the way the media/establishment deals with Hindus and Muslims

[cocacolamonster]

We're now into the second and third generations in the UK, and generally the Muslim and Hindu communities have remained as two seperate concepts, but the media is still dealing with ethnic relations among South Asians as if the communities shouldn't exists - mostly as if the Hindus are being Islamophobic and the Muslims are the underdog.

In Sri Lanka, where the Hindus and Muslims are identical to their Indian counterparts, the two have explicitly desired to remain two seperate offical ethnicities even into women and gays due to cultural issues. A similar situation exists, albeit informally, throughout large tracts of India where the governent informally treated the two groups as two ethnicities (notbaly all of South India).

I don't really identify with most of Muslim culture. Racism nowadays is also far worse between Hindus and Muslims, than between Hindus and whites or Hindus and Blacks. Even the majority of 'assimilated' Muslim communities in the UK don't mix with Hindus because we live in different areas usually.

The anti Muslim sentiment on this thread is appalling. It's very upsetting.

Nominced, all religions have passages which make for dubious reading. It's not balanced to single out the Qur'an in isolation. I refer you to Revelations in the bible and the way dalits have been treated for centuries. It's shockingly cruel and entirely supported by Hindu religion.

As for the assimilation point - well, what of it? Since when has that been the yardstick of worth? I don't even agree that it's true that Muslims integrate less than Hindus. It is absolutely not true for my mother's family, where there are many mixed marriages.

When you go to India it's very obvious who is Muslim and who is Hindu. Muslims are obviously the poorer, living in conditions which are not totally dissimilar (though not identical) to how jews were in medieval Europe.

And this: "Nearly every single rags to riches Indian / Ugandan story is on account of Hindus. There is no ‘Indian’ academic overachievement - there is Hindu overachievement with Indian Muslim communities not doing as well." Well, nice try, sunshine. How about looking at the actual evidence? There is a large, very successful and wealthy community of Muslims in east Africa. My mother's family being one of them. We didn't ride on anyone's coat tails, my mother and her siblings were successful simply because they were better than the competition. Their childhood friends (muslims) have similar stories. I'm yet to meet any family anywhere, or any Hindu for that matter, who has been more successful academically than my mother's family.

I also can't believe that there is still this idea that Muslims are invaders and aren't really Indian. It's certainly not what the Indian authorities think, who judge them to be Indian and provide them with Indian passports. India is an extremely diverse country, those Muslims have every right to consider India their home as much as a Hindu. After all, they were born and live there. Anything else is just dog whistle racism in my opinion (which this thread has a lot of).

I know I know as a historian I am just appalled. And just the whole lumping together of ‘Muslims!’ As if the South Asian Ismailis of East Africa and the Somalian refugees and the mill workers who came from Bangladesh and the Iranians who fled the Revolution are really all just defined by that one thing- Islam. Sheesh.

@maxthemartin

"One could do the same by careful selection of Biblical passages too."

Yes. You could very easily. I'm nearly equally opposed to other religions too and post accordingly when they're discussed.

As I said a couple of posts ago

"I think Islam is the worst of the Abrahamic religions but all religion is evil and over the course of history, most religions have had their own evil 'peaks'. I'm anti-religion, not anti-Muslim."

I think there's a very interesting debate to be had about which religion is the most evil but not about whether religion (or one in particular) is evil.

I don't think passages from the Koran, Torah or Bible need to be carefully selected to show their evilness. You're more likely than not to open a random page and recoil in horror!

Why is my view distorted though?

In my experience in several countries on different continents the Muslim population is not integrated and there is violence done by them as they try to create their separate Islamic state - as the Koran says they should.

I think individuals or small groups can be evil and do evil things but for mass evil it takes religion.

@EyeSaidTheFly

I'm sorry you're upset but I can't see any unfair anti-Muslim sentiment.
There is nothing wrong with being anti-religion and I'm delighted that the inability to criticise or question religion is being eroded note it's something that Islam clings on to dearly

"all religions have passages which make for dubious reading. It's not balanced to single out the Qur'an in isolation. "

The Koran preaches against integration which is pertinent here. The Koran thinks it is a totalitarian final and absolute solution for society.

"Dubious"? I said "fucking frightening!" A little worrying that you would call chopping the heads off non-believers "dubious"!

We aren't balancing and comparing the evil of different religions. This is a much narrower discussion.

"As for the assimilation point - well, what of it? Since when has that been the yardstick of worth?"

You have replaced 'integration' with 'assimilation'. I think integration into society is wonderful for all involved.

bring (people or groups with particular characteristics or needs) into equal participation in or membership of a social group or institution

Small insular communities is a sad state of affairs. That doesn't mean becoming a homogenous blob but understanding your surroundings and others and participating toward the greater good.

I've found it can take enormous effort to integrate and understand the culture you have moved into but I'm yet to find it unrewarding. I've also spent a year living in a foreign country, surrounding myself with people from my own culture and 'group'. I consider it a waste of a year in what was probably an amazing country and society.

@KoshaMangsho

"are really all just defined by that one thing- Islam."

Not defined. As you say, they're a very diverse group spread across the world so we should expect different socio-behaviours. However, there are some things which appear to be common. Not geography. Not a shared society. Not even a shared culture.

What is it that they have in common?

And just one more time, I would have very, very similar thoughts if you replace Islam in a topic with any other well-known religion.

They DON’T have anything in common. That’s my point. The Ismailis and the Somalis and the Bangladeshis don’t pray the same way, don’t have the same wedding rituals, don’t eat the same food, speak the same language or observe the same rituals. This is exactly my point.

Nominced the point I made is that you are unbalanced in your criticism of religion. For all that you state you're against all religion, you've only criticised Muslims in this thread. I dont say that you aren't justified in your criticism, or that you aren't allowed to have a view.

For example, you have failed to mention the rather salient fact that Hindus aren't even supposed to touch each other (let alone non Hindus) for fear of contamination. I'd have thought this was very relevant for your point about so called Hindu assimilation/integration, if you were truly interested in posting a balanced view.

@eyesaid - the ‘no touching’ thing isn’t religious and it isn’t Hindu. In fact the holiest most sacred thing a person can do as part of the Hindu religion is touch / wash someone else’s feet. So you don’t know the facts either

Glug44, it may not be in the holy books but it's just not true that no touching has nothing to do with Hindu practice. It's a huge part of the way most Indian Hindus lead their lives. I'd love to see a Brahmin wash a dalit's feet.

I'm not trying to get onto a slanging match between the respective demerits of Muslims and Hindus. The point is that it's stupid, and hurtful, and untrue to generalise about huge groups of people in this way, to pick out the most unpleasant parts of their religion in isolation and suggest that every practising individual ascribes to that.

That was, I thought, part of the point of this thread. That the media plays a part in exacerbating the tensions by ascribing crass generalisations to individuals. Shame so many posters here go along with it.

Fascinating thread. Thanks op for starting it. From my experience (ie, i dont know every hindu/ muslim in the world), i find the indian muslims i know dont follow the dietary and alcohol and dress restrictions that a good % of pakistani muslims do follow. The ones i know view the western ways as the best and ones to aspire to. and are quite sneery towards more conservative ways of following the religion. And to marry a white english person/ white western european person is quite an aspirational thing, as in "arent we so modern?". Im a born and bred british muslim

The anti Muslim sentiment on this thread is appalling. It's very upsetting
Not half as bad as the anti Christian sentiment on so many threads. But nobody ever seems to notice or point it out. Why is it upsetting though, many people hate Islam obviously, same as many hate Christianity.

@KoshaMangsho

I'll add a few things and read through the thread later on. It's to note that there's widespread agreement throughout the Sri Lankan community in Europe that the worst/majority of racism now comes from 'Muslims'.

1. The Sri Lankan Civil War was an ethnolingustic conflict that started during a time of ethnolingustic nationalism throughout South India, but this issue is mostly dead now and Islamophobia is far more common on the island. I actually find that western left-wing news outlets appear to stoke the flames regarding the Civil War and find problems where they don't exist - trying to create more tension between Tamils and Sinhalese. (e.g. classic example of left-wing stirring up racism). The majority of Tamils are now where near the political viewpoints expressed in The Guardian.

2. Two of my best friends back from school are Sikhs. I know a gay Sikh too. They always use the term 'Sikh' as an ethnicity in a similar manner to how Muslims down South do too. I presume the government there also treats Sikhs as an ethnicity. Furthermore, if the government of India had treated Muslims and Hindus as two ethnicities, then the partition may have not happened because the Muslims would not have felt that they needed to seperate to be represented (though note that the partition isn't widely discussed in the south).

3. There are now some massive socioeconomic differences between Hindus and Muslims in the UK (this stretches into the Sri Lankans too), with the two communities mostly living in different areas, with widely varying viewpoints on things like immirgration and domestic economic policy. As an example, a disabled person in the Hindu community can be given material support by their parents or family, whereas a Muslim person would have nowhere to turn to but Labour.

I'm up at odd hours at night and may not make sense but some of the replies in here make less sense and I'm shocked.
My dad is from India and came to the UK many years ago. He's Muslim and his best friend is Hindu. They go back years from the time they worked in a factory when they came to the UK. This included white and black ethnicities and he's friendly with all of them.
Shock horror, my dad's daughter wears a veil. It was a suprise to my dad but he's come round to it because maybe we identify with our faith more but doesn't make us less integrated. My brother works in one of the London councils, some of his work includes helping people with housing benefit, finding fraudulent claims etc and he has a big old beard.
My dad has said when I've asked him about india, that there are people who are really stuck in old times. The village he comes from is fine, Muslims and Hindus get along well however this is India, where there is so much backward thought eg daughter in law's having no status in their families, which doesn't come from Islam at all but there's also a huge surge in being more modern or forward or getting rid of backward culture.

The world should progress as a whole but yet even us, living in the UK, can make silly judgemental comments about different things.

The truth is that those who commit a crime should pay for it, not the entire community and of course they shouldn't be let free. A crime of one or 10 Hindus should not represent all Hindus and the same for every other religion, ethjnicty etc.

My brother recently went Sri Lanka and he had the best holiday of his life. When he came back that's when the trouble started. He said it is such a beautiful country with beautiful people.

Also the village my dad comes from in India is one where the Muslims tend to have their own houses etc and they have Hindu 'helpers' who basically do the chores. However they don't treat them like servants/slaves but treat them as family. My grandma looks after their kids etc and is closer to them than us and technically takes care of all of their needs too.

I cannot take seriously anyone who says that wearing a face veil doesn't make a person less integrated. The very purpose of a veil is to separate - physically, emotionally and socially. How can anyone connect with a faceless voice? You may have a British self-identity but that doesn't mean you are integrated. You probably were once but now you are segregating yourself.

Wearing a 'big old beard' or a hijab or an abaya need not affect integration. Wearing a veil is different. It's like putting an outstretched palm in front of you, and saying loudly, 'Stop! You will communicate with me on my terms.' No give and take. No warmth.

Having said that, the Indian punitive dowry system with its associated violence, poverty and female infanticide disgusts and infuriates me like few other things. Women have a poorer societal position in most countries, but one area where the importance of women is usually recognised is that of marriage and children as traditionally you couldn't have a marriage without women, or children.

I did read an account in Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's book, 'Mixed Feelings' that some British Hindus had started to be pleased and relieved to hear of their daughters' plans to marry white men, as that would spare them the crippling dowry payments.

Unbelievable . Someone just posted a piece about an 8-year old girl who was raped by Hindus and you lot are carrying on like it does not matter. Shame on you!

I don't honestly think the media is looking out of Indians in that it's primarily obsessed with Muslims - both in India (left-wing media established during British rule) and the UK. I notice that the majority of western media is more obsessed with the integration of Muslims than racism against Indians.

The media in the UK still treats Muslims as being the underdog despite glossing over the socioeconomic issues that affect Muslims, but concurrently generally avoid and overlook racism issues that affect Hindus/Sikhs/Buddhists - particularly if the racism issue is between us and Muslims.

The worst aspects of the media are journalists who seek to empower Muslims by finding issues where Muslims do better than Hindus. Would you feel comfortable complaining about racism to a newspaper who publishes material in a way that seeks to make Muslims look better against Hindus?

As an example, a disabled person in the Hindu community can be given material support by their parents or family, whereas a Muslim person would have nowhere to turn to but Labour.

Your right wing, Islamophobic posts are laughable but this little titbit was particularly shitty.

Why are you so sure that some Muslims don't give their disabled family member material support? Why assume that all Hindus support their disbaled relatives? That's so racist and vile.

I just can't take anything you post seriously.

@Lacucuracha

The left-wing does provide ethnic/racial support for Muslims so there's no point complaining about racial generalisations. It's also widely common for Muslims to receive affirmative action too.

Eih? From whom? Where? In India certainly most affirmative action programs are caste based and benefit Hindus.

@kosha - India’s Muslim / Christian issues are also caste issues. The whiter skinned upper / medium class Muslims / Christians who converted from medium / uppper Hindu castes don’t face the same discrimination as the dalits who converted. So it’s highly complex.

For example Muslim Patels take advantage of the same AA schemes, where available, as Hindu Patels; and even private education charities don’t discriminate between the two.

Nominced, all religions have passages which make for dubious reading. It's not balanced to single out the Qur'an in isolation. I refer you to Revelations in the bible and the way dalits have been treated for centuries. It's shockingly cruel and entirely supported by Hindu religion.
yes but only 1 believe their holy book is the direct word of god

Hinduism isn't really a religion though. And in terms of ethnic divisions based on religious culture, this concept is still widely followed by most Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. South Indian Muslims also seem to agree.

The worst aspects of the media are journalists who seek to empower Muslims by finding issues where Muslims do better than Hindus.

I've never seen this. Can you post some examples with links?

I wouldn't say that caste has a huge reason to play in this. Most of the Indians in the UK came from poorer backgrounds but worked their way into good jobs.

Sri Lankans and Indians are both mainly doing well socioeconomically, where as Muslims from throughout South Asia are doing poorly socioeconomically.

Anyway, the caste system is highly cultural in South India, whereas it's completely cultural in Sri Lanka, just as Hinduism originally intended.

Sorry to see that this shitty, vile thread has been resurrected.