“O God! The world is aflame, save it by Thy Grace.
Save it, by whatever portal it may be saved.”
Guru Amar Das, 3rd Sikh Guru
It was fear that fermented into hate, and then invaded the sanctity of the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin this past Sunday. It was the fear of losing white entitlement and majority status, which is magnified by the ever-expanding presence of the brown, black, red, and yellow citizens and immigrants. It is the fear of becoming a minority in America, because everyone knows how our minorities have been violated, abused, used, disregarded, and discarded in ‘the Land of the Free’.
This fear induces , in too many, hate and disgust for the other, the foreign, the non-white, and the non-Christian. Hatred bears bitter and deadly fruit, that in this case took six innocent lives and sent threats of potential violence into thousands upon thousands of religious centers of varying faiths, complexions, and cultures.
This hate is a disease, and though white supremacists may host the most terminal form, let’s not be fooled, this malady is societal. Just imagine who would have had the greatest difficulty going through any U.S. airport security a month ago, white supremacist and now multiple murderer Wade Page or his heroic victim, Sikh Temple President Satwant Singh Kaleka.
Let us not be self-deceptive. Hate has become acceptable in America.It’s okay to hate Iranians, Palestinians, Nigerians, Afghans, Mexicans, North Koreans, Jews, Muslims, and the list goes on.
We use wars to justify hating a whole people and too often call it patriotism.
Wade Page was a product of the American society, but so was Satwant Singh Kaleka. Each one of us must decide which one of them was the authentic American, and if you choose as I think you must, Satwant’s death was not in vain. To our Sikh brothers and sisters, may the Creator of us all pour mercy upon you, sustain you, protect you, reward you, and give the rest of us the strength to join you in the work of rejecting hate, transforming fear, eradicating ignorance, and uplifting humanity wherever we are. Amin
Submitted by Imam Plemon T. El-Amin
Fear destroys the mind, and always leads to anger. Only by letting go of anger, can we hope to alleviate the influence of fear. As a person who is both in the majority (white/male) and the minority (Jew) I pray that everyone come to learn that we have nothing to fear from those who are different, and from those whose communities grow. Thank you Plemon, for reminding us that sometimes, the people who seem “safe” or “patriotic” are actually malevolent enemies, and others, whom we perceive as our enemy or the other, are actually our greatest hope and allies.
Shalom,
Living on a spiritual diet of arrogance, ignorance and hatred is like eating food mixed with glass splinters.
When the temple shooting occurred on the heels of Aurora, I felt such a bleak heaviness inside, especially as people were asking, “What has our world come to?” or “Where is God?” Contrasted with the Aurora victims’ names, the names of the temple victims were unfamiliar, so I sought to learn Sikh and Indian naming conventions, and the meaning of each name (I think Satwant means Truthfulness). I followed curiosity and learned what I could about Sikhism. All of this reduced my ignorance, but nothing mitigated that bleak feeling until I just started to pay it forward — mostly, by being as patient as possible with each person I encountered: the aggressive other driver…the rude grocery clerk…the unthinking friend….Being as patient as possible, even when that other person was stomping on my last nerve, was about the only way to balance out these senseless acts of violence.
I was dismayed to read Imam Plemon T. El-Amin’s interpretation of the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin as evidence that “Hate has become acceptable in America.” The shooter was by all accounts an alcoholic misfit rejected by the army who joined fringe white supremacist hate groups. These groups are so marginalized by their own social and mental dysfunction, they exist on the edges of society. An article on such groups in the AJC Sunday paper mentioned a recent meeting of a “hate band” in a bar in Christmas Florida. Imagine, a group so large that a bar in Christmas , Florida was the venue!
Nevertheless, the Imam believes that white supremacists “host the most terminal form” of hate. He cites as proof, his suspicion that airport security would have given more attention to Sikh travelers than white tattooed men. Humm. He might remember that the level of airport security we have now is a response to 3,000 innocents’ dead on September 11, 2001 and numerous attempts by radical muslims since then to blow up airliners in flight. The degree of care that TSA agents take to treat all passengers as if they were equally likely to be terrorists, is instead, evidence of how far this society will go to avoid disparate treatment.
If it is ok as the Imam says, to “hate Iranians, Palestinians, Nigerians, Afghans, Mexicans, North Koreans, Jews, Muslims…” in this country, name the prominent media outlets, political leaders, schools, that sponsor and broadcast this hate. It is simply not true that “we use wars to justify hating a whole people.” Not only do Americans overwhelming distinguish between the tyrannical, murderous leadership of Iran, North Korean, the the Taliban and al Qaeda, on the one hand and the people of those countries on the other, indeed, they have paid blood and treasure to attempt to free them.
Satwant Singh Kaleka is a hero and a legend!