Prem

Is this Bahadur Singh a Portuguese guy who became a Sikh years ago? I think I met him once and spoke to him. It's quite interesting how he takes a socio-historical perspective on deconstruction of Sikh belief and history regarding Guru Nanak. I'd love to see him perform a similar methodology on the prophet Muhammad and the entire Jewish-Christian-Pagan-Zoroastrian heresy that is Islam, and the political construction that is shia Islam and the reality of Ali and all following practises and beliefs. Would be interesting to see the response he gets from Muslims to that kind of analysis. How do you think they would take it?

Pheena --- what can we do about a Hindu coming inside a Gurdwara and praying in there?!?!?! We'll have to start a petition and do videos on youtube!! My blood is boiling! We can't have anyone not Sikh praying in a gurdwara can we? Surely this is against Sikhi? Isn't it?

The last census showed that there were around 350,000 Sikhs in Britain. How can people like this Bristol Singh go around saying that there are 700,000 Sikhs in Britain and expect to be taken seriously? How can all of a sudden the Sikh population increase by 100%? Where were they hiding, underneath the beds or something?

It is a definite racist blog written by a racist bigot. But Sikhs have to understand some things. You can't demand everything is banned just because you don't like it. Either respond to it using your freedom of speech by setting up another blog and contesting what is said by the bigot. Or ignore it. The only reason we can live freely in this society is because of freedom of speech as a principle. So we should not seek to deny freedom of speech to others and act like hysterical Talibans. That's the way of the world and we should be more mature about it.

Some of the things the BBC do are good. But the Asian Network phone ins are mostly rubbish and repetitive. People with chips on their shoulders phone in, morons phone in, extremists phone in. But the BBC Asian Network music shows are good. But I expect you don't like them eh SaRpAnCh?

Only joking. You know, I used to think that the popularity of Bollywood was because of the low educational levels of people in India, that they didn't know any better than these stupid plots, with no narrative sense, with embarassing acting, with ridiculous dances and songs, full of cliche and lack of intellect. I thought 'Maybe this is another aspect of India's poverty --- it leads to a lowering of intellect because of lower educational levels, and the movies are made for morons' But even in England, with highly educated Indians, who have watched sophisticated Western movies, or movies from Japan and other countries, even then amongst highly intelligent Indians these moronic movies are still popular. I swear, there are some things in life that will always be a mystery.

Quick we have to ban it quick before Sikhi is destroyed!

The trouble with the BBC Asian Network is that you could listen to it on random days over a few months and they'd be talking about the same things. This must be the third debate on the same subject that they've had on their phone in show in the last few months. All that happens is everyone says the same things over and over again. It's so boring. At least on Talk Sport or Radio 5 they discuss different subjects all the times. The BBC Asian Network just repeats itself over and over again. They must get millions every year from the BBC and they have no originality at all in their phone in shows.

Yeah. Sikhs who in their fanaticism, racism, bigotry, backwardness, violence and narrow mindedness resemble Islamic fundamentalists.

Exactly! the level of naivety is incredible. They've only succeeded in making themselves ridiculous.

shelsurj my points aren't defeated at all. Nothing came of the accusations in Birmingham. Nothing has been substantiated or recorded. People are just making Sikhs look foolish with these accusations and no evidence. The accusations being made are different from the activities of aggressive Islamic prosletysing. Until people understand that, they're just going to look foolish.

dalsingh101 I bet you that if clear headed Sikhs lobbied hard and strategically enough, they could get a national newspaper or journalist to investigate the aggressive Islamic prosletysing towards Sikhs and other groups on University campuses and colleges across Britain. After all, it's not just sikhs, but Jews and Hindus who are experiencing the harshness of Islamic bigotry at universities these days. But when people do unsubstantiated, generalised, over-the-board things like this, nobody is going to listen because it's being extremist in response. All this thing about drugging, raping and prostitution rings without any evidence just makes them seem stupid and loses sympathy for Sikh concern over Islamo-fascists harassing Sikhs and other minorities. So it's self defeating. People already want to investigate Islamic extremism and the effects of it at University and college level in the newspapers.

Exactly. The question is, why have people ignored aggressive Islamic prosletysation for so long? That is one of the reasons why embarassing things like this happen in response. It's the wrong thing to do.

Nope, a newspaper reporting a story relevant to modern life. And you sound quite racist and bigoted towards white people yourself too.

It gets even more embarassing. The BNP is an extreme right wing racist party that is descended from Nazis and the NF, a fascist organisation that is the exact opposite of everything Sikhs stand for. it's quite incredible that we have Sikhs in the modern day supporting and trusting this racist body. Extremist prosletysation is one thing --- we need to counter that. But this kind of rhetoric, without evidence, does amount to inciting hatred and may well be prosecuted. Wherever complaints have been made police have investigated and found no evidence of Muslims setting up prostitution rings or anything like that. By going so overboard, the people who made this facebook group have diverted attention away from a real problem of Islamic prosletysation. And made Sikhs look like hysterical racists too.

Well, it's on the front page of the Guardian now, the most read online newspaper in the world.

I agree. I worded it wrong. But you have to admit that these Islamo-Sikhs are very loud and risk severely damaging our good name and ethos. That's why we have to challenge them.

Good news, but need more investment in the non-agricultural economy and industry, supporting IT for example. Also need to have a long term plan to tackle social problems especially drugs and female foeticide. But at least despite all the bad things, Punjabis still manage to work hard and do well.

Get the evidence and prosecute. Making lurid claims about raping and drugging without backing it up is incitement to hatred. Being racist towards white people in response to that just makes you seem even more deranged. What a racist generation of Sikhs we have these days.

Sikhism is becoming more and more like Islamic fanaticism it seems sometimes.

Get ready to be sent to jail for inciting religious hatred! Come out in the open and make your claims and go down for inciting racial and religious hatred, a phenomenon that you would not want to happen to Sikhs, but that you carry out against others. If there is heavy and aggressive prosletysing by Muslim fundamentalists you need to counteract that directly by debate and counter-argument. Doing things like this makes Sikhs look like crazy racist hysterics and liars. So whoever created this facebook account --- are you ready to face the full strength of the law against incitement to hatred?

dalsingh I agree that right wing newspapers demonise minorities and they do demonise Sikhs. No doubt about that. But these are separate issues. It shouldnt lead to a denial of what the problem is, and what we should do to defeat and counter it. It's possible to condemn and be active against both. The trouble comes when people focus on one rather than the other.

dalsingh --- the main source of 'othering' in this issue is inherent in your question. You give an example of someone who deviates from Sikh norms. You already set up a 'them' and 'us' situation because there is a border placed around Sikhs beyond which if you should venture you are a deviant. The individual moves from being one of 'us' to being one of 'them'. That's the basis of the problem here. In real life, the borders separating Sikhs from non Sikhs are porous and easily traversable. We can be Sikhs and live in many different ways with many different identities. The problem comes when people are stigmatised, oppressed and in extreme cases murdered or physically violated for 'breaking the rules'. In these cases, the 'othering' emanates from within. Thankfully this is only a minority and the majority of Sikhs don't engage in this kind of thinking. But as you say, it exists, and needs to be addressed. There is quite literally nothing that anyone can do in a free and democratic society to prevent anyone from living as they please apart from persuading them peacefully of your point of view. That is what all Sikhs have to realise when faced with the issue of people they know dissenting from your idea of the norm or living lifestyles we may not approve of. Especially when Sikhs have more freedoms and rights and protections in this country than probably anywhere else in the world. The same rights that protect us collectively and as individuals to live as practising Sikhs, have freedom of speech, campaign for Khalistan peacefully, campaign against hate crimes --- these are the same rights and mature considerations that we have to extend to Sikhs who we disagree with.

People are free to live their lives as they please. You can try to persuade them, but that's it. After that, there's nothing you can do. We live in a free society. This society allows us as Sikhs the freedoms to follow our religion. Those same freedoms allow individuals to have rights and think and live as they please, protected by the law. You can't claim the right to be free Sikhs in a democratic society, and then seek to deny individuals freedom of thought and action.

dalsingh101 Dr_c's semi-apologia for the reasoning behind this backward cultural practise is more worrying than his blanket racism of white people (although that is quite bigoted as it is), portraying them as being without 'culture, morality, honour, religion' and so on. Because some right wing newspapers have an agenda, it does not justify generalisations of entire groups of people on the basis of prejudices. If you seek to decry racism and yet embody racism yourself, you're nothing but a hypocrite.