Identity and Non Violence

Letter to the Editor of Asian Voice
Published: 27 September 2008, page 4.

Dear Editor

Common thread of violent deeds and instigations

In the last Asian Voice issue (20 Sept), I read several articles that had a common thread of violent behaviour in thought word or deed on the basis of religious identity: 

• Christians or Maoists killing Swami Laxmananda and his four disciples on the holy day of Janmastami on 23 August 2008 (p11);

• Indian Mujahideen claiming responsibility of 5 Delhi serial bomb blasts killing 30 innocent people last Saturday during holy Ramadan (p1);

• Fatwa issued against Salman Khan’s family for celebrating Ganeshotsav at their home (p29); 

• Yorkshire Coast College changing their college calendar from the terminology “Christmas and Easter breaks” to “End of Term breaks” ostensibly in a bid to avoid offending students from other religions (p7). 

All of us tend to identify ourselves by the society we live in, our culture, our religious and other values and beliefs, our civilisation, etc. There is nothing wrong with that. However, when good relations among different human beings are identified in this singular way to the exclusion of other ways, human beings are deeply miniaturized and deposited into little boxes.

We must realise that all of us have multiple or plural identities. For example, I was born into a Hindu/Jain family in Sudan, a Muslim country. I was educated there by Italian Catholic missionaries (age of 8 to 18). Then I worked up to age 25 at the U S Embassy in Khartoum under Jewish or Protestant bosses. For interests, I went to the British cultural centre to learn Scottish country dancing and to the British Council to watch or take part in plays, such as Dial M for Murder, Importance of Being Ernest, etc.

I never saw people only as Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Buddhists, etc. Again, I never saw them solely as Italian, American, Arab, Indian, etc. Rather I saw how interesting they were as friends, colleagues, fellow sports players, or other hobbies and interests. 

My best ACCA studies friend was El Hadi El Gibriel who worked at the Ministry of Finance and we studied accountancy together in the evenings. After 40 years, I visited Khartoum in February 2007 and looked him up. He still remembered me and invited me to go to his six two-bedroom block of flats residence on the Tuti Island. This island is right in the middle of the confluence of the White and Blue Nile in Khartoum. The two rivers came from Uganda and Tanzania, joined as one river near the Tuti Island. It proceeded to Egypt from there as one river called the Nile. The view from over the bridge of the confluence was magnificent: blue colour water meeting grey colour water.

He took out a photograph of mine I had gifted to him 40 years ago within 15 minutes of our meeting from about 100 photos he had kept in a Cadburys chocolate round tin box. There were tears in our eyes and we embraced each other. His two wives and six daughters live there in the six flats. The younger wife cooked fresh lunch for both of us. Our only relation was two students helping each other in their studies.

This photograph, with my own handwriting dated on the back, is attached as a living proof of this encounter. I left for UK in that same month of September 1967.

My plea to all fellow human beings is let us embrace all races and all religions and all cultures and open up our minds and enjoy the diversity rather than use it to blow each other up. All including even the Taliban have the right to live and breathe on this planet and no one, I repeat, no one, can take this right away from them. It is the Khyber Pass rather than Taliban that has been of geopolitical interest in Afghanistan since forth century BC when Alexander the Great discovered that route. Then it was Arabs in the seventh century and Jengis Khan in the thirteenth century, followed by the British, then Russians and now Americans.

We now live a global village. All of us have plural identities. Should we not see other human beings in different ways according to the circumstances?

Oscar Wilde once made the enigmatic claim “Most people are other people”. 

With suitable instigation, a fostered sense of identity with one group of people can be made into a powerful weapon to brutalise another. Actively promoted sectarian hatreds can spread like wildfire. 

All people involved in the above four incidents should read economist and Nobel Prize Laureate Amartya Sen’s recent book called “Identity and Violence – The Illusion of Destiny”: they may stop their violent actions in thought, word and deed and embrace other people.

Nagin Khajuria FCCA

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