take me home

 

 

Sikh Immigrants to the Pacific Coast, 1914
Courtesy Vancouver Public Library

Copyright © 2001 KtB All rights reserved.



Any Enemy Will Do

  

Amid calls for understanding, a few Americans compound rage with religious ignorance.
by Stephen Prothero  
 

Not that it should matter, but Sikhs are not Muslims.

In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans as a rule have demonstrated not only patriotism but also tolerance. Muslim cleric Muzammil Siddiqi was invited to speak at the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral last Friday, and at other religious services across the country Muslim imams have offered prayers alongside ministers, priests and rabbis.

Newspaper columnists and television commentators have repeatedly noted that Islam is a religion of peace that opposes not only suicide but also attacks on civilians. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has set up a hotline to field reports of threats and assaults against Muslims and Arab Americans. Both New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and President Bush have warned against religious and ethnic bigotry.

Unfortunately, a few Americans have failed to heed that warning. Some American Muslims have seen their mosques and businesses vandalized. In a particularly cruel case, a Lebanese-American man whose brother-in-law was killed when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center was forced to endure anti-Arab epithets in a doughnut shop in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

A more horrific case of backlash occurred last Saturday in a gas station in Mesa, Arizona. There a gunman shot and killed Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India, in what relatives claim was a hate crime designed to avenge the terrorist attacks. What makes this case particularly tragic is that Mr. Sodhi was neither an Arab nor a Muslim.

In my courses on Asian religions in the United States, I devote considerable attention to Sikhs, who first came to this country in the early 20th century. They were routinely mistaken not for Muslims but for Hindus. In fact, the generic epithet for "Hindoos" (as all immigrants from India were called at the time) was "Ragheads," after the trademark turbans worn by Sikh men.

In a few cases, Sikhs were the victims of anti-immigrant prejudice and even violence. In Bellingham, Washington, in 1907, an "anti-Hindoo" riot forced hundreds of Asian Indians, most of them Sikhs, to flee to safety in Canada. In a high-profile court case in 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Sikh seeking citizenship on the theory that he was not sufficiently white.

In my courses on Asian religions, I distinguish between Hindus and Buddhists, Sikhs and Muslims. I point out that Islam originated in the Middle East in the seventh century, while Sikhism started in India nearly a millennium later. I talk about how Sikhs typically believe in reincarnation, while Muslims do not. I note that, while Sikhs have borrowed elements of their faith from Muslims and Hindus, their tradition is as distinct from Islam and Hinduism as Mormonism is from Judaism.

I have always believed that these facts are important, otherwise I would not have devoted my professional life to teaching them. But I never thought such distinctions would prove to be matters of life and death. On September 15, they did, when Balbir Singh Sodhi lost his life in a tragic case of mistaken identity.

Times like these no doubt call for tolerance. All Americans need to be reminded that we are a nation not only of immigrants but also of religions, that Muslims and Sikhs are as welcome here as are Protestants, Catholics and Jews. But such times also call for education. What killed Balbir Singh Sodhi on Saturday wasn't just vengeance. It was ignorance. And if we want to avoid similar killings in the future we will need to teach our children not only tolerance but also some basic information about the world's religions.

Islam is, by most accounts, the fastest-growing religion in the United States. As a society we would do well to educate ourselves about its beliefs, rites and scriptures. But Sikhs also have a substantial presence here. According to the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, there are roughly a quarter of a million Sikhs and more than 200 Sikh centers in the U.S.

The word "sikh" means "learner." For Sikhs, education is a religious duty. For Americans, education about the world's religions has never been more imperative. As a society, we have much to learn about Hinduism and Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism. At least in this regard, we would do well to imitate the Sikhs in our midst by becoming learners ourselves.

 
   
Stephen Prothero is an associate professor of religion at Boston University. He last wrote for Killing the Buddha as part of the KtB round table on faith-based initiatives.