June 13, 2009

From the time that human beings began agriculture and building cities (5,000 years ago), there was a division of labor and the establishment of differences among people. Even before that, during hunting/gathering, women were lesser than men in the pecking order. Defenders of this system claim that it is “separate but equal,” but that argument has always been nonsense.

We see pecking order in the animal kingdom too (the term comes from what goes on among domestic chickens), including the well-observed class system among dogs, wolves, and other canines. There is a leader (alpha male) and often an alpha female, and the rest of the dogs obey until one challenges this leadership and replaces the leader.

The question about human beings is how much are such systems in our DNA, or are we capable of creating systems that differ from that of nature? We appear to have both capabilities. Monarchy, for example, usually begins with an alpha leader seizing power, but over time, descendants of this leader are sustained in power only because of the human-designed system of monarchy.

In ancient India, a system was devised in which people were fixed in the position of their birth—which defenders say makes everyone content because they know where they belong. This system defines people by their work (rulers, priests, warriors, merchants, peasants, and those beyond category—outcastes). This is the caste system, a particular horror that hampered modern India’s development until it was made illegal in the 20th century. However, making it illegal does not stamp it out.

In the Western world, there was always a class system, from leaders down to slaves, but none of this was a permanent ghetto. Slaves could buy their freedom; aristocrats could sometimes lose their status, and merchants could buy into a better class through money and marriage. Our class system was always somewhat flexible, unlike caste.

But the United States fell into a caste system (an anomaly for us) when Africans were enslaved to serve in a white society. Although some slaves were able to buy their freedom, their very identifiable color kept them from rising to higher status in this society until the mid-20th century. Our black population now rises or falls within our rather weak class system, and one such is now our president.

Around the world, the status of women resembles Indian caste rather than flexible class. A woman derives her status from her father or husband, and for the most part, with no way out. In Saudi Arabia, for example, some women live in great luxury thanks to family or marital status, although they are most certainly a lower caste in every other way. Muslim women or Hindu women in poorer areas of the world have almost no human rights, despite what their law codes say. Caste is still alive and well.

A great surprise to me was the violence of Sikhs, an Indian sect that is known for its egalitarian principles, who were attacked in their temple in Vienna and their leader murdered. I had no idea that Sikhs had a caste system in defiance of its religious tenets. Their attackers were Sikh thugs from a higher caste who found this leader and his followers “uppity.” The violence did not stay in Vienna, but within hours, violent protests erupted in India among the Sikh community

This stupid issue caused the death of one man and 16 wounded in Vienna, and thanks to mobile phones and text messages to the Punjab, rioters poured into the streets with swords, metal rods, and sharpened sticks. They smashed cars, set fire to empty trains, snarled road and train traffic, and destroyed bank machines, car dealerships and buses. In the prosperous and (reputedly) well-educated and prosperous Punjab, how could people get so violent over caste violations?

Perhaps the globalization that brings such idiocy to the world press can also shame them into dropping a dead system that should no longer be a way of organizing human society.

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Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, author, and lecturer. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.