West London Singh

I've noticed that sentiment alot here on this forum among 'Sikhs'. But why ? I'm intrigued because when our history books tell us about Apartheid I always wondered how much better the world would be if we Sikhs had power during those South African times. I always felt how Sikhs would have made a stand. Even non-Sikhs question how their fathers and grandfathers lived happily through a life in which apartheid in South Africa occurred without taking a stand. But, if history teaches us just one thing it is the fact that history teaches us nothing at all. So how will our children and our children's children judge us ? They'll ask you why you were silent when a group of people, simply because of their ethnicity, were herded into a tiny strip of land, blockaded and seiged so that no one in the world could do business with them.......you took their WATER away from them and then sold it back to them at a price (which they couldn't afford anyway because they were blockaded and seiged)....(google not only Gaza'a water crisis but also how Isreal's water company is stealing it).....you built a giant 'Berlin' wall to keep them from entering and earning a living (bearing in mind they were seiged and blockaded)........In desperation, and in common sense, they threw whatever they had at their disposal at you. What they actualy threw at you were 20 and 30 year old used rockets without any warheads but whether or not they had warheads didn't matter anyway because the Americans had paid for a Trillion dollar shield to stop these non-lethal sub-standard rockets landing anyway. They (your children and your children's children) will ask why you were silent when the apartheid regime used those non-existent rockets as an excuse to blatantly and cold-boodedly massaacre 2000 civilians including children. The history books tell it. And they tell it so well. When this middle east conflict is over the history books will tell it. And they will tell it so well. If you wish to be able to look your grandchildren in the eye with any moral and ethical authority I suggest you change your way of thinking right now. They will ask you why you 'didn't care'.

India did their dirty deeds and moved on and the world cared not for their deeds. Isreal, it seems, is about to move on after doing their dirty deeds. So what have we learned ? 1) We've finally understood why the rest of the world has not been as moved as we are about the murdering of children and mothers by a 'democracy'. 2) We've learned that some, if not most (judging by this forum) Sikhs approve of the tactic of wiping out the existence of a troublesome minority so that 'their' problem won't exist. 3) We've learned that we are that troublseome minority as far as India is concerned. 4) We have not learned how the Indian Army were, in 1984,(whilst indira was still alive) issued with combat guidelines that described every Sikh (i.e amritdhari and kirpan wearing) as an "enemy of the state (the sate of India) thus worthy of being shot at sight. 5) We have learned nothing about how that dehumanisation of us led to what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call the 'deaths of a quarter of a million' of Sikhs. 5) We have not learned how the above is relative to our relationship with the Palestinians (as if our relationship as fellow human bengs wasn't enough) 6) We learned about how how a despaaerate people can fire a thousand dud missles without any firepower and the world will call those desperate people terrorists. 7) We learned how Americans, through their media, were not told that not more than 6 of those missles had actually ever landed in Isreal (thanks to the tax dollars of the average American who is suffering already far more than we know)....i.e thanks to the American funded shield. 8) We learned how murdering 2000 Palestinian civilians in resoonses to missiles that never had a chance to getting to you in the first place was the "correct" response. And yet here we are. The western educated Sikh diaspora. Some of us ( Not I ) have good jobs, good houses and good careers. Some of us, when we get a chance, ask people why they don't care about our suffering as Sikhs where a 'supposed' democracy launched an inhuman attck on us. And then, we turn around and support a 'democracy' that launches an inhuman assault on another group of people that just happen not to be us. Its make up your mind time. Are we the killers ? Or the sufferers ?

I know I said the above nearly 2 weeks ago knowing how, in the past, Isreal has habitually bombed Palestinian children as they sleep, but in my heart of hearts I hoped it wouldn't be the case this time around. Sadly, we awoke this morning to the news that Isreal has, during the night, bombed children as they slept in a UN shelter, despite the UN repeatedly giving the Isrealis the exact co-ordinates of the school and exact statistics of the number of sheltering children and mothers there. As the United Nations Secretary General stated today "Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children. I want to make it clear that the precise location of this Jabalia Elementary Girls School had been communicated to the Israeli military authorities 17 times - as recently ‎as last night, just a few hours before the attack. They were ‎aware of the coordinates and exact locations where these people are being sheltered." and yet they still bombed it. Shameful. And yet more shameful still is how some Sikhs on this forum think Sikhi stands with murderers that butcher children as they sleep in their beds.

What 'violent' Khalistanis ? I see Khalistanis around me every day. They are old bibian. They are schoolkids. They are University students. They are doctors. They are factory workers. They work in the 'city'. They are teachers, They are volunteers doing seva, 'They' are ordinary men and women expressing a basic human right of self-determination. However, unlike the Scottish men and women, the Catalonians, the Waloons in belgium, the Quebecois etc they have to suffer the indignity of their own people, i.e YOU, refusing to respect their views and hear their voices. Tell me then.....who are the 'extremists'...them or you ? Who is the one that refuses to respect the other's viewpoint ? Who is the one that is so intolerant of the other's desire for freedom that he labels them 'khaliban' as a form of ridicule ? That 'one' is the extremist. That one is you. Both you and that other one here need to sit down and analyse what kind of damage you cause your own panth by freely using such terms as 'kaliban'

If the Indian High Commission has any sense at all it should pay N30SINGH some decent living expenses. The man has consistently done such a fine job of representing the Indian government's point of view on this Sikh forum I don't think it fair that his undying loyalty goes unrewarded. Come on Indian Government...pay the man his dues.

Every time I read a news article in which Sikh groups say their "feelings were hurt" or that the others "hurt our sentiments" I just cringe and can read no more. We need to tell our Sikh leaders to stop using these terms. We need to educate them as to what these English language terms imply in the English language. They need to understand how, in the English language, these terms imply a contexxt of immature children with very fragile feelings. Not what you expect from adults and warriors. Say it like it is. Hate Crimes committed by Muslims against Sikhs. Enough of this childish language.

It seems Canadian media is as biased and right wing as the American news media, where they force feed you lies and the public swallow it hook, line and sinker. The only people saying 'Hamas uses civilians as human shields' are the Isrealis. Hamas deny they are doing it. The Palestinian civilians themselves deny it is being done to them. And the United Nations say they have found absolutely no evidence of it happening. And yet here you are, accepting the murderer's justification excuse for his murders. Put yourself in the position of the Palestinian and the pitiful second class existence he and his family have been subjected to for generations. What would you do ? Every one of us, if we were being honest with ourselves, know in our hearts that we would rise up and fight. Educate yourself. For the first 40 years of Isreal's existence the Palestinians were represented by the PLO. The PLO themselves were representative of the Palestinian people in that they had a roughly 70/30 make-up of Muslims and Christians. The PLO were alcohol drinking non-religious secularists. When the Palestinians were very non-religious you demonised them and drove many of them to radical islam. Now that they are religious Muslims you find a different excuse to demonise them. It seems any excuse will do to deny them the most basic of human rights. Yes I agree that radical Islam is a serious problem for all of us around the world. But what you need to realise is that the inhuman treatment of the Palestinians by the Isrealis has been the catalyst for muslims throughout the world getting radicalised. Read this thread from start to finish. There is information here about how the state of Isreal itself was created through terrorist attacks against British officials and civilians. Brutal and barbaric terrorist attacks committed by Jewish immigrants into what was then British Palestine. I have so much love for Jews as I see so many similarities between them and we Sikhs particularly in terms of spirituaity and suffering. But I resent the fact my humane support for the Palestinians can be labelled as anti-semitism. Thankfully, there are many among the Jewish diaspora and North America and Europe who have been so moved by the suffering of the Palestinians they have began to make their voices heard. Read this by a Canadian Jew published the Globe & Mail yesterday: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/diaspora-jews-must-make-their-voices-heard-for-peace/article19804350/

I must be getting old as I didn't realise we were now referring to ourselves (in terms of national identity) according to music award ceremonies. Now that I've heard the term 'Brit' one looks forward to Americans being described as 'Grammys'. Fair cop. I really need to treat what I write here with the same respect I show my thesis' and dissertatiions. Its all very well how most of my messages here over the last few years show me coming back and editing several hours later my silly grammar and spelling mistakes, but you're right....I have no right to criticise others when my own messages are riddled with schoolboy grammar and spelling errors. But still, I stand my 2 points : 1) UK based 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation western born Sikhs have a far worse level of spoken and written English than 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation Canadian and American Sikhs 2) At the very least one should know how to refer to one's own countrymen. A Canadian doesn't through lack of education refer to his countryman as a 'Canada based'. A Frenchman does not and would not refer to his counyryman as a Belgian. Now....there are situations around the world where my argument will fall apart because a Chinese poster will refer to himself or another who wrote an historical account as 'Chinese' and the same is true of so many languages and nationalities. But the English language does not follow these rules. The English language (just like the city that gave birth to it) goes here, there and everywhere. There is no grid pattern as there is in Canadian and American cities. There is nothing to say the first avenue must, by definition, be 2 blocks from third avenue. It exists in England and we refer to it as the Roman system because these straight grid system roads were built by the romans. And so do we follow this ? No. We are the English. We are the people that got rid of the Romans and then said "to hell with your sraight roads and grid system we're going back to our zig zag , alley there, road here, turning here and both there, thisaway thataway, Punjab village style. And that, just like the English language, is how one understands and appreciates the little nuances of English. Nuances as in how older Canadians always have and always will describe their parents as 'mum and dad' rather than 'mom and dad', for this is how English adapts, But...no matter where in the world this global language has spread it's wings the speakers of it ( no matter the limitations of their education) the speakers of it always, at (unedcated) least, know how to refer to their own country. All except, it seems, the motherland of the Eglish language. It seems the British born Sikhs don't even know that the English language dictates that they, as indiduals, are Britons. Thats neither your fault or mine. Thats ther's,

Excellent read. Thanks for finding that and posting it KalaakaraaH. Just one small complaint though. Well, not so much a complaint but a polite plea for good grammar. If you're a Canadian or an American one can understand the mistake but if youare resident in the UK than your mistake is unforgivable and perhaps an indictment of the poor standard of spoken and written English among 3rd generation UK Sikhs. The correct title of your thread should be 'Briton who attended Ranjit Singh's funeral'.

For way way too long we Sikhs have had to rely on the words written by what the rest of the educated world would term rather 'misinformed' and hardly first rate historians / authors. These Sikh 'scholars' of Sikh history had no real qualification other than the fact that they were from the urban educated classes and so the rural sikh masses (uneducated) had no choice than to take them at their word. Thankfully, those days are over. We, the sons, daughters and grandchildren of those rural folk, are far better educated than those urban Indian 'authors and historians'. So, without further ado, there is no such word in the Farsi language as 'Nihung' and there has not been so since the advent of what we know as Modern Persian. The very obscure word 'Nihung' did however exist in ancient Classical or 'Middle' Persian thousands of years ago and it's definition translated as 'mythical sea monster' (for e.g the loch ness monster). I'm not sure what the ancient Persians called crocodiles but it certainly wasn't nihung.

You can know. As I said in a previous message earlier on in this thread : Before partition, for rural jatt Sikhs it was the mirasis that kept the records of family history. Not written records mind.....the mirasi tradition was and is purely oral, passed on from generation to generation. The Mirasi-Jat relationship was peculiar to the Jatts amongst the Sikhs as most of the other Sikh groups stuck with the Hindu tradition of recording heritage with written records in places like Haridwar etc. 'Miras' is the Arabic word for heritage and so the word Mirasi literaly translates as the 'Keepers of the Heritage'. After 1947, the only mirasis that stayed behind were the bhangra singers such as kuldip manak etc. The rest all left for Pakistan. Thus, as the muslim half of my clan has since re-settled in rural district Faislabad, thats probably where I'd have to go to get an in-depth history of my family. You'd have to trace which district in Pakistan the Muslims of your village were re-settled in (which is not difficult to do), locate the children of those Mirasis, and I guarantee they'll know every little detail of your family history.

There were many such incidents but more information, as you requested, about this particular incident, can be found on this Isreali news page : http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/the-cruel-revenge-that-helped-drive-the-british-out-of-palestine-1.456440

Chatanga, you're a very highly strung dour individual if even words such as 'firstly' get you worked up. Its funny, but on a serious note it will affect your long term health unless you learn to lighten up a bit. But, seeing as you are quite sombre and dark in outlook. Here's a photo of just 2 of the British officials that your lovely 'non-terrorist' Jewish emigrants to Palestine brutaly murdered and then hung from a tree. These types of bloody deeds are the foundation of the state of Isreal. One can't expect any kind of morality from that nation now when it's very existence is founded in terror, murder, brutality and immorality. Enjoy.

What the Palestinians have gone through is truly sad. You have to remember that the Palestinians were such humane people that they actually opened up their land and homes to Jews escaping Europe because of the horrors of Nazi Germany. The Palestinians gave them sanctuary from those horrors in the name of humanity. The way that the Jews have then turned around and kicked the very people that opened up their hearts for them is truly shocking. Not only shocking but obscene the way that they are now acting in exactly the same way as the Nazis that persecuted their grandparents did. To get away with this you have to first demonise the 'enemy'. Demonise him and her to such an extent that you no longer see him or her as a human being. When the first Jewish settlers in British Palestine started hanging British people from trees in terrorist attacks and murdering Palestinian civilians Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he denounced the barbarism of Zionism. He called it a slur on the memory of Jews that perished in Europe. The man was right.

Not relevant I know but its actually the Rastafarians who have modelled themselves on Hindu sadhus. The long thick dreads had been totally unheardd of among African and Afro-Carribean people until the mass arrival of Hindu indentured labourers into Jamaica and other West Indian islands in the 1800's. Among them were those with the sadhu appearance, i.e with long matted unkempt hair and smoking copious amounts of ganga. The rastafarian movement adopted the sadhu style also adopted the hindi name for the drug, i.e ganga. But going back to the topic, the kid is just a kid. He's probably as amazed as we are that adults in Punjab can be so unbelievably stupid. They are so stupid their level of stupidity has stopped surprising me anymore.