Bnp Vs Humanitarians In Leeds City Center

jagjit_waheguru · November 2, 2005

waheguru ji kekhalsa, waheguru ji ke fateh

Pyare jio, I came to work as usual in Park Square, which is the heart of the Leeds city center. Just opposite my office is Leeds Magistrates Court and Leeds Town hall. There was a buzz in the my building about the happening at Court today.

Today was the trial of Nick Griffen, the UK leader of the fascist British National Party. So at lunch time, I took the opportunity of walking over to the Court building where I could see the press, the police, and the BNP activists protesting outside court. I even recognised some of them, from the physical confrontations we had 3 years ago in Halton Moor area of Leeds. They recognised me, being a Amritdhari Singh with a dumalla, does make you stand out from a crowd. I read their banners, and listened to them chant their slogans, of "England for the English", etc, etc. There must have been about 60 of them.

Then behind me came a large crowd, who were herded by the police. They were chanting "Fascists Out!" This was a crowd of about 500 people who were from Unite Against Fascism. This seems to be a coalition group of trades unionists, students, and other leftists groups. I decided to join them in their rally. They stopped outside the Town Hall, where they held their rally.

So we had a group of 60 nazis, 500 leftees, and the largest group was by far the Police.

Walking with the rally group, I realised out of the 500, I saw 2 black people and no asians. Everyone was white. I have to say I did feel out of place, not because I was a Singh, but more because I was the only one wearing a suit.

I began thinking, these people are doing Guru ji`s mission. Guru ji taught us to stand up for the small communities, those oppressed, or bullied, from those who spread hate and bully. Yet, we never see Sikhs, or even asians there. These people hound hatred groups like the BNP, to counter all their activities. They took time off work, and made the difference with their presence. Would we do that?

I remember at universities, we used to get approached by these groups for us to join, but asians generally are so full of apathy. A couple of times before I mentioned it to Singhs aswell, that need to counter the BNP, but Singhs just always tell me to Naam japp, and not worry about it. But Sikhi is not about pacifism, but about Sant sipahis.

While standing there, I was joined by two more Sardars who work locally, and then two mulsim bibian with hijabs. So slowly our asian representation grew.

But we have to consider that if these people did not stand up for ethnic minorities, the BNP activity would go on unchecked.

Generally in Sikhi in UK, we have far too little activism. I can honestly say we have many fantastic Gursikhs, especially in the youth, but apart from Jagdeesh Singh in slough and his Singhnee, Paramjit kaur, I cannot think of any Sikh activists, who get involved in affairs beyond Panthik arena.

I intently listened to the speakers. Two in particular were fantastic. One was an elderly Jewish man who was in concentration camps in Germany, who now lives in Leeds. Another was a middle aged black man who is a trades unionist, who calls himself the Nazi Hunter.

At the end of the rally, before I went back to my office, I took time to speak to the organisers. I hope the organsers of Sunday do not mind, but I told them about the Sikhs in the Square event, and made contacts where in future events they can support Sikh issues aswell. They had so much literature about the growth of islamopobia in UK, but no muslims were present, except the muslim bibian who were bystanders like me. One of organisers said to me that we stand up for muslims, but they do not bother turning up.

I have to confess I have never been a socialist, more of a capitalist with a conscious, but I was highly impressed by the people I met. I consider it Guru jis kirpa that such humanitarian people exist. If this was India, and muslims behaved the way they do in UK, then there would be riots, and many would support nationalist groups like BNP equivalent Indian groups.

Generally we have to accept, some western people are far more tolerant, and less racist than asian community.

I have bought my Unite against fascism T-shirt, and hope to support future events.

After speaking to the police, I also found out there is another even bigger rally happening further by the Anti-Nazi league. It is good to see so many people in Yorkshire are so anti-fascist.

As Mr Nazi hunter said, we want to change Nick Griffin from BNP to HMP. (Her Magisties Pleasure) in prison.

waheguru ji kekhalsa, waheguru ji ke fateh

P.S. When I left work, just after 5, everyone had gone, except the BNP outside the court, who were totally surrounded and outnumbered by Police. It was dark, damp and miserable. I will see on news tonight what has happened to Nick Griffen.