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the occupants having been butchered by
religious fanatics along the route.
For India, religious rivalry has group
overtones. Here "feelings of rivalry
based on religious differences are
described as 'communal' in India, since
each religion is considered as a commu–
nity"
(India,
A
W orld in Tra11sition,
Beatrice Pitney Lamb, New York: Fred–
erick Praeger,
1966,
p.
127).
Hindus and Moslems live apart. Each
have distinctive social practices and
their own
consciousness of commrmity.
"Hindus frequeotly refer to the entire
Moslem community by the term
fati
even as they refer to Untouchables and
Tribals by the same term"
(Color and
Rttce,
edited by John Franklin, p.
177).
The term
jati
can refer to religious
affiliation, subcastes, caste groups and
castes. And the entire caste system of
India has
racial
overtones.
Caste System
The early Vedas record the repug–
nance of the Aryan invaders for the
darker-skinned natives they found in
India, the Dravidians. Dravidians were
generally relegated to the Jaboring
occupations. At an early date, religious
worship became mixed up with this
racial bias. "Each group had its own
special duty and it became important to
do the duty appropriate to
one's own
gro11p
rather than that of another
group"
(India, A Wofld
in
Transition,
p.
137).
Traditionally in India, birth
into a group determines the person's
relationship to others.
The same goes for his religion.
"A man
is
a Hindu not because of
any particular religious belief, but
because he was
BORN
a H indu, contin–
ues to live within the Hindu social
framework, and regards himself as gen–
erally commi tted to a Hindu way of
life"
(India -
A
Worid in Transition,
Beatrice P. Lamb, p.
99) .
So it is. The fragmentation of H indu
society has historical and racial bias.
There is a further irony in this
situation. Moslem Pakistan is at odds
with Hindu India. But East and West
Pakistan
also
are embroiled in civil
strife. The tension results from cace,
language, culture and economy. In
East Pakistan the
70
million Moslems
The
PLAIN TRUTH
speak Bengalí. In the west - separated
by 1000 miles of Indian territory - are
fifty million Urdu-speaking Moslems.
East Pakistanis are especially riled
at the concentration of power and
authority in West Pakistan. Many feel
that the two segments of Pakistan will
split into two separate nations.
Racial Strife in Asia
Southeast Asia is also a hotbed of
racial strife. Language is one problem.
Indonesia has 300 ethnic groups who
speak more than
250
languages and{or
dialects. Filipinos, numbering 30 mil–
lion, speak seventy languages and
f
oc
dialects between them. Asians as a
whole speak more than 3000 languages
and dialects.
Tribal minorities are a problem.
Montagnards in Vietnam occasionally
resort to violence in protest. In Pakis–
tan, marauding tribesmen put fear into
the army. Half-civilized Nagas plague
I ndia with demands for "self–
determination."
In Japan, 600,000 Koreans are
referred to as "senjin," the Nipponese
equivalent of "nigger." Koreans have
been commonly looked down upon
because Japan ruled Korea for 35 years.
Sorne sixteen million Chinese live
outside China. Their prosperity, dili–
gence - and often clannishness -
arouses hostility. Formosans, themselves
Chinese, dislike the Nationalist main–
land refugees now living in Formosa.
Mainland Chinese consider them–
selves vastly superior to minority groups
within thei r own bordees - the Tibet–
ans and Uighurs. Within mainland
China are 50 different ethnic groups.
These have come up as special targets
for ill treatment. Moslems in Chinese
provinces such as Kansu and Sinkiang
have had their religious
cites
abolished.
Vietnamese armies have harried Lao–
tian citizens for centu ries, and look
down on Cambodia. In the Indo-China
region, a saying goes:
"If
you see an
!odian and a cobra, strangle the Indian
first." Peasants on Java repeat the state–
ment: "When you meet a snake and a
slit-eye ( Chinese], first
kili
the slit-eye,
then the snake."
After the attempted Communist coup
failed in Indonesia, fanatical Moslems
May 1971
went on a "holy war" rampage to
slaughter atheistic Communists. Of
course, if the Communists had won, the
reverse would have occurred. Witness
North Vietnam when the Reds took
over.
"The best estimate is that between
300,000 and 500,000 people were
butchered [within Indonesia] in the
five months from October
1965
to Feb–
ruary
1966"
(So111h -EaJt Asia in Tlll'·
moil,
Brian Crozier, Baltimore: Penguin
Books,
1968,
p.
182).
Malays aod Chinese in Conflict
Southeast Asia has certainly been a
"meeting" place of different peoples -
sometimes the meeting has been violent.
But seldom has there occurred a mental
"melting" of peoples.
One example of how this meeting
can explode in racial violence concerns
the Federation of Malaysia.
It
had been
touted as one of the world's most prom–
ising multiracial states.
However, the federation exploded in
the strcets of Kuala Lumpur. Malay
mobs surged into Chinese areas burn–
ing, kitling, looting.
In retaliation, Chinese and Indians at
times struck back at Malay villages.
Firemen drew sníper fue as they
attempted to douse llames - just as in
Watts. The morgue was so crowded that
bodies were put into plastic bags and
hung on ceil ing hooks. The reported
toll was one hundred dead. Others put
the toll severa! times higher. Most of
the victims were Chinese.
Since that time, Singapore, heavily
Chinese, has become independent of the
Federation of Malaysia. But resentments
between sorne Malays and Chinese
continue.
Chincse on the mainland, of course,
have believed for thousands of years
that non-Chinese are barbarians. Com–
munism has not changed this, but
rather reinforced the idea that China is
the Middle Kingdom. Virtually all
non-Chinese are considered
kuei-tze –
ghosts or devils. They supposedly in–
habit the nether world below China,
the only home of civilized human
beings.
When the white man subjugated
China, it began an antipathy that