Labeling Human Beings with Faiths!

The United States of America is truly a diverse country where people of many faiths not only live side by side; rather, they also flourish collectively compared to many othercountries. This is not to say that multi-faith societies do not exist in other countries or conversely, the problems related to multi-faith societies are non-existent among the people in this country. Yet compared to the other societies, such inter-religious conflicts are far less in U.S. and Canada, at least on the surface. Unfortunately, this does not apply to other non-religious matters alluded below: –
In the absence of faith as a major issue of conflicts, the human beings have the capacity to find other reasonsfor disputes such as race and economic status or even create new ones, not in existence or hidden under the surface. Suffices it to say, that the majority population in any country of the world,always tries to uphold an upper edge in imposing its will upon the minority and ignore its needs, if not openly at least subtly.The sense of being in majority puts its members in an advantageous position in democratic set up. And this perhaps is one of the root causes of inter-religious or other ideologic-based conflicts seen in multi-faith or multi-cultural societies.The so-called separatist movements by the minority groups in several democratic countries trace their origins in a real or imaginary perception of being chronically subjected to the will of majority, paid less attention to,or ignored altogether by it.
Fortunately, there are people and institutions all over that think above and beyond the lines drawn by faiths or other dissimilarities and try to create grounds of semblance for living harmoniously.In that regard, Inter-Faith groups in many countries always try to undo harm imposed by such differences. Here in the state of Arizona, I happen to be on the Advisory board of Arizona Interfaith Movement,representingSikh faith, where I have consistently observed a very interesting phenomenon in the monthly meetings. After everyone has introduced him or herself along with thefaith, the president, instead of spelling out his faith, often responds by stating “All of the above” implying that he belongs to every faith. This statement indeed is the stimulus for this write up.
I wonder oftentimes as to why on earth, we, the human being, the Homo Sapiens, have divided and labeled ourselves with different faiths and why do we feel proud about it? Do these labels actually help or hurt? To many, this question might sound stupid. No matter what the response might be, one thing is for sure! These labels are not going to go away, instead with the passage of time, they will become more intrusive. Presently, the entire world population has divided itself based on faiths and no one among us couldever imagine not belonging to one or the other. Someone might question that this might not be entirely true, for atheists or non-believers do exist in every country and without any difficulty.Yet, we all know that atheists do have a belief system called ‘Atheism’, which hasa fundamental requirement of NOTbelieving in the existence of God or any ‘Power that Be’. This iscontrary to the hall-mark belief of most of the organized faiths. 
A thought that if there were no religions, there would be no conflicts, arguments, fights, battles and wars,isalso not entirely true. In my view, it is not the faith, rather a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the true philosophy of afaith that leads to these unfortunate situations. A genuine interpretation of any religion’s philosophyclearly proves this point.  For example, no faith in the world would ever advise its followers to cause torture, death, destruction and misery to the creation of very God who they revere to begin with. Yet, the harm to the people of the other faithsthan theirs,abounds all over the world and that too in the name of thefaith and God.      
If it were not the faith, something else might lead to a conflict, for after all, the human beings have an innate desire to keep themselves engaged. Seeking control to rule over a kingdom,expansion of the borders of a country or for that matter of a state, ownership for a piece of landand so on, all have been implicated in initiating conflicts and battles in the past. Add to them the present-day conflicts caused by the race, color, place of origin, ethnicity, social status or a class, marital relationship, infidelity, extramarital love affairs and what not, and still the list will not be complete. All what we, the human beings, want is an ‘excuse’ distinguishing us from them, and therewe go. Stratifications based on wealth, power and prestige are indeed responsible for social distancing leading to conflicts. Of all these categories, religious stratification and color of skin seems to have assumed utmost importance, thanks to the politization of these aspects all over and everywhere. 
Being a Sikh with a Sikh turban and uncut beard as well as brown skin, there indeed is nothing more left toidentify my faith, for it is clearly written on my face. As is often stated, I do, indeed,carry my faith on my head. When one is in minority, as every Sikhs happen to be, no matter which corner of the world one may reside, this open exhibition of the Articles of Sikh faith does attract queer looks inducing negative vibrations among the ignorant ones. At the same time, if one were to look at the openly declared objectives of the founder of Sikh identity, uniqueness was the underlying principle of Sikh-form he wanted to emphasize. This, of course, is contrary to what the modern Western civilization would want usor minority to do.
Black color has always been denigrated but not only here, rather more so in my native country. Centuries old discriminationagainst the so-called low-caste people,many having rather darker skin, continues unabated, at times even debarring their visits to the religious places. And now move over and focus attention to this most advanced country of the world. Learning about what has been going on since the inception of this country and now spilling over into twenty first century, one cannot but help say that all is not that well on the Western front, especially for the people of color.Fortunately, most of the black people do carry a label of the same faith as the majority does, otherwise it would have been a disaster beyond comprehension.
Bottom line is that when we begin finding faults with members of minority, it is easy to blametheir faiths. And it becomes even more simpler, if the person professing minority faith wears his or her faith outwardly as is the case with the observing Sikhs. The next would be the race and color. Yes, one could avoid outward exhibition of one’s faith to an extent, as regrettably,some weaklings among the Sikh faith, have done and doing, but how on earth one is to hide one’s race and skin color?
In nutshell, labeling human beings with faith, especially if one is trying to openly wear his or her faith on one’s head, as the Sikhs are supposed to, may be fraught with risk in multi-faith societies but so is the color of skin and race. Unfortunately, this risk multiplies if one belongs to a minority, especially in a democratic set up. A sense of accommodation, understanding and full cooperationby majority, whileminoritylearns to distinguish between true and pseudo-perception of discrimination, is the Mantra we all have to adopt, should we ever wish to save the mankind. 
*The author of several books on diaspora issues