The new wave of shootings puts life in the United States in extremely poor light. The gunning down of people at a place of worship points to a racist malaise that no nation should tolerate. It appears no ethnic minority — Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus or blacks — is safe from becoming victims of mindless violence.
President Barack Obama calls for soul-searching, something the white Christian majority in the US must take to heart if they don’t want their country to slide back into the dark ages.
Intolerance towards Sikhs, who stand out from the rest because of their turbans, shouldn’t be any reason for loners with mental adjustment problems about life in an open society to use weapons, however legal they may be, to conduct a carnage that is pointless except to highlight cracks in a society gone wrong. And to think these migrants have contributed so much to life in North America: tilling a fertile land to provide food aplenty for a rich people.
Pithy, even compassionate, homilies from leaders in India and America won’t do much to solve the problem. What we need are concerted efforts to stamp out hatred in all its forms — the Ku Klux Klan had shown the way in an earlier era in America, pockmarked by intolerance and blacks living in slavery. Some of these attitudes still linger in white supremacist groups like the one the Wisconsin killer belonged to. Humanity, sadly, has such a long way to go to find enlightenment in social togetherness.