|
The Denver Post featured an article by a
regular columnist, Pius Kamau, in which Kamau slandered Hindu American
neighbors in his hometown in Colorado for his memories from colonial
Africa. Eliciting decades old animosities, Kamau wrote a defamatory
and highly inaccurate rant against Hindu tenets and Hindu ways of
worship. The HAF legal staff and media response team communicated
directly with the editorial board and declaimed their publishing such
a column. The Denver Post printed a comprehensive response written by
HAF on Monday, May 3, 2004.
May 3, 2004
Dear Editor:
The Hindu American Foundation
is distressed over the blatantly xenophobic and anti-Hindu,
hateful words published in The Denver Post on April 28, 2004
(“A history of racial tension” by Pius Kamau).
That The Denver Post abandoned editorial responsibility and
printed the overt bigotry of an individual is a tragedy indeed.
In a shocking display of
unconcealed prejudice, Dr. Kamau, it seems, set out to vilify
and humiliate physicians of Indian and Hindu descent that
have recently sought to provide medical care in his community.
While we sympathize with Dr. Kamau’s personal sense
of frustration with racial tensions in East Africa and America,
we find it unconscionable to blame the bigotry of a few on
Hinduism—the third largest religion in the world and
a spiritual tradition that has embraced diversity and pluralism
through its long history. The unfortunate racial tensions
that Dr. Kamau alludes to are more the legacy of political
manipulations of race dating back to colonial times than biases
inherent to Hinduism. Further, that he qualifies the brutal
repression and ethnic cleansing of Indians who had lived in
Uganda for generations, as an understandable “expression”
of anger and envy by the dictator Idi Amin, is an abominable
justification of the actions of a tyrant.
As Dr. Kamau admits, Indians
and Africans were marginalized under European colonial rule;
and one wonders if he blames the Christianity practiced by
those Europeans for the subjugation he suffered. And if the
“past bubbles up” every time Dr. Kamau passes
an Indian American physician in Aurora—does he also
see a colonial master in the gaze of his white colleagues?
While Mr. Kamau may find
“Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Krishna and other Hindu gods
unconvincing,” a billion Hindus worldwide revere these
deities as manifestations of God. Hinduism views the Universe
as a family, as articulated in an ancient Sanskrit hymn: “Vasudhaiva
kutumbakam.” That individuals discriminate against others
on the basis of race or caste is not a reflection of Hindu
scripture and philosophy but a contradiction of the very essence
of Hinduism. Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi were not
aberrations among Hindus but true ambassadors of the Hindu
ethos of universal love and compassion. Sadly, Dr. Kamau,
in his continued embrace of 30-year-old hatreds and bitterness
from another continent, has failed to embrace the values of
tolerance and pluralism valued in his adopted land—the
United States of America.
It is unfortunate that in
protesting the bigotry of others, Dr. Kamau has demonstrated
an equally undeserved prejudice against Indians, Hindus and
Hinduism. Dr. Kamau’s brand of flagrant anti-Hindu sentiments,
combined with the polarization of a post-9/11 world, promotes
the unfortunate reality of frequent hate-crimes against Hindus
today. The Denver Post should have utilized its editorial
prerogative to prevent dissemination of such hate-filled fulminations.
Sincerely,
Aditi Banerjee, Member,
Executive Council
Aseem R. Shukla, M.D., Member, Board of Directors
Hindu American Foundation Hindu American Foundation
|
