Can Teachers See Australia's New Caste-ism?

Abstract

We live in a world of social change. Within that world, Christian teachers are used to thinking of all people as made in the Image of God. That assumption has often meant practising a deep respect for all people. This respect has similarly extended to how Christians understand relationships in the classroom. Yet there are competing narratives about the design and purpose of life within our Western world. Part of this competition of ideas is caught up in implications that come from how we view human beings as persons. This article proposes that one of these new Australian alternatives to Christian ways of viewing life is creating an unstated but real caste system amongst socalled different kinds of persons. Caste-ism as exclusion It is a disturbing experience to be openly refused hospitality because of a perceived breach of nonviolent public conduct. It happened to me once in India. A friend took me to a village where he had set up a school which included visiting medical teams and social support teams (including micro-finance programs). This village was part of what are called the Dalits of India. The Dalits are the traditional lowest social group of India, below the slave caste. If I close my eyes, I can still see the aged and bent elder who came and took my hand, and with tears in his eyes, continued to thank me for what I had done. What was this marvellous thing? I had simply sat on a mat and played and interacted with some of the children of the village from that school. Earlier, I had been to their classroom and told them a story, via a translator. I and two young teachers had then walked through the classroom interacting with each student, including giving them a memento of our visit and shaking hands with each of them. Why might this elder be so moved by this simple act, which we hopefully would consider routine? It was because we were the first people of ‘importance’ (they had never seen a PhD type person before) to treat their children the same as everyone else. And no leader had ever sat on the dirt on a cane mat to play with their children. I felt completely inadequate, because I was simply doing what I had always done since my youth. My Christian parents taught me to respect all people. And they showed me what that looked like, even when they disagreed with others. However, when the chief elder (of an upper caste) in that village heard that I had been to the Dalit part of the village first, he refused to meet with me. I had transgressed the social order. I later heard a Brahman priest explain that such conduct – of ignoring the social behaviours linked to caste “destroyed the order of the universe”. Technically, any discrimination based on this structure is not legal in India – Gandhi worked to achieve this. Some Indian scholars believe that it was this part of his work that resulted in his assassination. Yet, I have seen such discrimination enacted in India. These experiences taught me afresh that perhaps I should not take for granted the principles of respect that my parents taught me. On what did they base their beliefs and subsequent behaviour? It was because they believed every person was made in the image of the Creator God (see Genesis 1:1617). Thus, despite any differences in capacity, rank, responsibility or authority, they believed all persons were of equal worth (see Galatians 3:26-28). This equality did not mean they assumed that everyone was the same, simply that they were to be regarded and treated with equal respect. My sister and I were taught that on this basis you treated people equally, without fear or favour. This equality of respect did not mean that you would always agree with their opinions or their actions. But you always respected them as a person. I learnt much later, as an addictions counselling psychologist, that this also meant that I could respect people in deep pain, and yet learn not to be an enabler of their disordered thinking and conduct.