Author: Naresh Raghubeer
Publication: National Post
Date: September 17, 2004
URL: http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/search/story.html?id=b4704fad-aba0-43e6-8431-ba69fcd36c5f
Daniel Pipes's comparison between
Nepal and France (Between Rage and Appeasement, Sept. 16) missed an important
reference: religion. While France is marching toward becoming an Islamic
state, Nepal's population is 86% Hindu and is the only official Hindu country
in the world.
The 12 men murdered in Iraq were
Hindus. The rage in Nepal can be traced to the awakening of the Hindu community
through Hindutva, a brand of nationalism, and it appears that Hindus are
no longer willing to sit back, while Muslims attack them.
A similar level of rage occurred
in Godhra, India, in 2001, when Muslims attacked a train carrying Hindu
pilgrims. Fifty-six Hindu men, women and children met their premature death
in the most gruesome way.
They were burnt to death by a mindlessly
hateful mob on a train where the compartments were doused with inflammables
and locked from outside to cause the maximum number of deaths. Like the
Nepalese, these people were singled out because of their religion.
These unprovoked attacks stirred
the Hindu communities in Nepal and India, and what resulted was violence
and rage against those who murdered them in the name of Islam.
Unlike the Euarabian French, Hindus
in India and Nepal no longer appear willing to appease Islamic terrorists
at the price of their religious and cultural survival.
Naresh Raghubeer, executive director,
Canadian Coalition for Democracies, Brampton.
