On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:59 PM, . <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Zainab Bawa <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Not really so. In Bangalore, a Belgian friend of mine was told that she > > would be allowed to take up the place only if she promised to stay > > vegetarian. Another American friend in Mumbai, married and with kids, was > > refused housing on grounds of vegetarianism. > > Assuming that your Belgian and American friends are not Muslim, the > claim that its a plot to keep out the whole Muslim community does not > stand. It seems like an individual's bias about who should live in his > private property. Should he be hauled to jail for that? I dont think > so. He is just yet another narrow-minded person I'd would rather avoid > even if the property was rent-free. Its also a misnomer that "all > Hindus are vegetarian" which is more of individual choice or a > family's choice in some cases, but definitely not a religious one. > Religion per se is not evil, rather its the people who use (any) > religion to control and grab power or dictate terms to others that are > the root of the problem. What happened to your friends (and you) are > an individual's bias and by stretching that line of logic I can think > of gazillion personal instances when I have been discriminated against > on the basis of my gender, age, nationality, skin color, religion, > .... I happen to know a Sikh family who are staunch vegetarians and > would not wish to mingle or marry a person different from them. I > also know Jains who eat meat outside the house but toe the line and > would not dare risk offending the better half (or his parents) by even > mentioning "chicken tikka or kebab" at home. > > And yet, stretching that line of reasoning and argument is a scary > double-edged sword, as in, any women could easily take offence at any > matrimonial sites because they encourage Indian men to advertise for a > bride thus : "Male, 31 yrs, 5'10" very fair (brown-skin is so not > metro-sexual when you have skin-whitening products for men modeled by > the Badshah of Bollywood himself), handsome, highly educated > Phd/Engineer/Doctor/add education, add religion (category, subcaste no > bar. Wow, a broad-minded bloke !) seeks a mutually compatible > accomplished (read, willing to be my lifelong unpaid housemaid who > will provide sex-at-my-command) educated/working (another unsaid > euphemism for dowry in monthly installments) bride. The opposite is > also true but they dont sound very logical to me. Would it be > illogical and unfair to label every Indian male who advertises his > personal preferences as a racist and chauvinistic pig or claim that > "ALL men are rapists" because the proportion of men who rape is more > than the opposite ; which does seem like stretching logic a wee bit > too much for half the world's population being discriminated against, > if numbers count. > > Does'nt discrimination start the moment we divide, classify and > sub-classify things, people, animals, [add your poison of choice], > along various criteria? Being "different" is a form of discrimination > too but the last I heard, the politically correct name was > "diversity". In a biological sense, each of us is uniquely different, > if DNA matters. > > -- > . > > And also, I am not an advocate of regulations to curb discrimination. As has been pointed out in some of the postings, biases and prejudices are very deep seated. Applying regulations can be counter-productive in the sense of increasing the antagonism. Neither do I believe that the market will solve the problem. Some pretty radical dislocations are required i.e. traditions and paradigms that challenge the hegemonic beliefs of religion, identity and property.
-- Zainab Bawa Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher Between Places ... http://zainab.freecrow.org
