Why are Sikhs targeted by anti-Muslim extremists?

[Judi Lynn]

Why are Sikhs targeted by anti-Muslim extremists?

The shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin is just the most recent example of members of the religion being singled out for violence and abuse

Emine Saner
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 August 2012 15.00 EDT

"It's a common thing," says Balvinder Kaur Saund, a Labour councillor for the London Borough of Redbridge and chair of the Sikh Women's Alliance, "to walk through an estate in [some parts of east London] and young boys throw stones and shout 'Taliban' at you. I have seen that myself." She was once with a man – a Sikh who wore a turban – when some youths shouted "Osama" at him. "I wanted to retaliate but he said 'Just ignore it and carry on walking'." She thinks many more incidents go unreported.

The terrible events in Wisconsin at the weekend, where a gunman shot dead six people at a gurdwara, is an extreme, and thankfully rare, attack, but there are numerous instances of Sikhs being targeted in the US and the UK. The first victim of a backlash against Muslims in America after 9/11 was Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh who was shot dead. There have been other physical attacks on people, and on gurdwaras. In March this year in the US, a letter was sent to a Sikh family – addressed to the "Turban Family" – claiming to know they had links to the Taliban. Mitt Romney, potentially the next president of the US, twice referred to Sikhs as "sheikhs" in expressing his condolences over the temple shooting.

After the London bombings in 2005, a gurdwara in Kent was firebombed, and another in Leeds. After 9/11, former Metropolitan police officer Gurpal Virdi remembers: "I dealt with a lot of complaints – we had attacks on individuals, even on women. When it happened, I was going around stations to tell the officers the differences between the Taliban and a Sikh because they didn't know either. And this is London, a multicultural area. It doesn't help when they kept showing images of [Osama Bin Laden] and in the UK, it's the Sikhs who wear a turban."

And then there are the everyday occurrences witnessed by Balvinder Kaur Saund, where Sikh men in particular are eyed suspiciously, as if they are proud members of al-Qaida.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/08/sikhs-targeted-anti-muslim-extremists

[phantom power]

1. Didn't surprise me for a couple reasons

Firstly, Sikhs look more or less like any bigot's idea of what a muslim looks like. turbines, beards, brown skin...

Secondly, particularly in the case of Wade Page, it seems to me like it hardly matters. The fact that they might be Sikhs, or Muslims, or Jews, or anything else wouldn't matter to a white supremecist nearly as much as what they weren't: they weren't white, or protestant.

[physioex]

2. Well said...EOM

[Fawks121]

3. So true

Thank you for saying it. A white supremacist doesn't discriminate...(sorry, use logical judgement to distinguish between groups of people) when it comes to their expressions of hate. They hate brown skin, wore certain clothes etc....as phantom power said....there is no logic in racism, sexism, whatever...it has everything to do with a perception of reality that is skewed and filled with venom.

[Adsos Letter]

6. "...wouldn't matter to a white supremecist nearly as much as what they weren't..."

Amen.

Like Red Rider sang in "Lunatic Fringe:"

'Cause you gotta blame someone
For your own confusion

[Zoeisright]

4. Because they're stupid.

Anyone who doesn't look like a redneck is the enemy to those brainless wimps.

[Igel]

5. Familiarity and the ability to distinguish differences that aren't very familiar.

It's like my Latino students who assume that I'm "English" when I say that almost all my ancestors were Irish.

They figure they're the same thing. Irish, English, British, French. Whatever.

Pakistani and Indian are also the same. And to distinguish Korean and Japanese and Chinese and Vietnamese ... Not only is it impossible, it's also unimportant.

But call a Mexican-American a Salvadoran-American, or confuse either of the cuisines with Hondoran, and, well, you're an unmitigated racist.

The Latino students call me "anglo" and I respond by calling them "Spanish." "But the Spanish killed our ancestors." "Of course. And you think the English were nice to the Irish?" The drive for relevance, it seems, has precluded the abilty to know about anything not immediately or personally relevant.

However, they have a lack of experience on their side. Not knowing isn't the problem. Being unwilling to know, that's the problem.