Who Cares ?

[Guest jigsaw_puzzled_singh]

Another homeless Sikh Punjabi dies living on the streets of London while the rest of us go about our daily business. 

When I was a kid I never paid much attention to the difference between 'in' and 'on' when it came to which street we lived in. I used the two words interchangeably. I had relatives that lived 'in' Bulstrode Road because lots of Sikhs lived on Bulstrode Road but I didn't think, as I grew up, there would come a time when Sikhs would be living 'on' Bulstrode Road and dying there. Has this become so common that we barely even notice it when it happens let alone care ? I didn't know this man but is it really just me that gets filled with tearful emotion just thinking about him and his family wherever they are in the world ? 

https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/29/know-anything-homeless-man-happy-just-died-7671250/

 

[Guest jigsaw_puzzled_singh]

Quote

 I didn't know this man but is it really just me that gets filled with tearful emotion just thinking about him and his family wherever they are in the world ? 

I think the silence here has answered that question. It's probably a 'yes'.

[Guest GuestSingh]

Nah, you're not the only one....didn't know the man either but considering our numbers and wealth, it's always disheartening to see/hear.

[Guest Corrupt Gurdwarras]

On 1/30/2018 at 4:01 PM, Guest Jagsaw_Singh said:

A few weeks ago, after another freezing night in Paris, the dead lifeless bodies of 3 homeless Sikh men were picked up from the pavement by the Paris Municipal Authority and that's it.  Everyone knows Paris gets extremely cold in the winter and everyone knows Paris has an unbelievably big rough-sleeping problem. People die. End of story. It's not the first time the Punjabi homeless have died shivering in the streets of Paris and it won't be the last. Who cares.

But how do we explain that to the mothers, fathers and siblings of those young men ?  How do we justify the fact that their boys died alone in the street while just over 100 miles away in the world's most powerfull city where Sikhs have a powerfull influence our people were too lazy to care, our preachers were too busy getting rich and our politicians were too busy massaging their own egos. Is this what it means to be human ?

I'm not saying it is just us Sikhs that need to snap out of this selfishness because that is far from the case. For example, you have Americans displaying racist and uncaring attitudes towards Mexicans and you have Mexicans hurling rocks and spit at Hondurans and Guatemalan migrants for being darker skinned than them as they ride the 'beast' freight train through Mexico.  We're all as bad as each other but I truly believe we Sikhs cannot by definition call ourselves Sikhs unless we care. To care should be an integral part of our psyche as a Sikh.

So, to the mothers of those 3 young men I say this :  We didn't know your boys...we never met them but....I want you to know that some of us did care and some of us did shed a tear. Even though your boys died completely alone in the harshest of conditions...in death they have found friends that care.

No excuse for those guys to have died on the streets when there are Gurdwarras in France. The operators of Gurdwarra have become corrupt money making pigs. This is on them.

[Guest Jigsaw_Puzzled_Singh]

Well....sadly   ....let's all spare a thought and prayer for our beautiful little 6 year old sister Gurpreet Kaur, whose lifeless body was found in the 110 degree temperature of the Arizona desert a couple of days ago. Like many Guatemalean, Nicaraguan and Mexican children over the past year or so, she died because Trump and his supporters had criminalised the idea of water being left by good and decent people to help these people that wanted nothing more than what every human in the world has ever wanted....a better life for their kids. 

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/17/headlines/6_year_old_migrant_girl_from_india_dies_in_arizona_desert_on_way_to_seek_asylum

 

[dallysingh101]

On 6/19/2019 at 2:57 PM, Guest Jigsaw_Puzzled_Singh said:

Well....sadly   ....let's all spare a thought and prayer for our beautiful little 6 year old sister Gurpreet Kaur, whose lifeless body was found in the 110 degree temperature of the Arizona desert a couple of days ago. Like many Guatemalean, Nicaraguan and Mexican children over the past year or so, she died because Trump and his supporters had criminalised the idea of water being left by good and decent people to help these people that wanted nothing more than what every human in the world has ever wanted....a better life for their kids. 

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/17/headlines/6_year_old_migrant_girl_from_india_dies_in_arizona_desert_on_way_to_seek_asylum

 

That's so sad, but let's understand this fully, on a wider global perspective.

If powerful Sikhs back in Punjab (and here I mean mainly the SGPC aligned brigade - those in positions of power and who have access to massive resources) gave any sort of serious hoot about developing the state and it's economy (outside of some medieval feudal  vision that only benefits a minority) and instead of playing clannish, casteist, selfish politics which panders to certain people's ego, that place wouldn't generally be such a shyte hole that people would risk everything to escape it. It's backwardness on our own people's part in our homeland that is behind this. 

I've heard from faujis themselves that people routinely die on the 'donkey' trail to get here. So the indirect death toll from failures of apnay in power back home is much higher than we imagine. 

Then (and I'm talking from personal experience here), we have a complex issue of those that have managed to reach here but at some point find themselves in over their heads and resorting to hardcore drinking and drug abuse to try and cope with it all. Some just give up altogether. I've seen such apnay around the way, drinking in full public, in busy shopping centres in the middle of the day, dishevelled and detached. Now, this obviously stems from deeply embedded psychological issues, that can't be resolved overnight. You can't just solve those deeply rooted neurological issues just by treating the symptoms (although I'm not saying that that shouldn't be done). I know around the Ilford area we had a few such apnay die in the last few years in the cold weather too. 

I think these things stem from a culture where posing and status is the bottom line, and acknowledging personal difficulties (and let's be straight here - human weakness) is a taboo - and only really results in ignorant apnay laughing at people in trouble. This deeply embedded VERY COMMON cultural attitude amongst apnay (which stems from Punjab whether we like it or not) totally decimates any chance of creating a reasonable, society, which serves as a support network for such people. So if we've got this dog eat dog scenario going on, it's only natural that some people will fall through the cracks and generally it's every man for himself. And when people do try and help - most of the time it seems like some photo-op to enhance status.  

Those people back home who routinely sell their votes for caste pride, or a bottle of whiskey or whatnot have a big hand in this. Forget running away abroad, us diasporans should be able to go back home and prosper too, bring some of our resources and skills over there for this  - but we all know that corruption is so normalised over there - that this is as likely as spotting a unicorn.