Second-class and no-class citizens, Bengali and such musings!

"Haramzada Bengoli", screamed the fat guy to a rickshaw-puller near Bandar Bazar, Sylhet. This was in November 2010. But I digress. Let me get to the scream in a minute. I wrote an opinion piece in bdnews24.com in October 2011 titled, "Not my Father's Islam". It generated fair amount of controversy and lots of rather stimulating discussion in the comments forum. One of the readers talked about Muslims being "second-class" citizen in the West. That got me thinking about the whole sordid business about various classes of citizenship.

The definition of second class citizen is murky but the best one is probably, "Second-class citizen is an informal term used to describe a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, outlaws, or criminals, second-class citizens have limited legal rights, civil rights and economic opportunities, and are often subject to mistreatment or neglect at the hands of their putative superiors. Instead of being protected by the law, the law disregards a second-class citizen, or it may actually be used to harass them. Second-class citizenry is generally regarded as a violation of human rights."

All discrimination starts with fear, ignorance and innate territorial instincts. The fear can be real or imagined. I have travelled far and wide, almost every country in the world, yes including Burkina Faso. I have lived (six months or more) in various places in the UK, various parts of the US, Japan, Brazil, Germany and of course Sylhet and Dhaka. I have seen the full gamut of developed, underdeveloped and developing countries and I have observed discrimination first hand and sometime second hand. Now let me make a controversial statement, "people are discriminated in a systematic manner in the under developed world far more than in the developed western world. In case where the discrimination is evident in the western world it is somewhat self-inflicted and self-perpetuated".

While I am at it let me add one more, "being a second-class citizen is a state of mind that turns into hard reality with passage of time and acceptance of the condition". So, let us a take a tour of "second-class" citizenship around the world in 800 words, more or less.

Before you start to throw rocks at me let me get back to the "Haramzada Bengoli" scream! The scream was directed at a rickshaw-puller for merely splashing the fat guy who refused to move away from a puddle that was near his feet. In one sentence the fat guy summed up the realities of discrimination. In Sylhet there has been an undercurrent that we are not Bengalis and the Bengalis are the "other" from the beginning of time. I used to listen to my grandfather (a pious man) who would say things like Bengalis are destroying everything we know and value. They are vermin (indurs). The term "Bengoli" (never Bengali) is a swear word in Sylhet. This carries through in all of our behaviour and actions. Sylhetis even now will prefer to marry off their children to other Sylhetis.

When I got to England in the '70s I immediately got a job working in a restaurant. My qualification? I am a Sylheti. Sylhetis tend to inter-marry, do business among them and stay in close knit communities. The evidence shows that the outcome in terms of happy marriages, good business partnerships and plain friendships are not any better than partnership with any other group. So, why is this systematic and deep-rooted hatred towards the "Bengolis", whereby we ascribe all evil and bad deeds to someone who is not a Sylheti?

Of course, fear plays a big role. Sylhetis see themselves more closely connected to Assam and have always feared the hordes of people from the plains who will come and take over their land, pillage and plunder. Sylhetis never looked to Dhaka for inspiration or for their dreams. It has always been London. Because of historical twists Sylhet produced disproportionate amount of outward migration to the UK starting from the colonial time. Thus centre of our universe is London and not Dhaka.

I am using Sylhet as an example to explore the root causes of systemic discrimination. So far we know, language is a key determinant of discrimination. Most Sylhetis abroad (including me) speak English and Sylheti. Since we left Bangladesh we reverted back to our core language and our functional language. The language fosters a kinship and identifies us a distinct group. Sylhetis discriminate and in return they are met with scorn for their almost separate language, cultural norms. The vicious cycle feeds on itself.

Arab world, especially the wealthy ones, has honed the practice of systematic discrimination to a fine art. Huge groups of people are discriminated for nothing else but their origin, language and skin colour. In Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other resource rich countries you can toil away for centuries but not gain citizenship or any other rights that are commonplace in the west. The ruling clique can simply make you leave or take way your property just because they want to. You are always a Miskin (beggar), period.

They discriminate against women in all sorts of creative ways. Saudis have their mutwallahs (Virtue Police) who go around making sure that women's hijab is proper and their clothes are not too tight. DWW (Driving While being Woman) is punishable by prison sentence. This of course is not applicable to the sheiks who come out to Europe, hang out with women of ill repute and drink themselves to oblivion.

Once I was in a Munich five-star hotel because I had a discount coupon and some Saudi Princeling had taken over the whole 4th floor. I have never seen the kind of debauchery these guys exhibited while holding onto their prayer beads (tasbih) for dear life. They treated the hotel help with such utter rudeness that I ended up intervening in  one occasion and nearly got into a fisticuff with a Princeling and his minions. In the case of wealthy Arabs the discrimination is also fuelled by arrogance. My term for their particular brand of hooliganism is "Ignorgant" (ignorance + arrogance).

Discrimination in Malaysia is much more subtle and institutionalised. The Bumiputera (son of the land) laws discriminate against the Chinese and other minorities in terms of company ownership, licenses, land grants and other wealth creation mechanism. The government justifies this institutionalised discrimination and pseudo racism by asserting that the British, the colonial Indians and Chinese have discriminated against the Bumiputeraand the Bumiputera laws are nothing but affirmative action. There is probably a grain of truth the British treatment of the natives. But the institutional racism and treatment of other citizens as second-class citizens of the country 50 years after the colonial rule is unjustifiable.

In the West discrimination exists but there are laws and institutions that try to mitigate the effects of discrimination as opposed exacerbate discrimination and "second-classness" unlike so many countries around the world. I have lived in the West most of my life. I find that there is real discrimination but there are also self-imposed conditionality that perpetuate the discrimination. Let me give an example using my own experience.

I arrived in England in the '70s and was staying temporarily with my uncle and his family in Guildford, Surrey. I was sure that people were looking at me funny and I was uncomfortable with a whole new universe. All the white people looked the same. Everyone was John! My uncle took me to the Guildford Post office on an errand. He stood in line and bought "second-class" stamps. So, without ever asking, I simply assumed that non-whites must buy everything second class. I was already burdened by the rumours, myths and I simply accepted the myths and imposed one of my own.

I lived under the tyranny of such myth better part of a year. I probably would have continued to live believing in my "second-classness" if not for tiny bits of assimilation. I went off to school in Manchester and acquired a girlfriend or two who taught me the meaning of silliness! Pretty soon I figured out there were no institutional class divisions and discriminations but there were plenty of cultural and social discriminations based on fear and ignorance. On both sides.

So, I was working in restaurant in Radcliffe near Manchester. My employer looked at my 6' 2" frame and heard about my "Mastaan for hire reputation" in Sylhet and Dhaka. He gave me two tasks, be a waiter and also throw out the "katchras" or beat them up if necessary. "Katchra" in Sylheti means dirty. So, any person who did not fit the description of a button down upper-class Englishman was viewed as "katchra" by the restaurant staff.

It so happens that Radcliffe is the industrial and poor underbelly of greater Manchester.  So most of the customers who came in for a curry after the pub were factory workers looking for spicy cheap eats after guzzling pints of beer. Of course we simply viewed these customers as "Katchras". Every Saturday night going to work in the restaurant was like preparing for war. I had my bully sticks, knuckle guards and sand filled truncheon (does not leave a mark on the body). Every Saturday the staff was running around filled with fear and hatred and very often all the adrenaline will start up a ruckus.

As time went by I started to work weekend days in one of the local brick kilns and ended up making friends with the "katchras". These people were just like us, with fear, love, loathing, aspirations, families and many other things. But, since we have already designated them "katchras" and the only time we interacted with them was in the battlefield of the restaurant dining room we never got to know them at all. I am sure the "katchras" felt the same way about us. The vicious cycle just kept on reinforcing itself. Oy vay!

In America the racism and discrimination surely exists but I for one have not experienced it in any direct manner. There are hardcore racists and supremacists but they typically do not amount to much more than the lunatic fringe. Yes, I think it is harder for an immigrant to make it big because of the innate territorialism of all beings but it is a two-way street. We come here and live in our ghettos, we do not learn the language and master our accents, and we deride the country and its social mores while living in it!

We never sign on to the ethos and values of the society that we live in and then wonder why we cannot progress. At the end of the day we blame everything on discrimination, the Jews, the Whites and the blacks. Yes, blame everyone but us.

The simple fact remains that in America at least your action determines your place in life and society. I got fired from every job I ever held. Not because of some discrimination (I could probably dig something like that up) but mainly because of the fact that I am unemployable. So, with the kindness of strangers, I built my own business which rocketed up to $75 million in sales and blew up in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. I am rebuilding yet again and having some fun at it.

So, at least in America your heritage does not matter if you can perform and mingle. In order to perform one need to totally immerse into the culture, accept the good and the bad, not forget where one comes from and not try to take shortcuts to get there. We Bengalis are busy bragging about our achievements so much that we stop to do the work that is necessary to get ahead. There are hopeful signs.

There are quite a few Bengalis and their children who are beginning to rise up from the soup that is known as America. They do not go around calling people "haramzadas" just because they are different. So, here is to a future without the "haramzadas" punctuating every word.

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Kayes Ahmed lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA with his three dogs. He runs a small yet global apparel and design business based in Boulder.