and enterprise created in the
countries of Western Europe during the previous five centuries, the world came
under their tutelage. However, those from the region who lacked the
characteristics of rationality, resourcefulness and drive that resulted in the
west leading the world fell back on the absence of skin pigment to distinguish
themselves as superior from the rest of humanity. In this, they were merely
following an ancient precedent. For example, the very Sanskrit word for India's
4,000-year old tradition of caste is "varna," meaning: color. Indeed,
the Slavic peoples used this characteristic to name the lands in which they
resided. Thus, "Russia" means "Land of the Blonde" while
"Belarus" goes even further, signifying the "Land of the White
Blonds." Small wonder that notions of racial supremacy grew in Western
Europe, sometimes even crossing the bounds of color, as for example in much of
the European continent during the period when those
belonging to the Jewish faith were discriminated against and finally, sought to
be eliminated altogether. The Holocaust has been the vilest depth in human
history of a deformed social consciousness that survived in the modern era in
locations such as the segregated south of the U.S., and countries such as South Africa, where "racial
supremacy" was the norm.
Today, neither does segregation exist in
the U.S. nor apartheid in South Africa. The notion of racial supremacy has
become an international outcast, even though sporadic
manifestations of old attitudes linger, as for example in the recent German
political formulation, "Kinder statt Inder," which implied that
people coming from India were less than human. However, in practically all of
western societies, discrimination based on color has practically disappeared,
even though there are occasional "glass ceilings" that limit the upward
mobility of those with a higher level of cutaneous pigment. Once identified, these are
pulled down. The result has been that in advanced western societies such
as the U.S. and Israel, those whose ethnicity comes from India have frequently
bested others from locations in Europe.While "Race Supremacists" have
been under attack from the civilized world, and are either extinct or on the
defensive, another brand of hate crime flourishes undisturbed, even in
countries that are the allies of the West. This is "Religious Supremacy,"
the belief that those practicing a particular faith have the same
"right" to discriminate against others that "White
Supremacists" in the past saw as their God-given privilege to consign the
rest to a permanently inferior status. In states governed by religious
supremacists, those belonging to other faiths lack the freedoms enjoyed
by the privileged. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, those who do not belong to
the Wahabbi creed lack the elemental right to build their own
houses of worship and to openly pray in them. There are mosques in Israel and
the U.S. that have Wahabbist elements in them, but no trace
of a synagogue or even a church in Saudi Arabia. In another such country,
Pakistan, the legal and electoral system itself discriminates
against minorities. While in the past color was the engine of injustice, these
days it is creed. What is taking place in countries that discriminate against
minorities is as vile as what was seen - and demolished - in the segregated
U.S. south or in apartheid-era South Africa.
Indeed, while the United Nations General
Assembly has several times discussed apartheid and racism in general, it has
thus far been as silent as western and other chancelleries in identifying the discrimination and segregation that takes
place in "religious supremacist" countries. In Saudi Arabia, for
instance, those who are Shiite, non-Wahabbi Sunni, non-Muslim or women suffer
severe discrimination, and are denied the rights
that are given to adherents of the Wahabbi creed, who alone are permitted to
set up houses of worship and who are given preferential treatment in several
ways. This is a "hate crime" as noxious in its logic and effects as
racial segregation. Indeed, in that particular country, even Wahabbis do not
yet have the right to vote. The entire
authority within the state adheres -- naturally -- to close relatives of the
founder of the Saudi faith, Abdul Ibn Wahhab. While Khomeinism in
Iran is a close cousin of Wahabbism in its world-view, there are Sunni houses
of worship in Iran, and even a few synagogues, although in other respects the
two countries are alike. In both, an
unelected group controls the government, and bases this usurpation of power
from the hands of the people on religious grounds. Indeed, Khomeinism is as
much a perversion of Shiite Islam as Wahabbism is of Sunni
Islam.
Wahabbi and Khomeinist practitioners of
religious supremacy claim that their practices are based entirely on
those followed by the Prophet Mohammad. The reality is that they have, in their
lifestyles and culture, deviated significantly from the austere mores of the
Prophet of true Islam. Were these neo-segregationists true to their own tenets,
they would abstain from the use of the telephone, modern transportation and any other device or
system that was not in vogue during the time of the Prophet Mohammad. Instead,
these individuals follow the most sybaritic of lifestyles. This writer has seen
Saudi prince lings in Munich, Germany, picking up schoolgirls outside their
classrooms thanks to the attraction of their fast cars and obvious riches. Just
as a woman cannot be half-pregnant, it is not theologically possible to be a
semi-Wahabbi. Either one accepts the need to follow the lifestyles and systems that were
extant during the time of the Prophet Mohammad, or one recognizes the
desirability of joining the civilized world by abandoning discrimination and
prejudice against those of other faiths. In no part of the world can the denial
of religious, political and social rights to segments of the population that follow
a different creed be condoned. Unfortunately, in several countries, there is
blatant discrimination against such elements. What is surprising is why the
civilized world has yet to act against such powers, the way they did against those
that practiced racial segregation and oppression.
Today, a country such as Saudi Arabia is
as much guilty of the transgression of fundamental human values and rights as
South Africa was during the period of apartheid. In case Wahabbis regard it as
their God-given right to deprive others of
human rights and freedoms, then the solution is for them to retreat to an
enclave and practice their quaint faith apart from the rest of humanity, in the
way that the Amish do in the U.S.N90 country should be allowed to deny human beings
the freedom to choose their faiths and thereafter to follow them, provided that
the method of doing so does not entail the use of violence or discrimination
against others. Israel has often been condemned by the Khomeinists and the
Wahabbists. The state is not perfect, and within the majority there exist elements that
have a worldview similar to that of the Wahabbis or the Khomeinists. But such extremists
are a tiny miniority, unable to prevent the rest
from giving Muslim and Christian Israelis the same political and other rights
enjoyed by those practicing the Jewish faith. That is the difference between a democracy and a "religious
supremacist" state. Or take another example, dozens of Hindu temples have
been destroyed in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but this has been met by silence,
in contrast to the continuing clamor against the pulling
down of a disused mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. Such a double standard needs to be
eliminated. Whether Wahabbi or Israeli, Hindu or Khomeinist, all need to be
heldaccountable so as to ensure that the
rights of all human beings gets respected. The world has practically succeeded
in abolishing races supremacy. Now the need is to wage the same battle against
its twin, religious supremacy.
-(M. .D Nalapat is Professor of Geopolitics
at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India)
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