Let us not forget why this thread was started. Yes the Sikhs are being targeted and when so called congress men make racist remarks what chance have Sikhs got. Please take the time to read this article which I recieved today.....
In the wake of recent terrorist attacks, the turban, originally a practical
idea for protection, has become a symbol many Americans associate with
terrorists.
In SeaTac, Wash., recently, a man was charged with attacking a
turban-wearing Sikh cab driver, calling him a "butcher terrorist." In
Seattle, a man was arrested after he was accused of trying to choke a Sikh,
telling him, "You have no right to attack our country." In Arizona, a man
shot a Sikh gas-station owner to death, later explaining to authorities:
"I'm a patriot." Hundreds of other assaults on Sikhs have been reported
across the country.
Yes, Sikhs wear turbans. But they have no connection to the Islamic
extremists now wanted by the United States.
Rather, Sikhs are members of the world's fifth-biggest religion, which
traces its roots to northern India and espouses egalitarianism.
President Bush describes the new American enemy as shadowy and hard to find,
which may explain why some Americans are grasping for a way to identify
terrorists. But equating the ancient headgear with terrorism shows how
little is known about turbans.
Lesson No. 1: Not all turbans are the same. Fabric headwraps and
headcoverings are common in a wide swath of the world, from North Africa
across the Middle East and into Central Asia. At times, turbans have even
been found on the heads of fashion-conscious Europeans and atop the heads of
American pop-culture icons.
Like other types of clothing, the turban means different things depending on
who is wearing it and how it is worn.
A turban is a very long and narrow piece of cloth - 12 feet is not an
unusual length - made of cotton, silk or synthetics. It is wound around the
head and held on by its own tension, gravity or a chin strap.
The English word turban is believed to have come from the Persian word
dulband - a word which is also thought to be the etymological predecessor of
"tulip" and of the Spanish word for hammerhead shark, torbandalo.
Though no one knows when and where the turban originated, carvings left by
the Assyrians, who lived 3,000 years ago in the area that is now Iraq, show
turbans on the heads of kings.
That means that before there was Islam, or even Christianity, there were
turbans.
It also means that by 1000, the turban had evolved from a strictly
utilitarian piece of clothing into something used to connote nobility and
power.
The turban is like other pieces of fashion in this way, said Brannon
Wheeler, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of
Washington.
Just as shoes evolved from a practical foot covering into an item of
clothing that reveals a person's class and origins, so turbans evolved from
a simple head covering into something that identifies people along cultural,
religious, political and social lines.
Those seem to be distinctions many are unaware of. John Cooksey, a
Republican congressman from Louisiana, recently offered this suggestion for
weeding out terrorists: "If I see someone come in and he's got a diaper on
his head and a fanbelt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs
to be pulled over and checked."
Cooksey later apologized, saying he was referring only to Osama bin Laden,
but clearly the way he described the offending headgear shows a lack of
turban savvy. In the picture of bin Laden posted on the FBI's Most Wanted
list, the fugitive Saudi millionaire is wearing a white cloth turban wrapped
in a circular, spiraling fashion.
This is not the type of headcovering that requires what Cooksey called a
"fan belt" - a thick black cord known to people in the Middle East as an
ekal. The ekal is used to hold on a kaffiyeh, the patterned headcovering
made famous by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Kaffiyehs are worn by men in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Persian Gulf
states. They are rectangular pieces of cloth folded diagonally and draped
over the head. Technically, they're not even turbans.
The American tendency to link turbans with terrorism may stem from the Iran
hostage crisis, with its images of Ayatollah Khomeini and his black turban.
But in most of the Muslim world, the wearing of a turban symbolizes simply
religious or political power.
Many Muslim spiritual leaders wear a white turban wrapped around a spherical
or conical hat known as a kalansuwa.
The irony of the American focus on turbans in the wake of the terrorist
attacks is that, at least in this country, turbans are a very poor predictor
of a person's involvement in terrorist violence. None of the hijackers wore
turbans.
salapilot