Vaheguru ji ka khalsa, Vaheguru ji ki fatheh!
Yesterday, on the National on CBC, Terry Milewski presented a carefully threaded web of lies, inconsistencies, and prejudiced statements to effectively shut down the annual Vaisakhi celebrations, prevent Sikhs in Canada from having a political voice, stereotype the Sikh community as a violent and hate-filled group, and put the blame for terrorist acts on innocent Sikhs.
Please view this disgusting mockery of journalism below:
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/politicseconomy/samosa_politics.html
PLEASE SEND YOUR COMMENTS, CLEARLY AND CAREFULLY WORDED TO ombudsman@cbc.ca.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU E-MAIL THE CBC OMBUDSMAN WITH YOUR THOUGHTS.
Just some of the lies in this report:
- That the Sikh community is inherently violent or supports violence outright – FALSE. The Sikh community believes in complete non-violence, and violence is only used as a last-resort in defence of the oppressed. The Sikh community has organized some of the largest and most effective peace protests in Indian history. The inspiration for Gandhi and the Indian non-violence movement was taken from Baba Ram Singh, a Sikh.
- That the Sikh community condones the Air India Bombings – FALSE. The Sikh community sympathizes with the victims families and is just as concerned about justice. Some of the passengers on Air India flight 185 were also Sikhs.
- That the Sikh community condones terrorism – FALSE. The Sikh community has been one of the most active faith communities after September 11 denouncing terrorism in all forms, and does not finance or condone any type of terrorism.
- That splitting India is a new concept, and should not be allowed – FALSE. India & Pakistan split Punjab into “East” and “West.” Khalistan would be the reuinification of the two Punjabs, giving autonomy to Sikhs and freedom of religion to all minorities (Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists alike). Khalistan was declared by the collective Sikh community in 1986 after witnessing the holocaust of Sikhs in 1984. India would not exist without the sacrifices of Sikhs, but Sikhs have always been a slave class in India. Therefore autonomy and independence is necessary and justified.
- That Khalistan has no significance for Canadian Sikhs – FALSE. Advocating the freedom of Khalistan is as legitimate as campaigning for Tibet or Israel. It is a peaceful movement for the freedom of a religious minority from oppression and state-sponsored terrorism. It is a human rights movement and Sikhs in Canada, USA, England and any other country have the right to peacefully campaign for Khalistan.
- That Sikhs as a community were complicit in the Air India bombings – FALSE. This accusation has never been proven in any court of law, and there is more evidence for the involvement of CSIS and Indian intelligence agencies. The inconsistencies in the investigation, deletion of wiretaps, involvement of CSIS informants, and many other leaks are evidence in the various investigations and current inquiry.
- That Talwinder Singh Parmar was a terrorist or was complicit in the Air India bombings – FALSE. This accusation has never been proven in any court of law, and charges against Mr. Parmar were dropped by the RCMP. If he was guilty, the Indian government would have allowed the due process of justice to take place, but instead killed Mr. Parmar in a false-encounter.
- … and those are just some of the lies.
Please express your opinion in an intelligent and peaceful manner, but be very clear that the Sikh community has no involvement in terrorism, and has the right to peacefully celebrate Vaisakhi and campaign for freedom from oppression.
Vaheguru ji ka khalsa,
Vaheguru ji ki fatheh !
I assume you get these updates just as I do, but just in case, check this out. Kimmy’s at it again!! What DOES this woman have against us?
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2007/29/c2822.html
And thank you for your kind words about our blog. Writing it is no easy task and your encouragement really helps.
(Dharma Kaur Khalsa) Mai, Suni, Vini
Dear Mai (Harinder Kaur),
I think most Sikhs stopped paying attention to Kim Bolan years ago! (Laughing out loud). She can talk as much as she wants but her blabber will take her no where. It’s all slander and senseless information based on no facts – all blind judgment. Let her ruin herself in her own harsh words.
The community needs to take united action on this. All Khalistanis are NOT violent and would NEVER demand that innocents be killed – NO WAY! The Sikh religion stands for truth and justice for all, and the true Khalistan movement is the same, although we are being smeared with a label of violence and extremism – something that does not define the struggle for Khalistan and the Khalistanis of today. Today, we fight with the pen, and truth will remain on our side as long as our hearts are true. And they are.
P.S. The documentary was completely nonsensical and a disgusting excuse for “journalism”. Journalism should be based on facts and evidence, but CBC is becoming such a farce. The entire documentary resembled rumours; it sounded like nothing more than a story spread by schoolgirls. Grow up, CBC! What the heck were you thinking anyways? Ridiculous.
The points made above are well thought out, and make complete sense. Good job.
But when suggesting that India or CSIS were involved in blowing up this plane, well thats a pretty ‘out there’ conspiracy theory, and most likely it aint true. I would suggest staying away from making comments like those, it almost discredits your points because that theory is not very credible.(even after reading books like ’soft target’ etc., you got to realize you can make a conspiracy out of anything.)
“It is however ironic and somewhat hypocritical to demonize Sikhs for all the weaponry depictions when it’s a mace (a weapon) that is used to open up Parliament and is found on most government insignia.” – http://www.shindasingh.com
I found that a very good point as well.
CBC makes ’sepertists’ out to be a bad thing, but we have over 50 Bloqquebecois sepertists sitting in parliament.
There is nothing wrong in being a sepertists. The media is just playing games.
Why aren’t Sikhs getting together and going anything about this? All we do is just bitch about this, but why don’t we have a group of some intelligent Sikhs getting together and writing a professional rebuttal of all the lies spread by Terri Mellewski and Kim Bolan?
All we seem to do is complain about it, and not actually do anything about it. That is exactly the reason these lairs spread these lies. We should have an entire website dedicated to opposing these liars.
I find it unbelievable that a group such as those shown in in Sikh video are allowed to show such hatered, to have parades to spread it, to have politiions pander to
these “terrorists”. Why not keep our soldiers hear in Canada to protect us
from such extreamists or start
filling out their
deportation forms as
of today. If they came to Canada for a
new start, a new life, why don’t they
adopt Canada’s laws
and open-mindedness?
To see children with
guns on their clothing and parading with people
screaming about killing is outrageous. THIS MUST BE STOPPED OR
WE’LL HAVE OUR OWN
AL’QUEDA!
Posted by: LYNDA MITTON | June 28, 2007 11:25 PM
Id like to write back to this comment made by Lynda Mitton I find it unbelievable that you would believe something you see on TV or in the news. The facts presented in that video are BIAS if that makes any sense to you. This is just a judgment call on CBCs side they are judging a group of individuals they have no knowledge about. Your just believing what your told but in truth you know nothing about these facts do you? So you cant state such a opinion without having no facts to support it besides what you have seen viewing a video which is extremely bias.Just on the more noted side if Sikhs were violent as the video and articles present we would be doing what the British did to India in the past but we don’t seek revenge. The incident with the Flight 185 cant recall on Sikhs as Terrorists.. That’s just Bullshit you guys have clearly made up and even if the man who did it was Sikh .. you cant blame the whole community for it ! and in that Incident may I remind you that Sikhs were killed to.Its ridiculous that you would make sucha statement about a community you have no knowledge about. If you feel so unsafe I might want to add that many police and people in high political positions are Sikh so sucha a statement is nothing but blaming a community for a incident they aren’t responsible for.I just would like to also state that its disgraceful that many of you have former collegues or associates which are Sikh and they portray nothing like this so how can you be so cruel to judge a whole community like this.
i cannot understand one thing, sikhs can only be sikhs , they cannot be moderate, if you call your self moderate sikh , you should really think again. we cannot play with our religion.
we cannot make changes in religion just so that it will fit our lifestyle.sikhi teaches us all human beings are alike.
so , dividing sikh religion in moderates and extremist is ridiculous.
There is a group of sikhs taking action :
Wolrd Sikh Organization
WSO
Ig,
I am not dividing the religion into moderates and extremists.
I am simply indentifying that there are differences in opinion that Sikhs hold – in this case, those differences of opinion relate to politics and not the Sikh religion.
It it makes you happy, let me rephrase things to remove the moderate/extreme references: We Sikhs who believe that political ideology and terrorism has no place in our temples should be very concerned with what is happening.
People are using my religion to put forward their own political agenda. They are hiding behind my faith, and saying things and putting forward ideas which have no place in a temple.
The documentary aired on cbc national was biased. But unfortunately that is what we Sikhs are seen as in Canada. Sikhs worldwide totally condemn the air India attacks as it took many innocent lives including of Sikhs. No one is sure if Talwinder Parmar was the mastermind behind the bombings or the Indian government.. Whatever be the case the fact is that Canada is not the land where our religion was not born or flourished so how can we expect Canadians (eg Lynda Mitton) to know our history. They are going to know whatever they see in the media and around them. They don’t have a clue who Sikhs like Guru Gobind Singh Ji and Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Bhagat Singh were BUT they do recognize Sikhs like Talwinder S Parmar . Me and you are the ones who are creating Sikh history in Canada, and we are the ones who would be remembered as Canadian Sikhs.
Sikhs worldwide need justice for whatever has been done to us in the 1980’s till present. They need explanations, justice, charges, trials. A common Sikh’s need is the justice for the thousands of lives which was taken in 1984 and in the years after that. Which include congress’s (Indira Gandhi) support of Bhinderawale and then her getting against him which led to the storming of Golden Temple, anti Sikh riots of Delhi and Kanpur, Anand Karaj Issue, False promises made by the congress govt at the time of the India Pakistan partition to Sikhs, Electricity issue in Punjab, Water issue in Punjab, Language issue in Punjab. That justice can be taken in India too although it seems next to impossible. My objective of stating all of the above facts is that a Sikh’s first priority today is to seek justice to all the above things and a Sikh should first fight for them. THEN let the Canadians decide whether Khalistan is justifiable or not.
Why cant Sikhs instead of putting “Khalistan Zindabad” banner put “India Murdabad” Banners. Why cant we put all the atrocities done to Sikhs in India in point form and show it in double the font size in rallies and procession. If there is so much grief in us Sikhs then what is stopping us all from expressing anti India views in public. I as a Canadian don’t seem to see that, instead what I see is Khalistan Zindabad and nothing else. By just putting the banner and in actual doing nothing is just a drama nothing else. Please my brothers don’t play drama with our values if you don’t mean to do nothing more than that. Putting Gun pictures below Khanda Sahib by a Gurudwara committee is ridiculous. It’s a School where children go what are we trying to teach our childrens? I would also like to mention that why cant Sikhs in Canada put up separate processions against India and leave the Vaisakhi Nagar Kirtan alone for the families and childrens to enjoy guru’s blessings. A separate procession can also be organized in the june month of every year where we can express our feelings freely and get the right kind of media attention.
If Talwinder S Parmar is proved to be the mastermind of the air India bombing then he should have been cut into 329 pieces. A GurSikh can never do such a thing, we should know how all it felt when all the Sikhs were targeted after indira gandhi’s assasination. We can never do what the hindu government did to us, otherwise what difference would remain between a Sikh and a Hindu. The main objective of Guru Gobind Singh Ji will go to a ditch. A Sikh can never be a oppressor but only defends himself. The act of Air India was no act of defense in any way. Guru Gobind Singh Ji used to make sparrows fight with hawks not ants. Killing innocent hindu’s is like killing ants, if you are going to put step on ants they are going to die and Sikh would get nothing out of it but shame. The real hawks are sitting in the Delhi parliament who were responsible for all the anti Sikhs politics.
At the end the message I want to convey is that the times have gone when things could have been attained on gun point. Now we have to play politics in the same way India played politics with us but with ought taking even one single innocent life. Otherwise we would have the same kind of image, which we had in the 1980’s in India. And we don’t want that RIGHT?????