Email/text/phone Please! - Backlash Of Bombings

[sher_panjabi]

TODAY (Now) THERE IS A TOPIC ON A TALK SHOW CALLED 'WRIGHT STUFF' (on CHANNEL 5) ON WHETHER WHITE PEOPLE LOOK AT YOU DIFFERENT AFTER THE LONDON BOMBINGS BECAUSE OF YOUR APPEARANCE.

THIS WOULD BE A GOOD OPPURTUNITY FOR SIKHS TO HIGHLIGHT THE ISSUE OF THE WIDER PUBLIC BEING IGNORANT OF WHO SIKHS ARE.

NISHAAN SAHIBS BURNT

GURDWARA ATTACKED

SINGHS BEATEN UP and more ALL BECAUSE OF LONDON BOMBINGS

SO PLEASE TUNE INTO THE PROGRAMME AND EMAIL/TEXT/PHONE THE PROGRAMME WITH YOUR VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES and HOPEFULLY PEOPLE WILL REALISE THAT THE SIKH COMMUNITY IS ALSO FACING BACKLASH.

THANKS

The Wright Stuff (Talk Show)

Time - 10:30 - 11:30 (1 hour long)

Phone the studio on 0871 231 5555

Text 85333

Email: wrightstuff@five.tv

[Nsingh1]

i don't think this topic is on todays show. well thats what it says on the site.

[London Singh]

Thanks sher_panjabi for letting us know. :TH: I just emailed in to the show. I am at work - so please let us know if the Sikh perspective made it to the show.

[asmlondon]

One of London's first Sikh immigrants was Asa Singh Grewal. In fact he was more of a nomad than an immigrant flitting between the US, the UK and back to India and almost single handedly bringing over half of the village of Narangwal to the west. His formidable frame and over powering appearance are almost always evident in those great group shots of Sikhs in the 1930s at Shepherds Bush Gurdwara

Anyway I was talking to his son, Surjan Singh Grewal (now deceased) some years ago and he told me a story of his father during the german air raids on London during WW2. Apparantly during one of the bombing raids a stray unexploded bomb landed in the Gurdwara premisis (i think it was either Putney or Bow?). It was sitting in the yard at the back almost completely intact with its bomb case intact and the flights just bent from the impact on the soft ground.

Asa Singh (the unoffial Gurdwara gaurdian) simply picked the bomb up, hauled it over his shoulder (as Jats do to a sack of grin back in the Punj) and marched it down to the local police station. there, he plonked it down on the counter in front of a terrified desk jockey copper !! Apparantly the story made it into the newspaper but I never managed to track it down from Surjan Singh before he passed away.

the point is that there was a spirit in those days, that Sikh had. Indefagitable, powerful, taking no crap from anyone - least of all the Nazis, self assured and solf-confident and probably fool hardy. I write all this becuase I am increasingly uncomfortable that the vocal Sikh community is seen as winging and whining about getting "stared at on the tube" or a few bricks being thrown through a window in the few weeks after 56 poeple were blown to bits on the underground. We shoudl be showing the fortitude & defience and self respect of Asa Singh not cowering behind our colective sofas and whinging the racist morons are "looking at us differently" - let the Muslims worry about that.

Since I am on the topic. Its been reassuring to see that in the last 3-4 weeks not a single turbanned face has been seen on the telly associated with the bombing, this is in sharp contrast to 9/11 when you couldnt move for trubanned Ayatollahs, Talibans and Al-Quadas popping up every 5 minutes. In this case it has to be the severly mentally retarded to connect a turbanned Sikh with the Muslim extremeists.

[ifithelps]

For those that care....here is something that could be used for as a leaflet, poster, flyer, whatever you feel appropriate.

IGNORANCE_CAN_KILL_1_.doc