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White And Western By Pandita Indrani |
August 1-15, 2002: Described as the "Julia Roberts" of the Malayalam movie world in India, visiting Indian megastar, 20 year old, Samyuktha Verma, and her party of seven - all Hindus - evoked American xenophobia in the skies when they were mistaken for Arabic Islamic terrorists. Two fighter jets were called to escort the airplane, American Trans Air, into La Guardia airport on July 17. The family was another statistic in the 400 people questioned by authorities on similar grounds. It seems that the group's physical looks and innocent normal bodily behavior evoked fear in some who believe that see "white and western" as the norm.
I am in full support of high alertness and quite appreciate the need to be discriminating in incidents such as this one, in post 9/11 America. However, I am concerned about the apparent lies that are being proffered by authorities for their decision and the failure of Americans to differentiate between people's identities in an age of globalization.
Alan Hicks of the Port Authority is reported in the NY Times as having said, "at least one passenger perceived the seven to be engaged in suspicious actions." I wonder if it is possible to use less than one person as a statistic. He further notes that passengers observed that the Vermas were "constantly passing notes and switching seats." Lisa Jacobson Brown, of American Trans Air, would only say that they were acting for the safety of passengers.
On the charge of passing notes, Samyuktha denies any such activity, affirming that they had no pens or pencils. In fact, many Indian and Arab looking people come under more scrutiny than other passengers - called racial profiling - and are not even allowed to have pens and pencils on them, while it is okay for white and western looking passengers to do so.
It seems that the Vermas' excitement about visiting the famous New York City, that they spoke in a foreign language, and that they were not "white and western" and the complaint of one passenger, constituted sufficient cause for detaining the family for questioning.
Some members of the party were excitedly pointing at the Statute of Liberty and other landmarks in the night-sky of New York, which can provide an enchanting view, indeed. They took turns at sitting at the window to get a better view, and at one time they were practicing hand movements for the cultural performance that they were to later have in New York.
The Verma party was questioned on their religious persuasion and whether they had visited Pakistan or Afghanistan. An unconnected passenger who looked "Asian," says one newspaper report, was also taken in custody. Though they are upset about the treatment, Ms. Verma said that this would not deter them from enjoying the country. She complimented the police on their cordiality.
Americans cannot differentiate between Hindus and Muslims even when the former wear visible identity marks like bindis (colored dots on the forehead, above the nose bridge), sindoor (red vermillion in the parting of the hair), turbans, beards and moustaches (Muslim men shape their beard in a manner different to that of Hindus), and so on. Even though these visible marks should not be readily used for identifying people, they can serve as an initial signifier.
While many in American academia are busy catering to the propaganda of the Islamic world through the official agendas of Islamic governments, they show little or no concern about peoples and cultures that are being affected and that also need to be understood by Americans. And even when they do venture into studying other cultures, they engage in deliberate acts of distortions sometimes. There are few honest academicians in the field of religion and Asian studies in American academia.
The epithets "South Asian" and "Asian" are highly amorphous ones that do not distinguish between peoples that are as different as Indians and Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis, and Indians and Bangladeshis, for example. In the wake of 9/11 in America, many people of Indian origin, especially Sikhs with their visible turbans and beards that resemble Osama Bin-Laden's, have complained about the racial profiling. Under the "Asian" label, Indians get marginalized and are silenced. It is just too lazy and easy to label peoples and cultures in broad categories that are more damaging to their identity than beneficial.
Furthermore, American academia has a plethora of departments of Islamic Studies funded by Islamic governments, and geared to generating a positive image of their religion and culture; while there are very few chairs in Hindu Studies and Indic Studies, and perhaps none has ever been funded by the Indian government. In America this is how things seem to work. If you pay for the chair then you pay for your image. The studies generated in these departments serve to shape and inform American decision makers - so when the attitude to Hindu and Indic Studies is a negative one then you can well imagine the impact on the American mind in matters related to Hindus and Indians.
It is timely that American academia give honest intellectual treatment to all peoples and cultures of the world, instead of the intellectual dishonesty that now characterizes much of the work that is being done in religion departments here. Money or the lack of it should not determine scholarship.
The case of the Vermas highlights the woeful ignorance of a powerful nation as America, ill-equipped to interact in a global world through its failure to recognize the diversity that makes up the globe. Instead of trying to remake peoples and cultures to fit their manufactured labels, Americans need to show a little more respect for the world's diversity. While, overtly, it looks as if academia are involved in worthwhile religion projects that will help us better understand each other so that harmony prevails, instead, there is a current of subterfuge that defines the research and positions being taken by too many who call themselves scholars. Perhaps, if academia took a more honest approach then many more Americans would cease to see "white and western" as the norm by which the world should live, and which people like the Vermas clearly violate.
Pandita Indrani can be contacted via email: trinindrani@yahoo.com
(Pandita Indrani has been visiting India since 1973, and spent the last 2 years interviewing senior journalists across India for her PhD thesis on educating journalists for the information age. She can be reached at i_rampersad@yahoo.com)