Is it possible to change the mumbo-jumbo?

LOTS of readers, many having an origin from India (note, I have avoided using the oft-misused – and abused – “Indians”), have chided Muslims for kicking up a fuss over a partial ban on Muslims entering the US, particularly in light of the stereotyped impression that the “average Muslim” looks upon America as “decadent” and therefore has no business with the US.

Unfortunately, most of us forgot to read the Bible, where something about the casting of stones by those considering themselves to be innocent of sin is mentioned.

Even a cursory rewind of major Indian movies, from Shaheed (which depicts disdain for the British colonist), Upkar (which equates the urban life of even local citizens who mimic the West with “fast, vulgar, and modern” ideas ), Purab-Paschim (which blames the West for seducing the average, otherwise pious, humble, obedient Asian female into an alcoholic, adulterous, materialistic vamp), and thousands of similar features repeatedly show how the sun is born and rises in the glorious east, but decides to die and disappear in a Dante-esque Inglorious inferno!

Now the crunch. Suddenly Britain and the US have hordes of Asians from India, flocking in as legal immigrants, businessmen, tourists, and some also as illegal refugees. If the majority of India is not Muslim, it’s statistically logical to assume that most of those who crossed first the Indian and next the Atlantic Ocean, must have been and still are not Muslims – the very same people whose forefathers condemned (and in many cases continue condemning) the West (wherever that alien piece of planet happens to be) as evil and sinful.

Is it possible that, perhaps, the concepts of average, stereotype, perceived, imagined, assumed and other discerning ideas, could be re-taught carefully from birth, in place of whispering indoctrinating, and mostly harmful, mumbo-jumbo into the ears of infants, more questions than answers installed into the brains of school-going children, and only questions thrown into the minds of students? EBRAHIM ESSA

Durban