Lynch-mob mentality spreads around the world

They’re called “cow vigilantes” - and no, they are not Lone Ranger wannabees roaming Wyoming in search of cattle rustlers. They’re fanatic Hindu fundamentalists in India, hunting Muslims suspected of killing cows.

You haven’t read anything about “cow vigilantes” in the western mass media, because American journalism —— so derided by Donald Trump as the “fake news” media — are just as single—mindedly focused on “America first” as he is.

Canadian media (and, I suspect, the European and British media) take their cue from the American media about what’s newsworthy and what isn’t.

India simply doesn’t show up on their radar, unless there’s a flood, an earthquake, or a refugee crisis.

Everyone knows that India worships its so—called sacred cows. They’re not, really. Most of the cows are sick, scrawny, skeletal wrecks that roam streets and markets snatching a mouthful of food wherever they can find it. Grocers don’t hesitate to beat cows with sticks to drive them away from their produce for sale.

The healthiest cows belong to small scale dairy farmers. Because a healthy cow produces more milk.

But last week, a 35—year—old dairy farmer named Ummar Khan was beaten up, shot, and thrown onto railroad tracks so that his body would be dismembered by a train, because a gang of cow vigilantes believed he was transporting cows in the back of his pickup truck for slaughter.

Khan was, of course, Muslim. That automatically made him suspect. Islam permits eating beef; Hinduism doesn’t.

This is not an isolated incident. Apparently — I have to rely on web services like CounterCurrents that pass along stories from the Indian media — there have been 33 mob lynchings in the last two years. And not just of Muslims. Last year, four young Hindu men were stripped, lashed to a car, and viciously thrashed, for skinning a dead cow.

They were only doing their job. Hindus don’t hesitate to use leather. Which comes from cowhide. But the task of salvaging that leather, in a hangover from the ancient caste system, falls to the Dalits, the lowest castes, once known as “untouchables.”

Nor is India alone in its trend toward vigilante—ism. Pakistan, created as a Muslim state, does the same to Hindus. “In Pakistan’s drive against blasphemy,” writes Irfan Engineer in the publication South Asia, “unproven allegations of ‘insult to Islam’ have led to dozens of mob attacks and murders.”

A 23—year—old journalism student was dragged from his dormitory, beaten, and shot last April. In May, a mob stormed a police station trying to lynch a 34—year—old Hindu imprisoned on blasphemy charges.

In fact, Engineer argues, lynch mobs themselves defame Islam — their violence contradicts the Qur’an’s insistence on charity and compassion.

Engineer summarizes, “Replace ‘insult to Islam’ with ‘cow slaughter’ and you get the same lawlessness and lynch mentality on both sides of the border. The similarities between Pakistani and Hindu supremacist lynch mobs are many…”

Indeed, I would argue that the similarities extend far beyond the Indian sub—continent. The lynch—mob mentality never left the U.S. — it simply festered underground, to surface again with the election of a bigot as leader. Right—wing movements have surged in France, in Germany, in Austria. The common element is fanaticism. Don’t get distracted by the specific issue that fanatics are fanatical about. Despite India and Pakistan, it’s not about religion. Or cows, for that matter. Fanaticism anywhere focuses on a single issue, excluding all other concerns.

North Americans may ridicule the notion of “cow vigilantes”; Asians might think the same about “white supremacy.”

Two people may differ on what they’re fanatic about, but they’re both fanatics.

The key to fanaticism is not the issue, but the mindset.

You can easily identify a fanatic — reason is irrelevant. Even blasphemous. The fanatic’s mind is closed, locked, barricaded against its enemy. No other views are permissible. Or even possible.

One of the sayings attributed to Jesus states, “The poor you will always have with you.” It does not mean that we should make no effort to reduce poverty.

Substitute almost any other adjective for “poor” and you have an equally valid assertion: “The ruthless you will always have with you.” Or the violent, the arrogant — and the fanatical.

And the same wisdom applies. Fanatics we will always have with us. We can’t get rid of them, without sinking to their own tactics.

But neither should we ignore them. Like poverty, we are called to name fanaticism for what it is, and to work together to reduce it.

Jim Taylor is an Okanagan Centre author and freelance journalist. His column appears Mondays. He can be reached at rewrite@shaw.ca. This column appears in Okanagan Weekend.