GUYANA JUNCTION

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terror’ in the aftermath of the happenings on September 11, 2001, Guyanese Muslims
consider the global umaah – which includes themselves – to be under lethal and unfair
attack of a coalition of power and capital driven Christian westerners and Jews.297
Consequently, you will now find Muslim East Indians applaud every American casualty in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and express their hope that “all Americans over there will die.”298
Relationships between Hindus and Muslims are characterised by similar – although
less hostile – antipathies. Subject to the influence of foreign portrayals of Muslims and
Islam, members of both groups express highly negative understandings of the religious
other.


(About Muslims) Hindus consider Muslims to be blessed with an inherently violent
temperament. They are also believed to be dishonest and untrustworthy, disobedient to
their own rules and regulations, quarrelsome, and increasingly rigid and fanatical. Like
Christians, they pose a threat to wellbeing and add to the image of the hostile home. Non-
Muslim informants told me Muslims tend to be armed, “teach their children hatred against
other religions”, have “secret basements” underneath masjids in which they do secret
things, and have come up with shocking “plans to rule the world.” Particularly the
heightened Muslim fanaticism is noted (and feared) by many Hindu informants. Most
consider it to be a characteristic that has only recently come to the fore. As the Sanatanist vice-president of the GIHA told me, “through their masjids they [the Muslims] now listen to these fanatic teachers, have become fanatic, and start to behave like mosquitoes, to suck the bloods of others…”
According to a number of Hindus, a “new Islamic consciousness” has boosted the
Muslim aversion to everything un-Islamic – inspired them “to strip Islam more and more
of non-Arabic influences” – and increased the distance between them and religiously
others, including their fellow East Indians.299 And, as indicated, they are right. Observations
indicate the gap between Muslim and Hindu East Indians is growing. Certain Muslims
nowadays no longer will attend religious functions in the homes of their Hindu neighbours
or relatives, ancient ship-brother ties are broken, and the Muslim purifiers’ intention to
establish some sort of parallel society becomes more and more apparent. The East Indian
alliance is under siege. This threat is also recognised by moderate Muslim informants. One traditionalist imam told me Arab-style Muslims “scare” him. According to him, the purifiers’ strategies of withdrawal and anti-traditionalist indoctrination will result in the fabrication of a new generation of Muslim “mutants”. These transformed Indians will ‘fight’ old allies and their ways, or “forget their roots”, and eventually destroy the indispensable Indian unity with 297 Some mention a “Zionist-complot” of Christians and Jews, meant to destroy Islam. 298 The particular Muslim teenager quoted here also expressed a desire to move to the States. In fact, a year later (September 2004) she actually migrated there.

The scary thing is that some of this is really true.

a muslim identity is growing and islam inevitably is being globalised. My mother use to argue with them mejii that islam is an intl. religion.