9/11 attacks: How turbans instigate hate crime in America

Half of the people surveyed think ‘Sikh’ is a sect of Islam: Stanford research project. CREATIVE COMMONS

America changed after the September 11, 2001 attacks, as did the rest of the world. The post-9/11 attacks inculcated an interest in Islam and world religions – but also skewed concepts and principles.

Sikhs, among other minority groups, have been targeted socially and violently since the attacks on America’s soil. The reason for those committing the hate crimes against Sikhs are mostly attributed to the turban – a religious garb called the Keshki, which is one of the five symbols of the Khalsa (brotherhood) Sikhs.

According to a survey conducted by the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab, a research group based at Stanford University, Americans tend to associate turbans with Osama bin Laden more so than with a named Muslim and Sikh alternatives.

The same survey revealed that nearly half of the Americans questioned believed that “Sikh” is a sect of Islam, while 70 per cent of the respondents could not identify a Sikh man in a picture as a Sikh.

This survey was part of findings of the research project “Turban Myths: The opportunity and challenges for reframing a cultural symbol for post-9/11 America”, conducted by the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab on behalf of the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF). The purpose of the research project was to study the American perception of the Sikh community in the country, and to develop preliminary recommendations for an advocacy and engagement programme.

This targeting of Sikhs due to ignorance was highlighted more after the tragic Wisconsin shooting in a Sikh temple. On August 5, 2012, Wade Michael Page gunned down six people and wounded four others at the Oak Creek Sikh temple. He took his life by shooting himself after he was shot by a responding police officer.

Taken from : Tribune PK : LINK

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th, 2013.