Ashok's Ashes & Ethnic Cocooning Through All Eternity
"Two Muslim groups in Toronto say they're having a hard time finding land to build their own cemetery to honour their religious funeral customs. The Toronto Muslim Cemeteries Corporation and the Islamic Society of North America have spent more than a year shopping for tracts of land on the outskirts of Toronto, where an estimated 300,000 Muslims live. ... ISNA member Abul Haq Ingar said 20-acre to 50-acre sites that are available are either prohibitively expensive or don't meet zoning requirements for a cemetery. He told the newspaper as many as 4,000 gravesites are needed around the city each year and that Muslim families have been burying their dead in non-denominational cemeteries. However, those sites don't guarantee adherence to Muslim beliefs. Under Islam, bodies must be buried within 24 hours of death and the head must point toward Mecca. Cremation is forbidden." (United Press International, July 15, 2009) On the pro-cremation side, "members of the South Asian community in Mississauga and across Ontario can now scatter the ashes of loved ones on Crown lands and waterways after [the Ontario legislature] unveiled new guidelines dealing with such rituals. But the Province's new rules, the first such guidelines anywhere in Canada, also mandate that those conducting such ceremonies — the practice is popular among Hindus, Sikhs and Tamils in the GTA — do so in environmentally responsible fashion. In releasing the cremated remains of loved ones at public parks or near rivers and lakes, some families leave behind environmentally unfriendly items such as plastic bags, metal statues and jewellery. ... Several years ago, residents living along the Credit River in Mississauga and Brampton voiced concerns about debris, including plastic statues, contaminating the river. ... According to a 2006 census, Peel is home to about 300,000 South Asians, a large number of whom believe in cremation." (Mississauga News, July 16, 2009)
But as always, every concession only opens the door to further demands: "A section of the community, while welcoming the move, also urged the authorities to take a speedy decision on the long-standing request to permit a purpose-built open-air crematorium alongside a waterway." (South Asian Focus, July 8, 2009) Oh please. No. Emissions from conventional crematoria contain pollutants ranging from particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxides, hydrogen chloride, heavy metals like cadmium, mercury and lead, as well as dioxins and furans. With the increase of cremations of people who've managed to hang onto heavily restored teeth into old age, mercury emissions are on the rise. (In the UK, cremation is reckoned responsible for 18% of total mercury emissions!) And since cremation is a combustion process of organic matter, dioxin and furans may be formed during the process due to incomplete combustion -- and we're speaking of super efficient modern crematoriums here. The amateur sort are so bad they are actually falling out of favour in India. "Nearly 20,000 Hindus die each day in this nation of 1 billion people. Each cremation requires an average of 650 pounds of wood. The result is denuded forests, rivers clogging up with human ashes or even body parts — and a wood trade said to be rife with corruption. ... Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges 395 miles southeast of New Delhi, attracts hundreds of thousands of people who cremate their dead and pour the ashes into the river to ensure moksha, the final liberation of the soul from the endless cycle of reincarnation. The ashes of millions of dead have helped turn the water into a stinking, polluted swirl. Worse, since wood is scarce and expensive, bodies sometimes are thrown into the river half-burned. 'Apart from the ashes, this is an even bigger environmental hazard for the Ganges River,' said Sunita Narain, an activist with the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi" (CBS News, July 21, 2003)
And there it is folks -- multiculturalism keeps immigrant communities replicating retrograde behaviours which their own countries are trying to evolve beyond. In the UK, Davender Kumar Ghai has been waging a one man campaign for open air cremation ghats for years. He immigrated to Britain from Uganda in 1958 -- that's 51 years ago, if anyone's interested. "The single-storey council house in Gosforth, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, looks just like any other prefab in the quiet cul-de-sac. [Evidently an adherent of Kali,] Mr Ghai, dressed in simple woollens and sitting on a throne of sculpted skulls, explained .... Many Hindus believe that mechanical cremations lead to akal mrtyu (a bad death), where the soul is forced to mingle with other souls because it has not been able to escape. 'Open-air cremations are our birthright and our religious right,' explained Mr Ghai. 'The soul has to be released from the skull and allowed to go straight up into the air. Muslims and Jews have been given their own graveyards, they have been allowed to deal with their dead according to their religious needs, but Hindus have been ignored.' [In 2007, Mr. Ghai was turned down by Newcastle council and took his cause to the High Court, claiming his human rights had been trampled. Mr. Ghai lost again in May this year when the High Court decided in favour of health and hygiene. Or maybe we're just too hopelessly backward.] Other supporters believe resistance to the open-air cremations is purely conceptual. 'In the Abrahamic faiths fire is something you associate with hell,' said Dr Anand, one of Mr Ghai's followers who recently lost his son and was deeply upset about having to cremate his body in a crematorium. '[Fire] is seen as a punishment and I think that's why many Westerners prefer not to see the actual cremation. But for us fire is something pure; it cleanses and renews…..' One of the difficulties Mr Ghai's followers face is resistance from leaders within their own community. Sikh and Hindu faith groups have been reluctant to show their support for his legal battle. The Hindu Academy has called open-air cremations an 'antiquated practice.'" (The Independent, October 14, 2008)
This article appears in the July, 2009 issue of the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE. Published monthly, the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE is available by subscription for $30 per year. You can subscribe by sending a cheque or VISA number and expiry date to CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE, P.O. Box 332, Rexdale, ON., M9W 5L3.]
