All Americans stand in solidarity with Sikhs
Investigators may never learn the precise nature of Wade Michael Page’s motive when he murdered six people and injured three others in and around a Sikh gurdwara, or temple, in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisc., on Sunday. Page can’t shed any light on the question; police killed him while returning fire. But a violent attack on a house of worship is clearly a hate crime, a fact that extends the circle of victims beyond Wisconsin and the Sikh community to include all Americans.
Page’s crime fits a pattern of violence against Sikhs, who to ignorant eyes can be mistaken for Muslims because of their beards and turbans. The first person murdered in retaliation for Sept. 11, 2001, was a Sikh — a gas station owner in Mesa, Ariz., who was killed four days after the terrorist attacks. Since then the New York-based Sikh Coalition has documented 700 incidents of violence or intimidation against Sikhs.
Such attacks are savage idiocy, twice compounded. Muslims aren’t to blame for al-Qaeda’s crimes, and Sikhs aren’t Muslims. If Page thought he was avenging Sept. 11, 2001, on Sunday, it would be as though he held all people in Guyana responsible for Jonestown, and then opened fire on a congregation of Guineans.
Page may have been under the influence of some other delusion. But his deadly rampage was directed against a visible minority that has a history of being harmed by a double ricochet — first guilt by association, then mistaken identity. The fact that this has happened, and may have happened again on Sunday, imposes an obligation on Americans to learn more about their Sikh neighbors and ensure that their rights as citizens are fully protected.
And no matter who Page believed his targets were, he committed violence against religious liberty. The freedom to practice one’s religion openly and without fear is fundamental to all Americans. Page tried to take that away, and people of all faiths or none must resist such attempts. The violence against Sikhs in Wisconsin was a hate crime, and all Americans must stand in solidarity with the Sikh community.