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Article by "the man in blue" harjindersinghkhalsa@yahoo.co. uk Mixed Marriages Are we going to have war on the streets of Birmingham? The late Enoch Powell (Conservative MP) predicted rivers of blood in riots between the British and minorities. Some Sikhs are now talking about war on the streets of Birmingham over conversions of (innocent) Sikh ‘girls’ by (evil) Muslim ‘boys’, who then marry these ‘girls’. I am a Sikh, and I was a Christian. I am standing up for the right of all people from all faiths to change to another faith or to no faith. How can you force people into becoming a Christian or Muslim ? Are we talking about people who are feeble minded ? Parents can try to force their faith on their children, but it will not work. A Sikh ‘girl’ who converts because she wants to marry a Muslim ‘boy’ might be silly, but she has not been forced. I am very happy to be part of a faith tradition which recognises that people of other traditions can also find God, and which does not try to tell anybody that if you do not become a Sikh you will go to hell or some such place. Too many Muslims and Christians still think that their way is the only way. These Muslims and Christians miss out on a lot of true spirituality which can be found where different traditions meet and have an open dialogue. There are some real bigoted people about, but I also met plenty Muslims and Christians who practice respect when meeting people of other faiths. There are rotten apples in our community who just do not understand Guru’s message; similarly many Muslims and Christians do not understand that Allah the Merciful or the God of love that Jesus preached does not hate those that are of different backgrounds. A few more points : where I come from ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ do not marry, it is against the law. The Rehat Maryada does say that a Sikh should marry a Sikh, and also clearly defines who is a Sikh. I completely agree with that clause. I am a Sikh and I married a Sikh. Equally the Birmingham girl became a Muslim and does well to marry a Muslim. Another example of the prevailing hypocrisy in the multi-faith area was the e-mail about a Sikh ‘girl’ marrying a Muslim ‘boy’ in a West Midland’s Gurdwara. The Rehat Maryada clearly states that Anand Karaj should be between two Sikhs. But what about the many weddings between ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ of Sikh and Hindu background, or of Sikh and Christian background ? Where is the outcry over these ? And what about the many people who are Sikhs (or at least look like Sikhs) and involve themselves in Hindu practices ? Sikh sisters and brothers, be aware of the ‘fundamentalists’ in our midst, and concentrate on living a Sikh life, setting an example to the younger generation. Trying to enhance Sikhí by preaching hatred is just plain stupid.

This is just my assumption. I think we underestimate our Shaheeds or Soormay and assume they were driven by their own strategies, accommodating human emotions of anger, animosity, pain and hate. But our true Saheeds were Gurmukhs, not Manmukhs. It may sound wishy washy to most if us, but the Bhagats (devotee) of Sri Akal Purakh have a unique path (Chaal Nirali). Stepping on that path is like stepping on a thin hair and as sharp as a sword edge. As Maharaj says in each “Jug” (spiritual age) the “Chaal” is different but only those distinctive Bhagats understand the “Chaal”. Whatever the Bhagat does, it is in the best interests of mankind as guidance comes straight from Sri Akal Purakh. However, if we are not yet Bhagats then we can only witness individual actions and humanise them as per our worldly thinking. bhagtaa kee chaal niraalee. The lifestyle of the devotees is unique and distinct. chaalaa niraalee bhagtaah kayree bikham maarag chalnaa. The devotees' lifestyle is unique and distinct; they follow the most difficult path. lab lobh ahaNkaar taj tarisnaa bahut naahee bolnaa. They renounce greed, avarice, egotism and desire; they do not talk too much. khanni-ahu tikhee vaalahu nikee ayt maarag jaanaa. The path they take is sharper than a two-edged sword, and finer than a hair. gur parsaadee jinee aap taji-aa har vaasnaa samaanee. By Guru's Grace, they shed their selfishness and conceit; their hopes are merged in the Lord. kahai naanak chaal bhagtaa jugahu jug niraalee. ||14|| Says Nanak, the lifestyle of the devotees, in each and every age, is unique and distinct. ||14||

Great response by S1ingh. Is it justfiable look at our great Mahapurash’s and Shaheed’s and prematurely compare our current actions to them or use historical tales to justify our current actions? When our avastas reach a certain level, I suppose we would not need to question whether an action is right or wrong, Sri Akal Purakh will automatically guide us. We reap what we sow and as Maharaj tells us Api Beej Api Hi Kahu. I think that goes for all positive actions as well as negative. Without the kamai of Dharam behind us I think a crime is a crime, no matter how we attempt justify it.

The problem is most of us wear the kara as an item of jewellary. It has been mistakenly adopted as an "essential" artilce to worn by people who wish to categorise themselves as Sikh, but without the rest of the Kakaars, rehat and nitnem, in my view the kara is just a bangle.

Personally think that the present discussion forum is adequate enough to converse about issues. What further value will a chat room add, if anything it needs much closer moderation, something I feel admin are struggling to do with just the normal discussion forum

Then that "cultural taboo" is a massive barrier and will always be the hindrance.

If we wish to be taken seriously by the Police then by now we really should have come forward and start providing solid evidence that this is happening. Rape charges are taken very seriously by the authorities. We keep hearing about "case studies" from these awareness groups, unfortunatly it's not enough for a court of law to take seriously. The Police claim they have investigated allegations of forced conversions across the country and found no evidence of forced conversion. The evidence therefore stands weak, so we either keep gathering more evidence or accept the outcome of their investigation.

The argument will always be "is it brainwashing or enlightenment?" Britain is a democratic nation which allows individual to make their own choices when it come to faith, we cannot expect the authorities to clamp down on freedom of choice.

Description of BBC Asian Network progamme schedule: Wed 20th June From 9am...Police say there's no evidence of forced conversations to Islam so where do these stories come from? Police investigated allegations of forced conversions across the country and found no evidence of forced conversion. So where do these stories come from? Is it the case that Hindu and Sikh groups are spreading stories about these conversions to scare people about Islam or are the victims of these alleged conversions just too scared to come forward? Join the debate!

http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?showtopic=15648

chang-aa-ee-aa buri-aa-ee-aa vaachai Dharam hadoor. Good deeds and bad deeds-the record is read out in the Presence of the Lord of Dharma. karmee aapo aapnee kay nayrhai kay door. According to their own actions, some are drawn closer, and some are driven farther away. (Japji Sahib) An experience of one bad apple does not mean all apples are sour. We are all responsible for our own shortcomings ghat ghat kai antar ki jant bhlai burai ki pir pachant He, Who is inner Knower of all hearts, knows the inner opinions of all, good or bad (Kabio Bach Bainti Chaupai) No matter how we portray ourselves, Sri Akal Purakh knows our inner intentions whether honourable or not.

Sikhism is not failing, we as individuals are! We all seem to know where our own weaknesses lie, so we should work on them!

Break the mould by having an active presence in those Guru Ghars! It's the shortage of Gursikhs within these congregations that lead to manmat creeping in. Birmingham is fortunate to have a large group of young Gursikhs, but it's time to spread out from your local Gurdwaras and physically travel to Gurdwaras where the Congregation are on the weak side. It's a commitment that needs to be taken by all of us. I personally think that this coupled up with the setting up Jathas, misals, Campaigns, parchaar/literature can help to wash out the corruption and boost the morale of our Panth! Do not just isolate the problems to just specific "caste" run Gurdwaras as it is only digressive and will always cloud the real issues. Treat the "caste" run Gurdwara as your own local Guru Ghar. With time the malpractices will be erdicated, but we need a long term level of commitment to the running of those Guru Ghars, even if it is only in the langer hall or joriya de sewa.

ayhu vis sansaar tum daykh-day ayhu har kaa roop hai har roop nadree aa-i-aa. This whole world which you see is the image of the Lord; only the image of the Lord is seen. gur parsaadee bujhi-aa jaa vaykhaa har ik hai har bin avar na ko-ee. By Guru's Grace, I understand, and I see only the One Lord; there is no one except the Lord. kahai naanak ayhi naytar anDh say satgur mili-ai dib darisat ho-ee. ||36|| Says Nanak, these eyes were blind; but meeting the True Guru, they became all-seeing. ||36|| (Sri Anand Sahib Ji) If the image of the Lord is in all, should we encourage hate for anyone? This is not some “hippy” statement, this is Maharaj talking to us! There’s a saying "Hate does a great deal more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than the object on which it is poured.” We are coming across more and more comments on this forum and some real life hateful attitudes by Sikhs against other faith groups. There are definitely some genuine problems but are we now falling into a pit which we are struggling to get out off where we now verbally attack people because of their beliefs or because they don’t fit our views or because of adverse incidents in our history. Is HATING OTHERS BECAUSE OTHERS HATE YOU the right way to live? Is there any sense in having hate? It is just allowing bitterness to fester in our lives and will undermine our families, community and Kaum. Hating at it’s heart is a self centred (Manmukh) thinking and a lack of discipline and self-control. I am sure everyone has experienced hating and being hated. Hatred is an ordinary human experience that has extraordinary results. I think that all of us have our hate-stories to tell. We all have our hate-scars, some of which are better healed than others, and some of us are better healed, as persons who have hated and been hated, than others!!!

i must say i 100% agre with u, our gudware should have sum kind of support for the sangat. Even if many of the females of the sangat have an issue they wouldnt want to go and talk about it with any members of the gurdwara because they they mite not fil right saying it to a man this is the reason why gurdwara should have remale members to support the bibia of the sangat. These things can only happen if people like you and me implement them ourselves. The only way to carry that out is to take active control of the running of Gurdwaras through participation and involvement within committees. It is a difficult, if not near impossible, to change views of the current generation of Committees. Adding pressure as an external groups/campaigns etc in many cases just leads to arguments, confrontations and resistance which does not always give the desired outcomes.

In my view the real issue is that as a Kaum we have allowed the acceptance of Sikh maryada to become established as a ritualistic act by our very own community and we must now take responsibility and reform our practices. I see no difference to bramhanical practices of the old days to practices carried out by our own community today. Sikhi by the majority is seen as a set routine of ritualistic acts such as Akhand Paths, Sehaj Paths and Anand Karajs performed for money by Granthis. This is in direct contradiction to the implementation of a Sikhi Jeevan (lifestyle) which encourages the individual to live, breathe and feel Sikhi. Until we get our own house in order, we will remain tormented by beadbi, abuse of our maryada and attacks by both our own community and the external communities. Entrance and representation into the direct running of Gurdwaras is essential in order to move forward, it’s long term but will be the only way to eradicate malpractices within Sikhi and strengthen our current representation of ourselves. Setting up Jathas, misals, Campaigns etc, producing literature/parchaar is all good and well, but without having a solid active presence within Guru Ghars we will struggle to wash out the corruption and boost the morale of the Panth!

Some valid points here. Even when it comes to any morcha/protests/panthic meetings etc we need to be encouraging our sisters, wifes, mothers and daughters to be fully involved. They should be standing with us side by side on all issues, we need to snap out of the “boys club” mentality and be as inclusive as we are supposed to be.

http://www.sikhnet.com/s/Agreement Eidos Plc Agrees to Revise Hitman 2 In response to concerns from the Sikh community, Eidos Plc announced today that it would modify existing versions of the game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and that the new game would be ready for the market within three to six weeks. Modifications will be done on the versions of the game already released on the PC, XBOX and Playstation 2 platforms. In addition, the game will be modified for the not-yet-released Gamecube version. Leading organizations within the Sikh community are pleased that the company stepped forward and partnered with the Sikh community to find a resolution to the Hitman 2 issue. The agreement is being seen as a sign of social and corporate responsibility on the part of Eidos. In a corporate statement published on its Hitman 2 website, the company stated, “Eidos recognizes the value of upholding the Company's good corporate citizenship status and strives to observe high standards of ethical behaviour in all its business activities. To that end, the lessons learned from the concerns expressed by the Sikh community will help to ensure that the Company continues to observe and respect cultural, religious and ethical sensitivities in its future products.” A public statement to the Sikh community on behalf of the Sikh organizations leading the campaign reads, in part, “We would like to thank Eidos for being receptive to our concerns once they were raised and we applaud the positive steps taken by Eidos in showing corporate sensitivity to Sikhs. It should be stressed that the neither Eidos nor IO Interactive meant to cause any offence to Sikhs. Accordingly, we believe that a satisfactory conclusion has been reached in the interests of all parties.” The Hitman 2 Recall Campaign began on October 16th when Sikh Coalition contacted Sikh organizations around the globe to begin drafting a petition to the company. On October 17th, representatives of SikhNet, Sikh Coalition, Sikh Communications Council, The Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force and the Sikh Council on Religion and Education began to meet and discuss strategic responses to the company and the video game. At the same time, WORKSE and other Sikh organizations were meeting in the UK. On October 20th, these groups, in conjunction with 40 other Sikh organizations around the world, launched an on-line petition drive to recall and change the game. This was followed, on October 31st, by a letter-writing campaign to retailers and elected officials. Over the course of the last three weeks, the recall campaign and on-line petition garnered the co-sponsorship of over 150 Sikh and non-Sikh organizations world-wide. Over 10,000 people signed the on-line petition. In addition, California Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante and New Mexico Lt. Governor Walter Bradley publicly offered their support to the Sikh community, issuing statements to the public, the company and the retailers about the issue. “We believe this outcome is testimony to the power of working collectively as a Sikh community as well as to approaching difficult situations in a spirit of cooperation with the corporate world,” said Avtar Hari Singh Khalsa, Executive Director for SikhNet. “Going into this process with a win/win attitude from the outset set the stage for a successful resolution. We would like to thank all the Sikh and non-Sikh organizations and all the members of the public world-wide who supported these important efforts.”

In 2002 the Sikh community successfully made Eidos revise the Hitman 2 game to remove scenes of a Gurdwara attack. This isn't the first time the religious community has dealt with violent use of their imagery and places of worship. In 2002 the Sikh Coalition began a petition against the Eidos title Hitman 2 based on the use of holy temples in the game. The petition lays out their feelings clearly, "The Harmander Sahib is a holy Sikh place of worship that serves as a religious and a political center for the Sikhs worldwide. The Harmander Sahib is held in reverence, just as the Vatican by Catholics... such a graphical portrayal of violence within the sacred grounds of any religious place—whether a Gurdwara, a Temple, a Church or a Mosque, is completely unacceptable." Eidos responded to the petition less than a month later by removing the offending content from the website, making a new version of the game on existing platforms without the offending content, and removing the level from the GameCube port. The developer also offered a formal apology to the Sikh community and stressed that no offense was intended. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070...-sony-game.html

Khalsa Ji, What's the full address of the Gurdwara Sahib. Thanks

British Sikh Lad, I do think you have an agenda of further encouraging the animosity between Sikhs and Muslims. I really don’t think taking this route achieves the desired outcomes as all we do is create a common enemy to pass blame and cloud the real issues. In my view, as Sikhs we make little attempt to engage ourselves in Gurmat discussion to make us understand how Gurbani relates to our everyday life. If we do not understand this and fail to relate Sikhi to our own lives, then we are always exposed to people from islam etc coming and confidently promoting their belief. Most Muslims, from orthodox to less orthdox, vocally talk about their religion, study their history and learn/quote their scriptures. As time goes by they become exceptionally fluent in their religion, which is something that the majority of us are definitely weak at. Only through consistent dialogue and discussion will we know how to respond confidently and fluently when others try and put doubt in our own minds. Not only should we engage oursleves more with veechar and parchaar but we should not naivly assume we are going to be fine by simply learning Punjabi, keertan, and attending the odd saheedi kirtan darbar or beadbi protest/rally/vigil. We really do need to understand what purpose Sikhi has in our lives. We Sikhs do not talk enough about Sikhi between ourselves let alone the outside world. We shy away from openly showing our rehat. We want to completely blend in with society and fear to remain distinct. We dilute what we can in order for our own convenience. All these things play a part in our current feeling of vunerability.

I think Parchaar is the easy bit. What's lacking is Jeevan (the lifestyle), i.e. following, accepting and implementing the parchaar. In my opinion that's where the Khalsa support network needs to focus on. We can all become those amazing parcharaks, write powerful postings, make great youtube video but if we do not implement our own parchaar into our own lifestyles than we will always be viewed upon as hypocrites. And it's usually the practice of hypocrisy that makes people question a religion. Instead of looking for the role models, we need to become the role models!

Malkeet, you have made some fair comments. However, I must add that barriers between the ultimate truth and your soul are only created by your own self. Several years ago I could not speak Punjabi, forget about even reading Gurmukhi. But when you start stepping on the path of the Bhagat an inner interest opens up, the pull get's stronger and stronger until you realise that you have been here before. When we first learn banis like Sri Jaap Sahib at first they seem near impossible but as the months go on the bani becomes more familiar and as the years go on the bani becomes automated. The thing is it takes time, a long time and Divine revelations do not come overnight for mere mortals like you and me. I think it gives us comfort to pass blame to the Granthi or the Katha Vachak or other Amritdharis or Muslims/Hindus because utilimately only the individual is responsible for his/her distance from the Truth.

Sikha Da Mun Neeva Mat Uchee Muth Puth Da Rakha Akal Purukh Waheguru May the minds of the Sikhs be humble, but their wisdom be profound; may You Yourself be the keeper of our wisdom, O Waheguruji. We are all influenced (you can all it brainwashing) into making choices in our life. Be it to cut our hair, drink alcohol, smoke, take drugs, sleep around and even adopt a faith. Just as one choices to take Amrit and adopt Rehat another chooses to stay away from Amrit and Rehat. We don’t force someone to adopt our faith as that’s what people like Arungzeb did. Likewise we can’t force anyone to stay in a faith as that individual is driven by their own “Mat”.

The lack of responses is quite ironic really. I suppose if we were tyar bar tyar then we should be able to arrange an amrit sanchar anywhere for the abhilakhi. Maharaj Kirpa Karay we can maybe attempt to organise one somewhere for the abhilakhi or find our whether there is an Amrit Sanchar just outside London. Please PM me.