Sad one-dimensional protests against Sat

THE EDITOR: The cacophony of protests against Sat Maharaj is deafening but sadly one-dimensional in the way most see the issue of a man discriminating against freedom of choice.

In my last letter I queried not the choice made but the acceptance of a position which was certain to invite a negative reaction, and the need, perhaps, to exercise some discretion in going along with such an inherently problematic choice and take a less controversial option.

But such enlightened thinking often collapses in the face of notions of freedom of expression or constitutional rights or equality of treatment which have become stereotypical as inalienable rights in themselves, and are never really seen in context and how problematic the enjoyment of those rights can be in particular circumstances, as in this instance.

For just as valour (the exercise of your right) should be tempered by discretion, so too with freedom which must never degenerate into licence — and its true test is the ability to know when to draw the line in the exercise of it.

Was this decision “nuanced” in any form or fashion by the critics of Maharaj or was it simply dichotomised into a perceived “right” being violated with no thought of context?

Even with all the talk of every creed and race finding an equal place and in this day and age of identity politics, we can’t be naive about the Hindu/Muslim “difference” — as much as we can’t about the African/Indian divide. Both have historical antecedents, the first in the Indo/Pakistan rivalry, so much so that not one Pakistani Muslim was contracted by the Indian IPL, and the other in the initial antipathy arising after emancipation between Africans and Indians because the latter was seen as a threat to the bargaining power of freed blacks.

Far-fetched you may say, but these varied antipathies lie deep in the subconscious and can rear their ugly heads when the circumstances warrant, as in this instance.

We cannot speak of rights and freedoms when such rights and freedoms encroach on cultural, ethnic or religious lines and we must know where to draw the line in the exercise of such freedom and the kind of discretion we must apply when such crosscurrents appear.

In this regard I applaud Sharon Paul of Arima in her letter captioned “All people must have rights, not just Muslims” on May 29, in which she suggests that the young woman is entitled to “believe anything she wants, anywhere, anytime, but her practices are protected only if they do not encroach on the rights of others.”

As to the “in-house” critics of Maharaj, their stance is multi- faceted, some sticking to the discrimination argument, for in their myopia it’s all they can see, while others have an obvious political agenda, especially with the boycott call, in seeking to diminish Sat in the eyes of all Hindus.

I wouldn’t want to think that this is part of the agenda of any religious group testing the waters as to how far it can go.

DR ERROL BENJAMIN

docbenj742@outlook.com