Why aren't British Sikhs as active/engaged as their Canadian counterparts in politics?

[YOYO29]

1 hour ago, Ranjeet01 said:

The Ummah is useful for subcontinental muslims as their standing in the overall ummah is low.

I don't think it's fair to say South Asian Muslims have low standing in Muslim World. All you can give evidence of this low standing is discrimination of South Asian workers in Arab countries. Which is true but that is not limited to South Asians, even Indonesian fillipino Sri Lankan Muslims have suffered this discrimination. Heck, even Egyptian and Syrian Arabs working in Gulf get the same treatment. Arabs nationalists are very proud of themselves they ridicule Iranians and vice versa. They even got beef with Turks remember that Arab rebellion against Ottoman Turks which must have pissed atta turk and other Turkish nationalist. Besides that we South Asian Muslims don't really care about this. It's more about sticking it to our beloved Hindu cousins with whom we got rivalry. So we got no time to bother about nationalists of other Muslim groups. 

What baffles me most is that even though sunnis and Shias are at each others throat in Yemen and Syria, Iraq. But they all are equally anti Israeli lol Palestinians enjoy more support in liberal Muslim countries like Lebanon, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia etc. Granted that other Muslim groups are more liberal than South Asians but I would be cautious to exaggerate their liberalism by taking into account your average liberal Muslim in West. Many of whom have problem with Islamic regimes back home. It's like judging entire Pakistanis by the liberal behavior of our elite class. Or visiting Pakistani, Arab or Turkish atheist forums and assuming that majority of Pakistani, Arabs or Turks are atheist. But the reality is that these type of liberals or atheists are nothing more than piss in the ocean. 

[YOYO29]

1 hour ago, TejS said:

Nader Shah's invasion of the Mughal Empire. 

Wasn't he an Afghan? Anyways Muslims killing each other nothing new. Every ruler who killed people of other sect did so in the name of Islam lol its not like that all we have done is kill each other in last 1400 years. Most of these 1400 years we lived in peace. There have been three phases of Muslims killing Muslims. First was right after the death of Muhammad when thousands of Muslims died in wars of 4th caliph Ali and Ayesha the wife of Muhammad. But later on in order to avoid more bloodshed among Muslims Hassan the son of Ali reconciled with Mavia another contender of leadership of Muslim world. Then in in 1500's Ottoman and Sadavid Iran fought bloody battles. Many Muslims died in these wars. Then the third phase started with Iraq and Syria war. Though most Muslims put the blame on West for the the mess in middle east which is true to some extent but I think we Muslims are not innocent party either. It was started when that <banned word filter activated> bin Laden decided to blow up two American buildings. We destroyed their two buildings and killed a few thousand of them but they came back destroyed two of our countries made millions homeless. Bin Laden is solely responsible for their plight, if there is any Hell he must have been burning in it. Gosh!! I get so emotional sometimes and lose track of real topic. Lol

[Ranjeet01]

14 minutes ago, YOYO29 said:

I don't think it's fair to say South Asian Muslims have low standing in Muslim World. All you can give evidence of this low standing is discrimination of South Asian workers in Arab countries. Which is true but that is not limited to South Asians, even Indonesian fillipino Sri Lankan Muslims have suffered this discrimination. Heck, even Egyptian and Syrian Arabs working in Gulf get the same treatment. Arabs nationalists are very proud of themselves they ridicule Iranians and vice versa. They even got beef with Turks remember that Arab rebellion against Ottoman Turks which must have pissed atta turk and other Turkish nationalist. Besides that we South Asian Muslims don't really care about this. It's more about sticking it to our beloved Hindu cousins with whom we got rivalry. So we got no time to bother about nationalists of other Muslim groups. 

What baffles me most is that even though sunnis and Shias are at each others throat in Yemen and Syria, Iraq. But they all are equally anti Israeli lol Palestinians enjoy more support in liberal Muslim countries like Lebanon, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia etc. Granted that other Muslim groups are more liberal than South Asians but I would be cautious to exaggerate their liberalism by taking into account your average liberal Muslim in West. Many of whom have problem with Islamic regimes back home. It's like judging entire Pakistanis by the liberal behavior of our elite class. Or visiting Pakistani, Arab or Turkish atheist forums and assuming that majority of Pakistani, Arabs or Turks are atheist. But the reality is that these type of liberals or atheists are nothing more than piss in the ocean. 

The way I see it is that the top muslims are Arabs, Turks and Iranians. (My opinion)

Turks and Iranians do not consider themselves inferior to Arabs. Probably  because both in their history ruled over the Arabs.

The rest of the muslims are just there to make the numbers. 

If South Asian muslims ruled over Arabs perhaps they would be higher ranked.

Even in the Arab World, there is a pecking order. It seems that peninsular Arabs (the Gulf boys) come first and the rest (Levantine, Masari, Maghrebi, Yemeni ) come way afterwards. 

[YOYO29]

@Tejs sorry bro for hijacking your thread. Every time I comment on some thread I divert the topic that's why most of time I silently observe without commenting 

[YOYO29]

4 minutes ago, Ranjeet01 said:

Turks and Iranians do not consider themselves inferior to Arabs. Probably

True every one considers himself chaudhry in Islamic world perhaps it's true for whole world

 

5 minutes ago, Ranjeet01 said:

The rest of the muslims are just there to make the numbers. 

Hahahahah cracked me up. Bro, you really have got a way with words.

[TejS]

5 hours ago, Ranjeet01 said:

The Lebanese are increasingly seeing themselves as "Phoenicians " rather than Arabs.

The Iranians abroad are apparently dosassociating themselves from Islam, they are beginning to pay more attention to their pre-Islamic roots. 

The turkish diaspora largely would be perhaps be more secular due to Ataturk. Though Erdogan is doing his best to un-do that. 

If you notice one thing about these muslims and that they are white/fairer/olive skinned muslims.

There is a pecking order in the Islamic world and it is based on race.

The way I see it is that the Muslims groups such as the Turks, Iranians, Lebanese who have a glorious, rich pre-Islamic heritage tend to disassociate themselves with their Islamic identity when they want to. The only notable exception to this would be the Egyptians, although the reason I think they are on board with the Islamic identity is because they play an integral role in it as well, considering Hagar, the mother of Ishmael and ancestor to Muhammad was an Egyptian and them being Semites as well. The Turks have Turkic history, the Iranians have a rich tradition going back to being a superpower in antiquity under the Achaemenid Empire and as you mentioned the Lebanese were the sea faring Phoenicians. 

Now coming to South Asian Muslims, they don't have any of that pre-Islamic glory. Their pride and identity stems from Islam and Islam only. Without it, they have no heritage to be proud of, and I think that is also another reason they double down on it. 

[Ranjeet01]

Going back to the main point of the topic.

If say for example we get another 5 or 6 Sikh MPs and maybe have one MP in the cabinet.

What are we to gain by this?

We must remember there are political lobbies and influencers behind the scenes.

Also,  an MP is responsible for the constituent which they are supposed to represent. 

For example if an Amritdhari Sikh becomes an MP for a seat which 96% white British and you approach him regarding some new atrocity that is taking place in Punjab, where are his priorities? 

 

[YOYO29]

12 hours ago, TejS said:

Now coming to South Asian Muslims, they don't have any of that pre-Islamic glory. Their pride and identity stems from Islam and Islam only. Without it, they have no heritage to be proud of, and I think that is also another reason they double down on it

European take pride in pre Christian European history but due to some mysterious reasons we South Asian Muslims are not taught about our pre Islamic past. Historic figures such as King Porus merely get any mention in our text books. We are not taught about Indus Valley civilization or about pre Islamic Indian culture. Since hatred between Hindus and Muslim is so strong we hate everything associated with them. So it would be wrong to say that we don't have any rich pre Islamic past. We have as much claim on pre Islamic civilization of India as Hindus or other people living in India. It's just that we don't care about it and deliberately ignore it due to Hindu Muslim schism. Perhaps if entire India had converted to Islam we might not had this attitude towards pre Islamic Indian civilizations. Just like when entire Europe converted to Christianity. They get to keep their pre Christian heroes. Same thing in Indonesia. If 1/3 of Europe had converted to Christianity and rest of them stayed loyal to natives European religions. European Christians might have same attitude towards their pre Christian past as South Asian Muslims do towards old sub continent civilizations.Since Europeans are all Christians and Indonesians are almost all Muslims and they don't have any of rival group living among them so they don't have to disown their old culture.We South Asian Muslims and Hindus have rivalry or mutual hatred so naturally we would be cautious to own our pre Islamic Indian cultural civilizations.And there may be a factor of assimilation to Hindusim.Had we not insisted so much on our otherness we might have ended up being reabsorbed into Hinduism. Much like how some people on this forum have aversion to anything Sanskrit or old Indian civilization.There everything starts with Sikhi 500 years ago.They are not much interested beyond that.

 

 

 

 

 

[YOYO29]

12 hours ago, TejS said:

The way I see it is that the Muslims groups such as the Turks, Iranians, Lebanese who have a glorious, rich pre-Islamic heritage tend to disassociate themselves with their Islamic identity when they want to

Like I said in my previous posts that those few liberal Muslims in west don't have much impact on their respective ethnic groups as a matter of fact they are nothing more than piss in the ocean.It would be wrong to paint the whole ethnic group with same brush that too based on few token liberal/Atheist Muslims living in Europe.If you wanna know how much they take religion seriously.Just see all those footage of Protests in Lebanon,Turkey, and Russian states like Chechnya ,Tatarstan where thousands of Muslims took to streets to protest against 2012 anti Islam movie.If they had been as liberal as those liberal Muslims in west they would have stayed in their homes.Look up the images of t shirt wearing Lebanese girls participating in Hezbollah rallies in Lebanon. If burka clad women have been participating in these procession/rallies it would have made sense.But all these girls seems from young liberal families which is evident from their dressing. Case of Chechen and Tatar Muslims of Russia is interesting. They had lived under communist rule for more than 8 decades but it did not have big effect on their attachment on religion. Chechen also came in large numbers on streets to protest on charlie hebdo cartoons in 2015.

[YOYO29]

12 hours ago, TejS said:

The way I see it is that the Muslims groups such as the Turks, Iranians, Lebanese who have a glorious, rich pre-Islamic heritage tend to disassociate themselves with their Islamic identity when they want to.

hmm what kind of tendency do you see in Dalit or other low caste Sikhs in Punjab ? Do they take as much pride in Sikhi as Jutts ? The way i see things,Jutts are at the top of Sikh pecking order in Punjab. Rest of low caste Sikhs are just there to maintain dwindling majority status.What do you say ?