Throwing Mud At Sikhs

[dalsingh101]

Recently I've been watching media portrayals of the Sikh community in the UK. What strikes me is the amount of mud being slung at the community.

What is also apparent is that the media will use people who are of "Sikh" backgrounds to take a lead in this (read Bassey and Hundal). Complaints of "anti-intellectualism" "fundamentalism" and so on are the usual backbones of their arguments. This is nothing surprising because the people who control British society have a long history of stifling any movement that is beyond their authority.

But what I think we should discuss is what we can do to minimise the ammunition that such people use. There are issues in the community that are used against Sikhs. So the question we need to ask (and resolve) is what can WE do to straighten things out so that their job of slander is made more difficult?

Recently there seems to be a almost international movement to defame the Khalistani movement by emphasising distasteful areas. Given we have so many issues such as foeticide, violence in Gurdwaras, drug addiction and many youth going off the rails etc. Should it not be the prime concern of Khalistanis to concentrate resources to combat these? It just seems that sometimes in the drive to gain autonomy and independence we turn a blind eye to such issues. This has 2 major effects.

The first is to give the impression that the Khalistanis are not really to bothered about common people and their problems and hence not fit to lead any movement for them. Hence the inability to see dangerous social issues within the panth.

The second is that such issues are used to deflect the masses away from genuine concerns regarding oppression in India and paint anyone genuinely concerned as a nut job. This is what I believe is behind recent media activity.

What do you all think of this?

[Mahakaal]

There needs to be a teaching of moral precepts for the advancement of mind, body, speech and action not just with sikhs but humanity on a whole. I just listened to Harbhajan Singh Yogis talk about leadership we need to take points from them. Its quite evident our leaders do not care about us and just use us as toy soldiers for a false cause.

[dalsingh101]

There needs to be a teaching of moral precepts for the advancement of mind, body, speech and action not just with sikhs but humanity on a whole. I just listened to Harbhajan Singh Yogis talk about leadership we need to take points from them. Its quite evident our leaders do not care about us and just use us as toy soldiers for a false cause.

Never more true words spoken! I wasn't surprised when he said that the leadership of the time failed Sant Bhindranwale and forced him into a corner and then let him down. We can all learn lessons from this.

But what can we do to raise consciousness between Sikhs so that they can think beyond more selfish/clannish thinking and think on a higher corporate level? It seems like idealism has almost evaporated amongst Sikh youth and that they are following various leaders who have no interests but for themselves. Today it almost seems impossible for us to have open debate without falling on each other.

The charges of "anti-intellectualism" hold true for many Sikh brothers who throw fits at anyone expressing views contrary to their own. This is seriously unhealthy as a society. If people like flana timka have "x" opinion we could just disagree and continue. But what happens nowadays is witch hunts take place. I noticed how an earlier debate about the existence of Bhai Bala was beginning to turn sour. Whether he existed or not takes nothing away from our Gurus and ancestors achievements. Yet many people take the extreme view and create polar positions where disagreement with them is tantamount to losing faith. Which is nonsense.

[rupinder singh]

Unfortunately we are highly capable of giving these journalists all the ammunition to work with. Putting forward inarticulate representatives is a wrong move and if we want to put a point forward we need to really think smartly about the PR, the bigger picture and the effect on the image of the whole community.

Let’s face it in the UK; we have had some embarrassing collective representation of Sikh leadership over the last 20 years. Admittedly some have managed to do nothing more than pull out kirpans, pull each others turbans off and manipulate the funds of the golak. Back those backward/unSikh actions with some kind of fabricated motivation for terrorism and the media have got all the material they need to write something hysterical about the Sikh community. To the average white person, you can’t get a more aggressive looking person than a Sikh male with his big turban, long beard and long kirpan. Most people would want to believe that under every Sikh male is a brutal terrorist waiting to come out and it doesn’t help when we Sikhs can so easily play into their stereotypes. Unfortunately, my experiences as a practicing Sikh is that partly due to our outwardly appearance and various opinions, we are very easily stereotyped, pigeon-holed and typecast into believing we have an extremist view. I sometimes feel that the people are always waiting for a Sikh to slip up so that they can claim that they “told us so” and tarnish the Sikh community as a group of “village idiots”.

I think the confusion of mixed agendas is causing problems today, where many young Amritdhari Sikhs are unintentionally ending up trying to follow an excessive agenda of Khalistan without fully understanding why. Most of the higher profile adverse incidents within the UK Sikh community such as the Smethwick or Southall incidents are the result of little more than power struggles boiling down to financial gain but nicely dressed up in pseudo-religious arguments, such as the “Panthic struggle for Khalistan”.

Now as a rich successful Community in the UK (a community that can spend £15million building a Gurdwara in Southall) our Sikh representation do not seem concerned about real issues such as the preservation of history, maryada, the genocide of female babies in Punjab, education and health, particularly when it does not support their specific case. Groups like Sikh Federation UK seem to have no agenda other than Khalistan and frankly that now risks becoming barren. Other large Sikh Jathebhandis seem only concerned in raising their profile and increasing their numbers. Unless the real legitimate issues effecting Sikhs globally are not addressed than we will continually see people “growing out” of the idea of any Sikh homeland and mud will continously be slung.

[Nimratha]

Fateh Khalsa Ji,

I would say follow Bani, educate, work hard in a good job which you would get if you educated, and then use your 10th to help the Panth.

Buy up land in punjab so that it does not get into the wrong hands... One can only do this if he is free from moh of maya and does it for seva.

We also need more shere who can get up and do the job, not just ones who talk about pulling kirpan's out or knocking off Turbans blah blah.

Politics is a nasty game, how do we over come it? GET RID OF THE ONES WHO PLAY THE GAME!!

No Players = No Game.

No Game = Beautiful Sikhi :wubc:

Bhul Chuk Maaf

VJKK, VJKF!