They’re called “cow vigilantes” – and no, they are not Lone Ranger wannabees roaming Wyoming in search of cattle rustlers. They’re fanatic Hindu fundamentalists in India, hunting Muslims suspected of killing cows.

            You haven’t read anything about “cow vigilantes” in the western mass media, because American journalism -- so derided by Donald Trump as the “fake news” media – are just as single-mindedly focused on “America first” as he is.

            Canadian media (and, I suspect, the European and British media) take their cue from the American media about what’s newsworthy and what isn’t.

            India simply doesn’t show up on their radar, unless there’s a flood, an earthquake, or a refugee crisis.

“Cow vigilantes”

            Everyone knows that India worships its so-called sacred cows. They’re not, really. Most of the cows are sick, scrawny, skeletal wrecks that roam streets and markets snatching a mouthful of food wherever they can find it. Grocers don’t hesitate to beat cows with sticks to drive them away from their produce for sale.

            The healthiest cows belong to small scale dairy farmers. Because a healthy cow produces more milk.

            But last week, a 35-year-old dairy farmer named Ummar Khan was beaten up, shot, and thrown onto railroad tracks so that his body would be dismembered by a train, because a gang of cow vigilantes believed he was transporting cows in the back of his pickup truck for slaughter.

            Khan was, of course, Muslim. That automatically made him suspect. Islam permits eating beef; Hinduism doesn’t.

            This is not an isolated incident. Apparently – I have to rely on web services like CounterCurrents that pass along stories from the Indian media – there have been 33 mob lynchings in the last two years. And not just of Muslims. Last year, four young Hindu men were stripped, lashed to a car, and viciously thrashed, for skinning a dead cow.

            They were only doing their job. Hindus don’t hesitate to use leather. Which comes from cowhide. But the task of salvaging that leather, in a hangover from the ancient caste system, falls to the Dalits, the lowest castes, once known as “untouchables.”

Different cause, same effect

            Nor is India alone in its trend toward vigilante-ism. Pakistan, created as a Muslim state, does the same to Hindus. “In Pakistan’s drive against blasphemy,” writes Irfan Engineer in the publication South Asia, “unproven allegations of ‘insult to Islam’ have led to dozens of mob attacks and murders.”

            A 23-year-old journalism student was dragged from his dormitory, beaten, and shot last April. In May, a mob stormed a police station trying to lynch a 34-year-old Hindu imprisoned on blasphemy charges.

            In fact, Engineer argues, lynch mobs themselves defame Islam – their violence contradicts the Qur’an’s insistence on charity and compassion.

            Engineer summarizes, “Replace ‘insult to Islam’ with ‘cow slaughter’ and you get the same lawlessness and lynch mentality on both sides of the border. The similarities between Pakistani and Hindu supremacist lynch mobs are many…”

            Indeed, I would argue that the similarities extend far beyond the Indian sub-continent. The lynch-mob mentality never left the U.S. – it simply festered underground, to surface again with the election of a bigot as leader. Right-wing movements have surged in France, in Germany, in Austria.

            The common element is fanaticism.

Factors of fanaticism

            Don’t get distracted by the specific issue that fanatics are fanatical about. Despite India and Pakistan, it’s not about religion. Or cows, for that matter. Fanaticism anywhere focuses on a single issue, excluding all other concerns.

            North Americans may ridicule the notion of “cow vigilantes”; Asians might think the same about “white supremacy.”

            Two people may differ on what they’re fanatic about, but they’re both fanatics.

            The key to fanaticism is not the issue, but the mindset.

            You can easily identify a fanatic -- reason is irrelevant. Even blasphemous. The fanatic’s mind is closed, locked, barricaded against its enemy. No other views are permissible. Or even possible.

            One of the sayings attributed to Jesus states, “The poor you will always have with you.” It does not mean that we should make no effort to reduce poverty.

            Substitute almost any other adjective for “poor” and you have an equally valid assertion: “The ruthless you will always have with you.” Or the violent, the arrogant -- and the fanatical.

            And the same wisdom applies. Fanatics we will always have with us. We can’t get rid of them, without sinking to their own tactics.

            But neither should we ignore them. Like poverty, we are called to name fanaticism for what it is, and to work together to reduce it.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Lots of letters about last week’s column, accusing the U.S. Congress and gun manufacturers of being accessories to murder.

“Gutsy column,” wrote Dawne Taylor. “Congratulations on having the courage to name the accessories to murder.”

Tom Watson: “Although I don't get the preoccupation in the U.S. with the need for individuals to have guns, I do get Trump's placing the blame anywhere other than guns. As in many other things, follow the money. The dark money from the gun industry and the NRA helped get him elected. Did not one of Trump's tweets say that if gun laws were more restrictive more people would have died in that church in Texas? How's that for dancing with the one who brought you to the prom?

            “I have more difficulty understanding the connection between right-wing fundamentalist Christians and guns. For example, in May of 2016 the board of trustees of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Liberty University approved a policy change which allowed students to carry concealed weapons on campus and to have them in their residence halls. Is the right to carry devices, that have no purpose other than killing another human being, such a precious God-given thing that it negates all other so-called Christian principles?”

Ellen Feldman Lohman backed Tom’s viewpoint: “You brilliantly nailed it!  Congress and gun-makers are definitely accessories to murder! I feel despair time and time again, when we here in America experience another mass murder, and nothing is done by our law-makers to rein in the gun-makers and the NRA. Unfortunately, Congress is beholden to these lobbyists.  If their minds would not be changed by the murders of innocent children at Sandy Hook, or devoted churchgoers in South Carolina and Texas, or music-lovers in Las Vegas....I am at a loss to know what we citizens can do, except to vote these people out of office.”

Sandy Warren also despaired: “Excellent column. It feels nearly hopeless that we in the U.S. might achieve any solution or even mitigation. It does help to read a thoughtful and well-articulated opinion that matches my own. And who knows ... the world has come through times even darker than these.”

Ruth Shaver offered an alternative to gun control: “The 85-90% of Americans who want stricter background checks and tighter controls on automatic weapons are drowned out by the money poured into our elected officials' campaign coffers by the gun lobby, led by the NRA. That money then allows these politicians, who are mostly but not exclusively Republicans at the moment, to run ads and produce campaign literature that paint their opponents as gun control extremists rather than in line with the vast majority of public opinion.

            “My theory at this point is to let people have all the guns they want but make them account for every round of ammunition they purchase! Ammunition isn't covered by ‘the right of the people...shall not be infringed.’ And since we are generally dealing with literalists, I don't see why we can't turn the tables! It wouldn't fly, of course, but a woman can dream…”

Bob Rollwagen broadened the circle of guilt: “Recently, there has been a movement to blame those who assist in global atrocities. If there is some truth in this, all of the citizens of the USA are aiding and abetting the NRA.

            “If we focus, we will see that God cannot stop a gun killing -- and neither can the U.S. Airforce, the group that failed to report this recent killer’s background.”

So did James West: “While I agree with almost everything of your analysis and observations, I believe that you do not go deep enough. We are experiencing the judgment of God because we have replaced God with all of the idols of the marketplace.”

            On the mass media, James added, “I too am dismayed that when the U.S. sneezes the world catches pneumonia.”

Clare Neufeld: “I’m not quite ready to take the stand you took, regarding charges against the firearms industry, and lawmakers, alike, as accessories to murder. 

            “I do, however, acknowledge the emotive sentiment, frustration, and expanded argument you make comparing the tobacco industry’s heavy fines, etc., as governments sought to reclaim losses of their tax dollars, spent on health care responses to the results. 

            “I also believe there may yet be a way for international precedent to be set, hopefully sooner than later, creating the groundswell, around the world, to show the way in which makers of products can be held accountable for the ways innocent people suffer loss through someone’s use of their products.”

Ken Phipps thought my analysis might apply in other areas: “Based on your comments about people making and permitting the distribution of guns being accessories, could the principle be extended to the folks creating and distributing drugs here in British Columbia, constantly increasing and killing so many people?”

Dorothy Haug: “I have often been troubled by the fact that a person responsible of mass killing is defined as a terrorist or is 'suffering' from mental illness -- based on the colour of their skin and their country of origin. I am troubled that access to guns (weapons of mass destruction) never seem to figure into the questions asked.”

Claude Henderson took a different view: “Gun control is not the answer--it has not worked in countries with a long history of control. [JT note: I think the evidence shows the opposite.] There are already too many guns in circulation.  Funding is needed for research to see what would work and gun manufacturers should not be shielded from liability.”

Margaret Irvine: “Like most Canadians I was horrified at the murders in Sutherland Springs.  I was doubly horrified a day or two later when an American said on TV ‘too bad no one was carryin’… there would of been less casualties.’”

Steve Roney defended the viewpoint Margaret derided: “There is a logical argument that more guns might mean less killing. In Sutherland Springs, for example, it was a neighbour with a legal firearm who stopped the killer.

            “Guns are not especially useful for mass murder. You can do the job as well or better with a bomb, any vehicle, or, we have seen, an airplane. Guns, on the other hand, are valuable for stopping a mass killing, a situation in which there is no advance warning.”

            Steve also defended the mentally ill: “To call a murderer mentally ill for no real reason but that they killed, is profoundly unjust and discriminatory towards the mentally ill, who are on the whole unusually non-violent. We should call evil evil, which is what it is, and not pretend it is ‘mental illness.’”

Gayle Simonson felt I owed Albertans an apology, for calling her province “Texas North”: “What kind of slur is that?  Perhaps you haven’t noticed but Alberta has had a New Democratic government for several years now –  hardly holding to the kind of principles that would be elected in Texas! Alberta is subject to the same gun laws as the rest of the country so you can hardly blame an entire province for one incident in B.C.”