'The colour of hatred'

In the beginning, there were cave fights: over food, shelter and objects. Then came civilisation, the "Age of Reason", the realisation that manwas far superior to other living creatures in one unique way. He was endowed with the powerful tool of intellect, a brain more sophisticated than anything technology can ever beat.

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When man began to share spaces, towns and cities were born. When man began to argue, politics came into being and when prophets were born around the earth, mankind’s other peculiar endowment - religion was born. Crimes were committed, wars have shattered the world. But somehow and over at least this past century, milk went with water, wine with salt, as long as there was mutual respect, it was a matter of personal choice. That freedom of choice, it seems, is a thing of history today. Now, it’s black versus white, Islam versus Christianity versus Hinduism versus Judaism. It’s Democrat versus Republican, BJP versus Congress. But what’s different about today? That it’s either my way or the highway. You are either with us or against us. Choices are yesterday’s news, polarisation is the hallmark of today’s world.

White versus black, Caucasian versus Asian. American civil rights leader Martin Luther King ominously described it as the "starless midnight of racism." Be it in the USA or Japan, in Europe or Africa, in India or China and for all the superior abilities man is endowed with, racial discrimination has run like a bad genetic strain through all societies in the world.

America:

White supremacy has led to horrific crime in the history of North America, yet somewhere down the line, reasoning and rationale did gain the upper hand. Take one of the world’s most famous civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr. His belief was Christianity, his tactics drawn from everywhere. King persisted with civil disobedience till African-Americans and other minorities were granted equal rights in the country. He overturned segregation laws in Georgia and helped organise protests both in Alabama and Washington, where he delivered his most famous speech of all.

"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream," the legendary rights activist declared. "It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal."

Martin Luther King’s repeated civil disobedience movements were successful because he combined his own value system with that of others who inspired him like Mahatma Gandhi. The Mahatma had once remarked that South Africa, where he had lived in his earlier years, would be a "howling wilderness without the Africans". The Ku-Klux-Klan hasn’t gone away, neither have the Nazis in Europe. There were and are descendant groups of both around the world. Tough laws temper their outbursts, the hate they preach is mostly restricted to their paranoid but small folds.

But statistics show that white supremacy in the United States has been on the rise. And not coincidentally, since 2016, making it seem as though divisive statements by President Donald J. Trump, first on campaign trailacted as a reassurance. It began to seem as though under Trump, racists will be able to speak their minds freely and have nothing to fear. Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Residents of a town in Alabama woke up to flyers in November 2016, the day after the United States elected their new president. "Join the only group that has ever stood for the white man", it read. "Black radicals have reverted back to savages", read another.

On the same day, swastikas and pro-Nazi graffiti appeared in Philadelphia. Sprayed inside a boys’ bathroom in a Minnesota school were the following messages: Go back to Africa, whites only, White America and Trump train, "make America great again". Between November 2016when the United States voted for a new presidentand August 2017, there have been more than 450 recorded incidents of unabashed racism directed against Jews, Chinese, Asians – in short, anyone who is not Caucasian.

It would be absurd to lay the resurgence of racism at President Trump’s doorstep alone. The US President’s argument that democracies must allow all including racists to be heard, is a valid point. It’s a successful tactic, the same employed by African-American jazz musician Daryl Davis to neutralise many white supremacistsby engaging or befriending them. But here’s a thought could Trump’s incendiary talk have polarised American society by acting as a magnet to what already lay simmering beneath the genteel surface of the political correctness that has dominated public speech and opinion over the past several decades?

It seemed that way some weeks ago when white supremacists took to the streets in Charlottesville and violence erupted. Significantly, they felt no need to disguise themselves. The masks were off and so were the white hoods. Alec Kerrigan and “Reverend” James Logsdon were enthusiastic participants in Charlottesville. Both spoke to WION’s Andy Roesgen and unsurprisingly, hatred of immigrants from India seems to be the "new normal".

"The problem with races such as Indians entering the country is that they don’t integrate at large", Kerrigan told WION. They build their own communities and don't trust their neighbours and they give less to charity. Wages for software engineers in America would be 10 per cent higher if H-1B visas(given to Indian software engineers) were not implemented. In other words, bringing in highly-skilled immigrants from other countries is bad for the highly-skilled natives.

Racism watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center told WION that Reverend James Logsdon's "Creativity Movement" is neither holy nor creative. It’s nothing but a hate group. Here's what Logsdon told WION.

"Indian immigration is not similar to any other racial group, not Mexicans or Arabic Muslims because Indians don't come here and commit crimes, they don't come here and rape or kill like you see with Mexicans and the worse elements. You have a lot of highly educated Indians in the medical field in America who do benefit our society. But you also have a lot of them who come with degrees that are falsified, education documents that are falsified, they get IT jobs and they're trained by other people who have been here longer to do the jobs properly, essentially getting into the country by lying and taking American jobs."

But why was Logsdon in Charlottesville during the riots? After all, that demonstration had nothing to do with Indian software engineers and all to do with protecting America’s white architectural heritage, statues of erstwhile supremacists.

"No, I personally don’t care about old statues," argued Logsdon. "But I understand what they were fighting for. Imagine for the sake of argument, that political correctness affected all of the people in India and affected the caste system. And they decided that the Hindu system was racist and oppressive and the people pushing political correctness decided that all the statues that honoured their gods and their system were to be forcibly torn down. How would Indians feel about that? This is the type of thing that's happening in America today. They're trying to destroy any semblance of our culture and our history. No matter how you feel about being good or bad, our history is our history. You should not tear those things down, just to make them feel better in their safe spaces."

Europe:

It’s the geographical venue of one of the worst genocides in the history of mankind, the Holocaust under Germany’s Nazis saw 6 million men, women and children murdered. They were not armed separatists, nor criminal mafia. Their biggest crime is that they were born Jewish, not within Europe’s Christian majority. Germany learned its lessons and remains deeply repentant. And yet, rightwing movements are on the rise. There were more than 900 terror attacks by Islamist terror groups in Europe between 2001 and 2017. But that’s not the only reason. There’s also a certain, God-given superiority that colonising forefathers from France, the UK and the Netherlands vested in themselves.

To racist British citizens, all South Asian migrants are "Pakis", to some xenophobic French, northern Africans are "dirty Arabs", to Dutch supremacists, foreign migrants are "scum". The United Kingdom, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain and Francerapaciously exploited North Africa, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia including and especially India. When nations grow more powerful than others off stolen wealth, their citizens feel endowed with divinity. But the recession, unemployment and fiery rhetoric from those who rule or aim to rule, are natural catalysts for polarisation.

Asia:

But is racism restricted to countries where the majority population is white? Not at all. Let’s take a look at South East Asia. Indians have been in Malaysia since medieval times. People of Indian origin constitute 86 per cent of Malaysia’s total population of 31.19 million. Here, it’s brown versus brown. It’s been largely peaceful. And yet, growing radicalisation of the country’s Islamic majority through an alien brand of Wahabi Islam has resulted in growing polarisation. Temples built hundreds of years ago on private land have been demolished. There’s growing religious paranoia and inflammatory rhetoric mainly under Saudi Arabian influence. It has caused a backlash. Hindus are mobilising themselves. Sanjeev Ramakrishnan and his NGO Mywatch, fight against such discrimination.

"There is very clear discrimination in education when the maximum number of seats are given to Malays and next to Chinese. Indians hardly get any seats. Major courses like medicine and law are not given to Indians. I ask why they don’t go on merit? I am a Malaysian and by race I am Indian. But if I bid for a government contract, I must have a Malay partner with a 51 per cent stake in the business. They should surely not award contracts based on race"

Ramakrishnan says this is true of every walk of life in Malaysia. People of different races live peacefully in Malaysia but the people who rule are us are trying to create a divide. Recently in a school, cups for drinking water were separated for Muslims and non-Muslims. We are fighting for the right to live as Malaysian. We are not refugees here, we are not immigrants here. My grandfather came from India but my father was born in Malaysia. So, I think I am rightfully Malaysian. A lot of Indian don’t have citizenship even if they are born here. But more Pakistani and Bangladeshi are now coming to Malaysia and are being given citizenship. Politicians in parliament have said, "if you don’t like Malaysia get out, go back to India."

We are obsessed with fair skin, a hangover of the British Raj when it all started. The belief that the white man, his white skin, must be superior in many ways. It’s strange because, in Hindu mythology, gods like Krishna and Shiva are painted blue. This blue is meant to indicate skin so black that it appears blue. To be dark-skinned in ancient India, was to be beautiful and god-like. But that’s far from the case in modern India. When it comes to brides and bridegrooms, fair skins come at a premium. That’s now begun to take on dismaying proportions. Indians are more affluent today, travelling a lot more today, seeing a lot more of the world today. And yet, African students in India have borne the brunt of blatant racism, not in some remote village but right in the heart of India’s capital New Delhi.

Polarisation: A pandemic, a frightening phenomenon. Whether we blame it on President Donald Trump, or, on the rise of the rightwing in Europe; whether we blame it on Saudi Arabian influence in the far east, or, on growing affluence and arrogance in India, there is no doubt that communities and races are huddling together, displaying absolute intolerance for the mere existence of any other than their own kind. Racism is not the only manifestation. There’s that other powerful catalyst of hate i.e. Religion.

This is the first of WION's three-part series "Poles Apart".