It was commonplace experience growing up in Ashraf-majority village to hear slurs like "musalman hai to kia hua, hai to badzaat hi nh". once I heard someone say "jis gaon me Syed hota, us gaon k aas paas koi shaitan nhi aa sakta". But the most flagrant but less obvious ways

Casteism is perpetuated, I have witnessed and continue to, is via religious gatherings-Juma khutba, Milaad, Jalsa etc- where Ashraf Maulvis indulge in direct casteist slurs like "badzaat"(while referring to lower caste muslims) and not so direct like-
Ek "Ahmaq(idiot) dhobi", "Nafarmani Julaha", Bedeeni qasab" etc as part of their anecdotes/quips(Notice here the particular quality of individual is not his quality it represents "caste quality"). And how one Awliya/Buzurg (of course Ashrafs) rescued/saved those Ahmaq/Bedeen...
Here again saviourship is estblshd as "caste quality" of Ashrafs). In Ashraf Maulvis' sermons, casteism peppered anecdotes abound where inferiority of lower caste muslims(badzaat, badmaash, bezaat, Bedeen etc) and corresponding superiority of upper caste muslims(wherein They
would refer certain upper caste individual past or present in grandiose and patronising tone and tiltle eg Auliya, Murshid, ek Buzurg, Sahab-e-qalam etc.)is very skillfully estblshd.This work of normalising casteism in two-way traffic has very real cnsequences. I heard once my
Aunt(Julaha caste)counselling my cousin(who had joked of marrying a syed)not to ever marry a Syeda. Why, because if u ill-treat a Syeda, u incur huge sin. Implications clear: veneration is one-sided "reserved" and consequently contempt for the other is legit tolerable.
Interestingly, my uncle had different reasons not to marry a syeda: she would call everyone of us a "badzaat Julaha".
Some might call uncle reverse casteist. I call it Pasmanda defence mechanism.
PS: Ashraf hegemony is thorough. Psmanda mvment needs to estblish its
Counter-hegmony in all spheres including challenge to counter-hegemonic theology.
@AnisShafiullah
Correction:
*Including the sphere of theological hegemony.

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I’ve asked Byers to clarify, but as I read this tweet, it seems that Bret Stephens included an unredacted use of the n-word in his column this week to make a point, and the column got spiked—maybe as a result?


Four times. The column used the n-word (in the context of a quote) four times. https://t.co/14vPhQZktB


For context: In 2019, a Times reporter was reprimanded for several incidents of racial insensitivity on a trip with high school students, including one in which he used the n-word in a discussion of racial slurs.

That incident became public late last month, and late last week, after 150 Times employees complained about how it had been handled, the reporter in question resigned.

In the course of all that, the Times' executive editor said that the paper does not "tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” This was the quote that Bret Stephens was pushing back against in his column. (Which, again, was deep-sixed by the paper.)
Part of what is going on here is that large sectors of evangelicalism are poorly equipped to help people deal with basic struggles, let alone the ubiquitous pornography addictions that most of their men have been enslaved to for years.


On the one hand, there's a high standard of holiness. On the other hand, there's a model of growth that is basically "Try Harder to Mean it More." Identify the relevant scriptural truth & believe it with all of your sincerity so that you may access the Holy Spirit's help to obey.

Helping sincere believers believe and obey the Bible facts is pretty much all the Holy Spirit does these days, other than convict us of our sins in light of the Bible facts.

If you know you are sincere and hate your sin and believe the right Bible facts as hard as you can but continue to be enslaved to your pornography addiction, what else left for you to do? Just Really, Just Really, Just Really Trust God and Give it to Him?

To suggest that there are other strategies available sounds to those formed in this model of growth like one is also suggesting that the Bible is insufficient, but it also suggests something just as threatening- that there are aspects of reality that are not immediately apparent.

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Still wondering about this 🤔


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