Attacks on Guru Ghars
Writing by shinda on Saturday, 13 of May , 2006
Post 9/11 attacks against Sikhs and Guru Ghars, became a common headline. Living comfortably in the punjabi ghettos of Brampton, Malton, Rexdale, Surrey etc. its often hard to connect and or even relate to the racist environment many Sikhs live in these days. Sure our parents went through it when they themselves were starting out here, but for the most part we’ve become established, which leads us to feel the way Bhagauti Soora does, that here in Canada we are not looked at differently.
Truth is, that we probably are but living in our ghettos, our safe havens, we don’t face it or get exposed to it on an ongoing basis as those who live in the small rural communities where they really are the minority.
Anyways this truth didn’t really hit home till last week when I went up to the Nagar Kirtan in Montreal. Like I said in my last post the Nagar Kirtan was awsome, but the real surprise came after when we where entering the Gurdwara Sahib and walked past one of the Gurdwara Side walls that had racist insignia pasted over it.
“Bagheads”
For the first time, since I was in elementary had I seen such blatant acts of racism. Whats even more disturbing though is the lack of “coverage”. Now I like to think that I’m up to date with the events going on within the community. I read most Sikh news sources (Sikhnet, Panthic, and SikhSangat), follow the main headlines in the Punjabi news papers (Ajit, Hamdard, Sanjh Savera), and I usually look at the Toronto Star headlines on a pretty daily basis, so its safe to say that when something big happens I’ll read about it from somewhere.
Sidewall
But, for some reason or another I never heard about any attacks against any Gurdwara Sahibs in Montreal. I know that Jewish synagogues had been attacked and spray painted on a year or two back. That some Muslims mosques had been vandalized but nothing ever about any Gurdwara in Montreal, and that included our Punjabi, and online news sources.
So when in doubt I did what we all tend to do, I turned to google. Again. I tried searching “Gurdwara Attack Montreal”. “Montreal Sikh Temple”, “Sikh Temple Vandalized”, “Sikh Nazi”, and a combination of those, and still came up short. Chullo Google isn’t perfect so I went on Canadian Newsstand, a database of all the Newspaper articles published in Canadian Newspapers, and again tried a combination of searches and still nothing, leading me to believe that no one ever reported or even mentioned that the Gurdwara’s had been vandalized to anyone, which pretty much surprised me, since as a community we tend to report everything.
Anyways, there’s not much else to say. The group who did it, clearly let it be known who they are, New Age Skins, and I doubt are hard people to find. Its surprising though as to how we can go at it with each other till our we’re all left blind (an eye for an eye), but you’d think that when things like that happen in Montreal, we’d at least regroup as a community to help out.
“Hail the New Dawn, Skin”
Anyways, enough on that, Guru Sahib Kirpaa Karn.
Category: Sikhi
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That’s pretty messed up. Bunch of punks.
In response to the rest of your post, my experience is that it seems a lot of the Canadian Sikh youth are pretty insular. It’s hard to go out and serve people outside the Sikh community if we don’t even know how to relate or hold a conversation with non-Sikhs.
It happens here too, most of the Sikh community here comes from ‘regular’ America, meaning white or affluent America. Something I’m not at all familiar with. When they get here, they think it’s okay to call the Spanish people, who’ve been here for centuries, Mexicans, and they don’t understand why it’s insulting. It’s another form of racism to group people of the same race or even two different races (in this case Mexican and Spanish) and make assumptions. I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to with hold judgements before knowing something about other people. I’m the only Sikh and white guy in my neighborhood and I wear full bana everyday. I figure ‘Raj Karega Khalsa,’ if the Khalsa are going to rule we have to establish ourselves no matter what the circumstances. There are criminals who commit the most heinous of crimes that walk by and drive by and stop by my house everyday, but I know how to deal with them, and it’s not usually by force. We got to get ourselves out there and serve and let people know who we are and that we won’t tolerate criminal acts against us.
Anoop from 
Made Sunday, 14 of May , 2006 at 1:55 am
How hard it is to be tolerant and non-judgemental. You very nicely outlined what role a news media should play under such circumstances. As an individuals we can respond to such acts by reaching out to the community ( non-sikh community) through service.
harp from 
Made Monday, 15 of May , 2006 at 9:03 am
Yo what is the name of this Gurdwara sahib?
And anybody see Curb Your Enthusiasm last night. The show by creator of Seinfield. Well its the funniest show on t.v. and they fully went out of their way to mention the guy in the turban was a sikh. Than they made fun of him a bit (the show is a comedy) but it was jokes, it was like they wer doin it on purpose jus to make sure everyone new he was sikh. I heard the word sikh like 4 times in the show. And this is one of the most popular shows in America.
Americans are starting to come around still, atleast in Hollywood. You got the goray Sikhs teaching Britney Spears yoga, Larry David goin out of his way to mention sikhs, Spike lee etc. Not that their approval means nething to me, but Hollywood is a powerful tool. (Than again, I guess the presidential elections really showed us how much American citizens listen to hollywood)
Guelphite from 
Made Monday, 15 of May , 2006 at 8:45 pm
harp.. i know what you mean.. but i am tired of this classification of Sikhs as gorra-kala and hindu caste ****… It is about time to abandon these dumb caste and race traditions and follow the True Guru.
Also, it is sad to see ignorance still visible in smaller communities, but most of these “Race warriors” are misguided teens and still figuring out who the hell they are; they’ll grow up.
This Shabad is by Bhagat Sheikh Fareed Ji in Salok Fareed Jee on Pannaa 1381
fareedhaa burae dhaa bhalaa kar gusaa man n hadtaae ||
Fareed, answer evil with goodness; do not fill your mind with anger.
dhaehee rog n lagee palai sabh kishh paae ||78||
Your body shall not suffer from any disease, and you shall obtain everything. ||78||
Stay in Chardi kala
I agree that we have to show the ignorance with Guru’s light and seva. These Skinheads or racists people are even ignorant about Aryan history, Swastika and Hitler that they seem to be representing. Aryans spoke Sanskrit which to this day has been taught only in India, not Germany or elsewhere. Swastika has been a religious and sacred symbol for native Americans and Hindus in India not Germans. Anyways, this is off topic. Main thing is that Sikhs need to educate themselves, become more knowledgeable themselves about anything and everything including Sikhi so they can teach and serve others better as to how to live better lives according to Gurmat.
