As a brown-skinned Sikh with a turban on my head and a long beard on my chin, I deal with my fair share of racist and xenophobic harassment regularly, including in my home of New York City, the most diverse city on the planet. It usually takes the form of someone yelling or perhaps mumbling at me: Osama bin Laden/terrorist/al Qaeda/he's going to blow up the [insert location]/go back to your country/etc. Less often, someone might threaten me, get in my face, or in one case, pull off my turban on the subway.
My experience is not terribly unique for a turban-wearing Sikh in the United States. Especially since 9/11, we Sikhs have become all too familiar with racial epithets, bullying and violence. Just last month, a gurdwara in Michigan was vandalized with hostile anti-Muslim graffiti. Last year, in what we can assume was a hate attack, two elderly Sikh men were shot and killed while taking an evening walk in a quiet neighborhood in Elk Grove, Calif.
Many talk about the prevalence of anti-Sikh attacks as a case of "mistaken identity." Sikhs mistaken for Muslims. Indeed, we are by and large attacked because of anti-Muslim bigotry. The Michigan gurdwara was targeted for that reason, and most of us who experience racist harassment as Sikhs in the U.S. experience it through the vilification of Muslims and/or Arabs.
Ironically, many Sikhs themselves vilify Muslims or at least distance themselves from the Muslim community at every possible opportunity. I remember in the days, weeks and months after 9/11, the first thing out of the mouths of many Sikhs when talking to the press, to politicians or even to their neighbors was, "We are not Muslims." While this is of course a fact, the implication of the statement if it stops there is: You're attacking the wrong community. Don't come after us, go after the Muslims! Sikhs believe in equality and freedom and love our country and our government. But Muslims? We don't like them either.
The roots of anti-Muslim sentiment in the Sikh community run deep in South Asia, from the days of the tyranny of Mughal emperors such as Aurangzeb in the 17th century to the bloodshed in 1947 when our homeland of Punjab was sliced into two separate nation-states. Despite these historical realities, Sikhism has always been clear that neither Muslims as a people nor Islam as a religion were ever the enemy. Tyranny was the enemy. Oppression was the enemy. Sectarianism was the enemy. In fact, the Guru Granth Sahib, our scriptures that are the center of Sikh philosophy and devotion, contains the writings of Muslim (Sufi) saints alongside those of our own Sikh Gurus. Nevertheless, historical memory breeds misguided hostility and mistrust of Muslims, especially in the contemporary global context of ever-increasing, mainstream Islamophobia.
What is it going to take for Sikhs and Muslims to join together in solidarity against the common enemies of racist harassment and violence, racial and religious profiling, and Islamophobic bigotry? Perhaps the recently exposed NYPD spying program (along with the "education" officers have received about Islam) will serve as a wake up call to my community (and other communities for that matter) about how bad things have really gotten. While we Sikhs confront bigotry on a daily basis from our neighbors, classmates, co-workers, employers and strangers on the street, our Muslim American counterparts are systematically targeted by our own government. (I should note that, of course, Sikhs too are profiled by law enforcement in less repressive, though still troubling, ways, especially at airport security).
Sikhism was born hundreds of years ago in part to stand up for the most oppressed and fight for the freedom and liberation of all people. If this isn't reason enough for us to make the cause of rooting out Islamophobia from the NYPD and other law enforcement and government agencies our own, we only have to return to the bleak reality we Sikhs in the U.S. still face right now in 2012. A time when gurdwaras are still vandalized with anti-Muslim statements, Sikh kids are still being bullied and tormented at school every day, and I am called Osama bin Laden while walking down a Manhattan street for the 258th time (no I'm not counting).
"We are not Muslims" hasn't been so effective for our community, has it? Even if we do so in a positive way that does not condone attacks on Muslims, simply educating the public about the fact that we are a distinct community and that we in fact "are not Muslim" will not get to the root of the problem. As long as we live in a country (and world) where an entire community (in this case, Muslims) is targeted, spied on and vilified, we will not be safe, we will not be free.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his letter from a Birmingham jail in 1963, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
I hope the NYPD's blatant assault on the civil rights of our Muslim sisters and brothers propels us Sikhs as well as all people of conscience to action. Perhaps "We are not Muslims" will become "We are all Muslims," as we come together to eradicate Islamophobic bigotry in all its forms.
Jihad Al-Jabban: NYPD, Muslims Are Americans Too
THIS SHOUD BE DONE IN EVEYR COUNTRY EVRY CITY AND SIKH LEADERS SHOULD TAKE THE LEAD ITS HIGH TIME WE MAKE PEOPPLE AWRAE ABOUT THIS RELIGION.. MAY BE WE PUT ADS IN NEWS PAEPRS/ CHANNELS ON USE NET AS A MEDIA BUT THIS SHOULD BE DONE.. MORE WE MAKE WORLD AWARE OF SIKHIMS MMORE WE GET ACCPTED...
The overwhelmingly greater part of the oppressiveness of Islam falls on its own unfortunate followers. I oppose Islam with all my power, not because it endangers or oppresses me personally, but because I know it endangers and oppresses Muslims. Do I suffer from any "phobia?" No. I merely suffer from a sense of decency, and compassion for those who are victimized by their own religion.
It just goes to show you how arbitrary hatred can be; you ignore those who are part of the in-group (whites), but target those who are part of the out-group (Sikhs, Christian Arabs, etc.). Sometimes I think that Islamophobia is better labeled racism towards Arab/central Asian young males.
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dream on sarabrally. because you have an experience with being overlooked as a threat (whatever that means) because you are white, does not equate islamophobia. muslims, white, black, or in between, have earned the right to be scrutinized. they create havoc on a global scale. i'm sorry for you that you converted. how you can follow the teachings of a man that would put you, as a women, as a 3rd class citizen, call you less intelligent than a man, treat you as a sex slave if you were captured... well, do you really understand what is in the koran? are you really aware of the hatred towards jews, expecially, the koran teaches? if so, that is even more baffling. sheep muslim are.. sheep.
How do we as a species begin to connect heart to heart? Its so important because we only cause harm through discrimination and many times discrimination is based on false information.
May Peace Prevail. May Love Prevail.
“It is difficult to be called a Muslim; if one is truly a Muslim, then he may be called one.
First, let him savor the religion of the Prophet as sweet; then, let his pride of his possessions be scraped away.
Becoming a true Muslim, a disciple of the faith of Mohammed, let him put aside the delusion of death and life.
As he submits to God’s Will, and surrenders to the Creator, he is rid of selfishness and conceit.
And when, O Nanak, he is merciful to all beings, only then shall he be called a Muslim.”
The writings of the 10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, also make Sikhism’s stance explicitly clear; they also emphasise the importance of recognising our common identity as human beings:
“Someone calls himself a Hindu, another a Turk, someone a Shia, another a Sunni. Recognise the whole of humanity as one race…..
He the One is the only God of us all: it is His Form, His Light that is diffused in all…..
The temple or the mosque are the same, the Hindu worship or the Muslim prayer are the same; all humans are the same, it is through error they appear different…..it is the one God who created all.
The Hindu God and the Muslim God are the same; let no man even by mistake suppose there is a difference.”
Would you be able to provide any info to help me locate where these verses are found. I would like to put them in my blog and give the info for people to find it in the SGGS.
I love the Sikh Names for God such as SatNam and especially Waheguru. .There are some beautiufl Waheguru chants around. There are so many Beautiful Names of God in all the different religions.
Blessed be & Peace be with you.
The first series of verses is from page 141 of the Guru Granth Sahib. The final version of the scriptures was compiled by Guru Gobind Singh.
The second series of verses is from Guru Gobind Singh's own separate writings, in this case known as the Akal Ustat. Translations of the full text are available online.
Thank you for your very kind words about Sikhism. Peace be with you too.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.
Indeed. The Guru Granth Sahib contains literally hundreds of verses from hymns and religious poetry originally written by Sufi Muslim saints; the scriptures also repeatedly use Islamic names for God, as Sikhism teaches that there is only one God and makes it explicitly clear that the God of Islam and the God of Sikhism are therefore one and the same.
The foundation stone of Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, was also laid by a Sufi Muslim saint (Mian Mir) upon the invitation of the Sikh Guru at the time. The architecture of the Golden Temple itself symbolises the inherent equality & unity of mankind irrespective of people’s religious affiliation and irrespective of the name they call God by; Muslims and Allah are explicitly included. One of the later Sikh Gurus even had a mosque built for the Muslims who’d settled in the town he’d founded in Punjab; the mosque (known as “Guru-ki-Maseet”) was recently renovated via a major joint Sikh-Muslim project in India.
I believe that I am truest to my faith when I care as much about the faith of others as my own. If I embrace the others, I am true to my own. May we all become lovers not haters.
It makes no sense to say things like "my God is not your God" because the Truth is the Truth regardless of our disagreements about the Truth, the Source of all being.
Shall
Love
All
Mankind
Peace be with you...from another queer Muslim activist. Small world, eh? :)
Peace be with you. Peace be with us all.