Stop using the word "Idol"

Trigger Warning: Colonial Trauma, genocide, slavery, rape, pillage, pedophilia, religious persecution

Screenshot: Hindu child hugging Hindu God Hanuman

I’m speaking to everyone but particularly Hindus right now. If you use the word “idol” you are using colonizer language. This is language that has been used to demonize you and genocide your people. So why are you still using that term? Do you really hate yourself that much? Why do you propagate genocidal language against your own people?

The Islamic invaders murdered at least 80 million Hindus - that number doesn’t include the millions more they abducted, enslaved, trafficked, and ethnically cleansed through forced conversions and rape - all while telling themselves this was correct because we were “idol worshippers”. The British caused the deaths of 1.4 billion Indians - most of them Hindus - all while telling themselves and the world that this was correct because we were “idol worshippers”. You can get all the details of this in my presentation on Hindu Colonial Trauma.

These Christian and Islamic imperialists committed genocide all over the planet by calling the Indigenous peoples they colonized “idol worshippers” as well as words like “pagans” “heathens” “non-believers” and “savages” which is really just more words for “idol worshippers”. Anyone who didn’t worship their “one true God” they considered an idol worshipper infidel heathen savage who deserved to die. The genocide those supremacists started, by the way, is still happening.

So stop using this colonizer word that leads to the continued murder of Black and brown Indigenous peoples all over the world, including Hindus.

The correct word in the Hindu tradition to refer to Hindu sacred deities is murthy, unless a prana prathistha ceremony has been performed, after which time that deva or devi can be referred to as a swarupa. These are correct decolonizing terms. If you’re not comfortable with Sanskrit then the term “deity” is also acceptable.

The term “idol” is never acceptable. Never.

The truth is that there is no such thing as “idol worship”. It literally doesn’t exist. Nowhere in the world does someone pick up a random object and say out of the blue: “This is God”. Every Indigenous culture all over the world uses or crafts certain items to be symbols of the ancestors they pray to or the form of whatever divinity they worship because that helps them to focus their prayers and communicate deeper messages of love, hope, resilience, service, sacrifice, and community to each other through their cultural values. This is much like how you keep pictures of your family on your work desk or in your wallet, or how you look at a picture of your dead parent or grandparent when you need their advice or the comfort of their presence, or how some people tattoo images of what they hold sacred onto their body, or how some people go to a particular place that they hold sacred to be able to think and gather together with others who feel the same way they do.

Screenshot: Hindu child holding an umbrella over Hindu God Vishnu while it rains at a gathering site of Hindus

Screenshot: Totem Pole journey to defend sacred lands. Totem Poles are Indigenous to Northwest First Nations in US

Screenshot: Sacred altar of certain people studying Kung Fu

Screenshot: Viracocha, Incan creator God

Screenshot: Great Serpent Mound, Indigenous Adena and Hopewell cultures in Ohio, US

Screenshot: Australian Aboriginal lightning God Kokadu

Screenshot: Shona religious art from Ancient Zimbabwe

Screenshot: Ala-Igbo, Nigerian Earth Mother Goddess

Screenshot: Cernunnos, Celtic Horned God, is actually of Indian Hindu origin.

Screenshot: Purépecha God of Fire Curicaueri — Screenshot: Purépecha God of Fire Curicaueri

Everywhere the colonizers invaded, they saw Indigenous peoples worshipping their ancestors and their deities using sculptures, artwork, architecture, earthern mounds, altars, hand held items, worn regalia, animals, tattoos, sacred places in nature, and all manner of other methods. The colonizers said this was “idol worship” and used that as a justification for slaughtering and forcibly converting them. When they couldn’t destroy a part of the Indigenous spirituality, they culturally appropriated it and desecrated it. They did this to everyone including Hindus which is why we see yoga in particular being culturally appropriated and desecrated on every street corner in the USA.

I did an image search for “idol worship”. This is what came up. Notice all the different cultures and religions that are called “idol worshippers”. Notice who is saying it. The colonizers are so full of hate, they don’t even spare other Abrahamic monotheists from being slandered with this word. They weaponize it against each other just as much as they weaponize it against the peoples who are not “of their book”.

There are the types of things they say even in modern times. These are the descendants of the people who went around the world committing genocide, rape, pillage, pedophilia, slavery, and never-ending violence to Indigenous peoples. These colonizers think they have the moral high ground because the people they genocided were “idol worshippers”. They even call these genocides “mercy”. It’s not surprising that they did this wherever they went because they also destroyed their own Indigenous spiritualities. Learn about that here and here.

This is the type of hate they spread about anyone who doesnt’t fall in line with their monoculture.

Just recently I was mentoring a collective of white people and we were talking about learning our pre-colonizer ancestry as a part of decolonizing ourselves. The white people said they didn’t know who their ancestors were before they became colonizers. I shared with them the wisdom that Indigenous Elder of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples Bobby C Billie shared with me. He said that even if you don’t know your own ancestors, they still know you. Therefore, if only you were to talk to them, they could answer you. Even if you don’t expect their response, they will find a way to give you answers. I said to these white people: “This is why you should talk to your ancestors.”

They were baffled. “What does that even look like?” “I don’t even know where to start.”

I said: “Let’s try an exercise. Imagine that I am your ancestor. What greeting will you give me?” And they slowly began to talk. Then I said: “Imagine I’m your ancestor. Is there anything you are angry about that you want to tell me?” And they began to talk more. I said: “Imagine I’m your ancestor. What pain are you suffering that you want to share with me?” And they poured their hearts out. I said: “Imagine I’m your ancestor. What do you want to ask of me right now?” And they wept and begged for help.

And I told them: “You were able to say all these things because I’m right here in front of you. You can see me and experience me and focus on me which helps you express your emotions. This is why my people keep deities, why we worship trees and mountains and rivers. They are ways for us to focus our meditation so that we can communicate our feelings and our prayers and ask for help. We can feel like we are talking to someone when we are before our deities. Everyone is able to do this which makes our spiritual practice accessible to all. The Abrahamics hated us for this practice and they wanted to cut us off from our ancestors and our Gods and that’s why they razed our temples and destroyed our deities and desecrated our sacred lands. They slandered us as “idol worshippers” to justify this violence. They did this and continue to do this all over the world. This is the genocide we have never healed from. This same genocide happened to your ancestors too. The colonizers cut down your sacred groves. They desecrated your sacred lands. They destroyed your temples and smashed or burned your sacred deities. And it worked so well that today you can not even remember who your own ancestors were or where your own DNA has come from. All the things you just told me, you can say to your own ancestors by finding a way to focus your thoughts upon them. Draw a picture that represents them to you. Or find a piece of art that represents them to you. Find something that will help you focus your thoughts on them - a lamp, a tree. something/anything that is sacred to you. Use that to talk to your ancestors and ask them for help in decolonizing yourself.”

I ended with: “Don’t think the Abrahamics didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t want you talking to your own ancestors because they didn’t want you to have help. They didn’t want you to figure out how to resist them. So they cut you off from your own ancestors and your own deities and then they could easily control and manipulate and exploit you. The Abrahamic colonizers knew exactly what they were doing.”

This is why there is no such thing as “idol worship”. There are only Indigenous peoples on Indigenous land, talking to and praying to their own ancestors and different forms of the Divine they might believe in, trying to be the best versions of themselves that they can, each according to their own cultures.

So, Hindus and everyone else, stop using the colonizer’s language. Idols don’t exist and never have. Every time you use that word, you are repeating the Abrahamic supremacist colonizers made up propaganda that justifies the genocide of your own people.