“The dignity and generosity of the Sikh community in the wake of this violence remind us just how much we have to learn from these neighbors,” Eck added. Photo from Sikhnet.com

from Sikhnet.com

As the Sikh community in the US makes efforts to recover from the tragedy of the Gurudwara shooting, a Harvard professor has said Sikhs have emerged as a role model for Americans who can learn from the dignity and generosity the community.

“Most Americans still know little of the Sikh Americans whose history in the United States, dating to the early 20th century, is now firmly part of our common history.”

“While we catch up on our basic education, however, it is important to know that Sikhs share three distinctly and deeply American values — the importance of hard work, a commitment to human equality, and the practice of neighbourly hospitality,” Harvard University professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana Eck said in an editorial in the Dallas Morning News.
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No one is an enemy, no one is a stranger. We befriend all. We Believe in the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of mankind. We are one family. One becomes inferior or superior only by one’s deeds, and not by what caste, class, creed, or tribe one is born into.

All of the above are the core beliefs of Sikhism, but the Sikh American community which so proudly calls America home is hurting today. And in the midst of that pain, the outpouring of profound love and support the community has received from our fellow Americans following the shootings in Wisconsin is unbelievable.

Loss of any innocent life is sad, but when it happens at a house of worship where men, women, and children come together to celebrate their open, all inclusive faith by praying and offering gratitude to “One Universal Ultimate Supreme Being,” asking for the well-being of all humanity, then it has to be heart wrenching.

The shooting in the Oak Creek Wisconsin Sikh Gurudwara (place of worship) on August 5th that took so many lives was such an enigma and senseless act of violence that has shattered many innocent lives. No one expected it.  No one would have thought it possible that such a tragedy could occur on a peaceful summer Sunday, in a place where members of all faiths are welcome to share in the community and develop their bond with God and their neighbors. But it did not define America for Sikhs. Perhaps it can lead to better understanding of Sikhs for America.

Oak Creek Wisconsin police officers did a commendable job, and likely saved many more lives by confronting the attacker.

The entire country is baffled, and President Obama stated, “As we mourn this loss, we are reminded how much our country has been enriched by Sikhs, who are a part of our broader American family.”

There is no doubt the Sikh American community feels a great sense of unease resulting from this incident.  Feeling both that we are mistakenly associated with people of other faiths  and that neither we nor any other innocent people should be singled out for abuse or ridicule because of our faith. Such unease has been there, not only since the Iran Hostage Crisis of the late seventies, but also from the backlash of 9/11 when Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh American wearing the traditional articles of faith of a beard and turban was shot and killed in Mesa Arizona on September 15, 2001, by a gunman who ignorantly declared, “I stand for America all the way.” The Sikh American community, and other similar minorities, have long lived under an unfair burden of vulnerability from baseless attacks and threats by individuals who cannot rationally justify their hatred.

Incidents directed at Sikh Americans may appear at first glance to be random and isolated, but when they are viewed collectively over a period of time, a troubling pattern emerges that requires enhanced actions by policymakers and law enforcement. It is crucial that the Department of Justice, through the FBI, collect and provide more detailed statistics on such incidents, so that local and federal law enforcement are better equipped to combat hate crimes.  It is also crucial that members of the Sikh American community, and other minority groups, continue reporting these incidents, pushing for prosecution, and working with law enforcement to be heard.

This time it was Sikhs who were targeted; tomorrow, it could be any other faith or ethnic community. The cognizable fear associated with such directed acts of domestic terrorism is very disturbing to Sikh Americans, as well as to an overwhelming majority of peace loving, caring, and charitable Americans.  We are solaced only by the outpouring of profound love and support the Sikh American community has received from our fellow Americans, and appreciate that we all stand together in times like this.

We hope that this tragedy will compel Americans to unite as a single community, working together to counter this culture of intolerance, bigotry, hatred, and senseless violence.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”  We must take a firm stand of supporting organizations that build bridges of understanding with one another rather than walls of separation and fear.

Maybe the civil war isn’t over yet. Maybe the attacker here was motivated by additional factors, such as the economy. We will never know the entire truth, but we must seek ways of resolving the ultimate root causes of frustration, anger, and hate that lead to violence. It may not happen overnight, but it needs to be done – and we can do it!

Acting on hate is on the rise. But how can law enforcement protect every shopping mall, every school, every movie theater, and every place of worship at all times? They need our help, as a community.

Education alone can dispel ignorance. The mediating forces of faith and interfaith must become stronger through mutual, open dialogues about ways to establish peaceful and productive relationships of co-existence among diverse groups.

We all need to educate ourselves about the people who live here and make up our nation, starting with the Native Americans. How can we learn about people’s faith and culture? And how can they learn about us? That is a significant step in promoting a sense of camaraderie and reduced fear of the unknown; about someone who is unfamiliar, looks different, or has an accent.

We are proud of our men and women in uniform because of their gallant service to our nation. Soldiers are our defenders and protectors, but when a former Soldier – one who fought for the same freedoms we as a Sikh American community also fight for – massacres his own innocent, unarmed countrymen, there is something seriously wrong. Such issues must be dealt with – they must be addressed and fixed.

Let us work together in solidarity to ensure that love prevails over hatred, and such tragedies never happen again.

We must stand up for each other, no community should be made to feel isolated and vulnerable in a society that values diversity and was founded by immigrants.

Haven’t we always been global and importing and exporting our products and knowledge overseas? Haven’t we received goods and knowledge from other countries and people of all faiths?  We are a global society, and all interdependent on each other.  May we learn sooner rather than later that we are all one… and each other’s keeper.

Rajinder Singh Mago

Trustee Emeritus, Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions

Member,  Sikh Religious Society (Palatine, IL, USA)

Co-Founder Punjabi Cultural Society of Chicago

At the 2004 Parliament in Barcelona, Sikhs served food to all who were hungry, a service called langar. Photo by Rowan Fairgrove.

by Rev. Susan Baller-Shepard
from Huffington Post

Twenty-five years ago, I worked in Walsall, England, in the West Midlands, near Birmingham. Birmingham is a city known for many things, including having the largest Sikh gudwara outside of India.

In Walsall, in Caldmore (called “Karma”), I worked with countless Sikh families and experienced incredible hospitality from all of them. I was moved by the family cohesiveness and equality expressed within the Sikh families with whom I worked. I had never known any Sikh families before I met those in Walsall.

In 2004, while attending the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona, Spain, the Sikh community at the Parliament hosted langar for thousands of us daily. We would enter a tent at lunch time, remove our shoes, put a covering on our heads and sit down with thousands of others to have a vegetarian meal. As a Presbyterian minister, I was struck by this hospitality to strangers. The Christian tradition speaks a great deal about hospitality, because Jesus was all about it: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

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Simran Jeet Singh

by Simran Jeet Singh
from State of Formation

As a Sikh-American, I am absolutely heart-broken.

As soon as news broke about the massacre in Wisconsin, my parents called me to make sure I was safe. Our conversation was eerily similar to the moments immediately after 9/11.

After making sure I was safe, they asked me to be careful walking around the streets of New York City. They pointed out that: “You never know what someone might do.”

While I accepted their advice, their words crushed me.

As a Sikh, I believe that people are inherently good. Our faith instills a sense of perpetual optimism, and our traditions teach us to always make the best of a tough situation.

Fear and negativity are foreign to our vocabulary. Sikhs are not a God-fearing people; we are God-loving.

The commitment to love and optimism shapes the way that Sikhs interact with their societies, and I’m concerned that becoming cynical and negative might lead us down a slippery slope.

So I am making a conscious decision. I am refusing to accept that human beings are malicious and hateful, and I am rejecting the notion that we need to live in fear.

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All those associated with the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions offer our deepest condolences for the members of the Sikh gurdwara of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and our heartfelt concern for the sense of anguish and loss being experienced throughout the Sikh community worldwide, in the wake of the senseless shooting on Sunday, August 5^th.

Any act of violence is abhorrent. When it targets a religious community—in their sacred space, engaged in worship—it is especially difficult to fathom.

The Council joins the worldwide interreligious movement in recognizing all that the Sikh tradition engenders in its followers: the deep devotion, the ethical clarity, the sense of communal solidarity, and the unwavering belief that all human beings are equal in the sight of the divine. The origins of Sikhism had an interreligious dimension—in the founding mission of Guru Nanak—giving it a unique relevance and poignancy for the challenge of promoting harmony and understanding across diverse communities and traditions.

The fact that, in the first hours after the shooting, the news media struggled to describe Sikhism accurately speaks to the work that needs to be done by the interreligious movement in acquainting the wider public with the diversity of communities and traditions in their midst. Though such knowledge may not have deterred this gunman in his rampage, it can only help reduce the number of incidents of harassment and violence in the future.

The world should know that any person, Sikh or non-Sikh, is welcome at a gurdwara anywhere, to be received with graciousness, offered a meal, and shelter, if necessary. This sense of hospitality that the Sikh community embodies has had a profound impact on the mission and work of the Council. The generous offering of langar—a sacred, blessed meal central to its communal practice—by the Sikh community at the 2004 Parliament in Barcelona is still remembered and cherished by all those who gathered for that event.

—Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions

“It is not an act of ‘random, senseless’ violence.  Sikhs, Muslims, Latinos and Africans are increasingly targets of rising hate in the United States. These attacks are sanctioned by a political culture that tolerates hate speech and promotes xenophobia. As hate is rising in the nation, it is critical that the forces of faith mediate anger into the positive energy of relationships. We must build a stronger interfaith movement for our children and the planet.   I stand in solidarity with our Sikh neighbors.”

—Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, Chair, CPWR Board of Trustees

“My wholehearted sympathies and ardent prayers are with the innocent victims of senseless violence in the Sikh community in Wisconsin.”

—Dr. Robert Henderson, Vice Chair

“My heart and prayers go out to the families and the Sikh community. This hate and violence upon a peace loving community makes the work of the Parliament towards interreligious understanding and helping our country towards inclusive and caring community all the more urgent and important. I pledge my support.”

—Dr. Mary Nelson, Vice Chair

“Yesterday was a troubling day, not only for Sikh-Americans, but for all Americans. We need to re-double our efforts to promote mutual respect and understanding. In the midst of this anguish and pain, we must also pray for the family of the assailant.”

—Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, Secretary

by Simran Jeet Singh
from State of Formation

It’s not uncommon for kids to ask their parents about “that thing” on my head.

In most instances, the parents look at me uncomfortably, embarrassed that I might be offended in some way. I’ll usually acknowledge their discomfort with an awkward smile before looking away and pretending not to notice as they try to discretely shush their kids.

But recently I had the most amazing experience. I walked into the elevator of my apartment building in Manhattan and — despite knowing New York etiquette — I couldn’t help but smile at the two little girls standing with their young mother. The girls were wearing matching, polka-dotted raincoats, and they were fully focused on not dropping their popsicles.

The older of the two girls must have sensed me enter the elevator, because she slowly shifted her neck to look up at me and gawked for a few seconds. She then turned to her mom and unabashedly shouted: “Hey Mom! What’s that thing on his head?!”

The young mother made eye contact with me and quickly checked to see if I was planning to respond. I flashed my standard awkward smile, and she returned an awkward smile of her own before totally catching me by surprise.

“That’s a turban.”

“Why does he wear it?”

“It’s part of his religion. Do you remember the boy in your class who wore a turban?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t cut his hair. He has really long hair. ”

I was shocked. I wanted to give everyone in the elevator a high-five, but remembering I was in New York, I tried to play it cool. I put on my Denzel Washington face (the coolest person I could think of on the spot), and as I walked out of the elevator, I turned to the mother and whispered a soft “thank you.”

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Valarie Kaur

by Valarie Kaur
from Huffington Post

This essay is based on an excerpt from the author’s journal when she was sixteen years old.

Usually on Sunday mornings, my father’s outside on a tractor, my mother’s making aloo pronthas, my brother’s watching cartoons, and I’m sleeping in. Sometimes, my mother crams the whole family into Baba Ji’s room to sing shabads and recite Scripture together. But on this Sunday morning, my grandfather has asked me to come with him to the gurdwara, a Sikh house of worship some miles away. At sixteen years old, I dutifully follow.

I’m still rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I slip off my shoes. Wrapped in a long head scarf, I follow my grandfather inside. One step takes us from our small farming town in California’s Central Valley into an entire world transported from India.

Inside, the congregation sits on the floor. On the right, a sea of men in turbans of black, saffron, blue and red cloth; on the left, women in silk and cotton, solid-colored, tie-dyed and embroidered chunnis of all different colors draped over long braids and jooras. Children sit next to their mothers and fidgeted. A little boy runs around islands of praying people before escorted out to the jungle gym. The elderly lean against the walls, eyes closed; while the younger folks listen to the prayers, the older ones seem to reside within the prayers.

The whole room revolves around the sacred space that holds the “living Guru”: the 1,400 pages of Sikh verse known as Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The sacred book sits on a table draped in fine silvery blue cloths folded back to reveal the sacred lines of Gurmuki script whose poetry is read, sung and contemplated. Hanging from the ceiling over the sacred book is a magnificent blue canopy embroidered with a single brilliant character in Punjabi script, the first mysterious and profound word of our holy text. Ek Onkar: God is One. As ever, its two linked circles dropped from a top line, the stem connected those shoots up and umbrellas over in a long elegant stroke.

As I wait in line to bow my head before the Book, my eyes fall on the swords and daggers displayed at its base. Sikhs wielded these kirpans to defend the faith for hundreds of years in India, and I grew up hearing epic tales of battle and torture and martyrdom: Guru Arjan Ji tortured in a red hot caldron, Guru Gobind Ji’s young sons bricked in alive, Baba Deep Singh holding his own severed head in hand as he fought in battle. These blood-soaked legends of Sikhs resisting the Moghul empire came down to us as stories of resilience and sacrifice — our ancestors died so that we might live. The kirpans represent an enduring commitment to fight injustice and stand tall for faith and community. But it’s hard for me to eye the sharp edge. Sikh girls aren’t taught to fight like that. I drop my dollar on the pile of donations, close my eyes, bow my head to the floor and whisper the only words I can summon: Ek Onkar.

I follow my grandfather and sit with him on the men’s side — my modest act of defiance in a culture that too often divides women from men despite the Scripture’s teachings on equality. We listen to the granthis, singers flown from India to sing shabads from the Scriptures accompanied by the tabla and harmonium; their voices — sad, meditative and beseeching — rise, dip and waver. As the voices soar, I close my eyes and move into deep reflection.

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The following article is a final synthesis paper written by Lora Burge, a seminarian at McCormick Theological Seminary. The course, Religious Pluralism and the Ministry, has been taught by Prof. Robert Cathey and CPWR Trustee Janaan Hashim since 2006.  The course developed as an off-shoot from the 2004 Parliament in Barcelona.  Over the course of the semester, students actively study five faith traditions: Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Hinduism.  Students’ final reading includes Tariq Ramadan’s The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism.  Equipped with a semester of observation, research, and writing, students leave the class working on a philosophical and/or theological framework for thinking about religious pluralism in Chicago and beyond.  With Ms. Burge’s permission, Prof. Cathey and Prof. Hashim are pleased to share with you this young interfaither’s thoughts.  Enjoy.

Finding a Universal

by Lora Burge

Humility is my table, respect is my garment, empathy is my food and curiosity is my drink.  As for love, it has a thousand names and is by my side at every window.  –Tariq Ramadan  [1]

Approaching the sacred, finding the holy, listening to the divine, worshiping God within and among us.  As I reflect on the journey and experiences of this semester, I can’t help but marvel at everything I saw and observed.  On one hand, it’s hard to make comparisons between the different religions.  Friday afternoon prayers, puja, and a Shabbat service are organized different ways for different purposes.  Yet, on the other hand all these involved searching.  Looking out and watching for something bigger, something outside of themselves, something beyond human reason and quantifiable experience.  They were seeking Brahman, Allah, YHWH, God, enlightenment.

Growing up in a pluralistic, postmodernist world, I have always been taught to be suspicious of overarching truths and meta-narratives.  I’m well-steeped in the practice of criticism and always asking “Whose truth?  Whose narrative?  Who’s speaking?  And with what authority?”  I wonder if those questions don’t put more distance between myself and my neighbors.  Are these questions I was taught to ask other-izing the “other”?  It’s a lot easier to ignore, overlook, and mistreat people when central parts of their identity and belief have been objectified away.

I am such a product of my own education that I have a hard time conceptualizing what a universal truth would look like.  I was taught to be so suspicious of any universals as to make them seem an impossibility.  I will always be a child of postmodernism, understanding life in terms of social constructs, contextual truths, and lived experience.  It seems unlikely (at least now) that I will completely break out of this mold of thought that has been the result of two decades of education.  Yet now I criticize the critical mode of thought itself.  If we objectify all truth, and conceptualize of each human being as living in her or her own uniquely-constructed world, then we’ve erased the possibility of common ground and shared experience.  Anybody outside of myself will always be “other” to my reality.  Not just somewhat “other,” or different, but completely so, which will make relating and understanding each other difficult.

Here’s the crux of it: by asking so many questions and stripping things bare as social constructs and humanity-made realities, we’ve removed the common ground out from under our own feet.  Precisely by focusing on each individual’s uniqueness, we’ve lost sight of or lost altogether the universal nature of our own humanity.  We are making “other” out of our own flesh and blood.  Until we learn a new way of thinking, we will continue to push people away as irreconcilably different.

The Universal

Something then must be done to reclaim our common ground.  It is not hard to see the ways in which our world is tearing itself apart: wars, violence, poverty, economic injustice, and more.  Yet how will we put it back together with such differences?  It is imperative that we relearn how to understand our common humanity rather than focusing on differences.

If nothing else, we all share in the same humanity.  We all breathe, eat, sleep, learn, and to some extent live in community with other human beings.  Some faith traditions understand the condition of being human as the nature of being created in the image of God.  Some understand the human condition as rooted in suffering.  To others, being human is something to be mastered through rigorous spiritual disciplines.  Regardless of our personal understandings of what it means to be human, we all are, and that is one universal characteristic that we share.  Across religious, political, ethnic, racial, cultural, economic and any other constructed categories that divide us, we are all human.  So what are we to do with our universal human nature?

It is time to recognize that shared humanity in itself is enough of a foundation for shared common ground.  We must move forward understanding that we share at least one thing with the rest of the world: our being.  This shared existence is something to be honored and respected.  Tariq Ramadan notes that, “We must love human beings, with their qualities, their beauties and their difference, but also with their weaknesses, their doubts and their fears.  This means acknowledging that they, like us, are capable of the best and the worst.[…]  Our love must be resolutely universal, and eager to share.”[2]  If human nature is the universal condition, then love must become the universal action.  Each of us from personal experience knows of the human potential for good or for evil, and everything in between.  Love cannot be measured out on the basis of works and worthiness: this will only lead to constructed divisions, categories, and the naming of people as foreign “others.”

Instead, this universal love needs to be something that we have in common and something that brings us together.  The free, unconditional giving of love is not something that comes easy.  Survival instincts and greed lead to the selfish management of resources, even love.  A few millennia of stingy, particular love have left us a world full of divisions, hatred, and violence.  There must be another way.

Namaste

There is a practice within Hinduism of bowing to other people and saying “Namaste,” or “I bow to the God in you.”[3]  Hindus will bow to other Hindus and non-Hindus alike; to them, there is God in everyone.  For Hindus, this practice is based on their universal conceptualization of a sacred nature present within each human being.  It would be presumptuous to think all human beings would want to engage in the practice of Namaste bowing.  With many theological, spiritual, and anthropological understandings of what it means to be human, finding the sacred in our fellow humanity will not be a practical approach to the universal.  Yet there is something in the practice that could be a helpful model.

There is no rationale or emotion tied to the bowing.  I am not bowing to thank someone for a gift or a professor for help with an assignment.  I recognize there may be circumstances where this bowing is easier and other situations where it is really hard to see God present in others.  But regardless, the bowing happens simply to unconditionally honor the God-nature in others.  This is precisely what we must learn to do.  Regardless of any words or actions we may use, we must learn to love and respect the humanity—the human nature—of the people around us, both in the local but also the global sense.  We need to recognize that within every other there is a shared human nature, a shared life force, and in fact, he or she is not such an “other.”

This is precisely what I had a taste of this semester.  Going to a synagogue, a mosque, a gurdwara, a Buddhist center, and a Hindu temple—I was an outsider and an observer but I never felt like an “other.”  All of our speakers and hosts were eager to have us there and as equally enthusiastic to help us learn about their faith tradition.  In some instances, there were shared elements of religious heritage between us, and in other instances, none.  Yet we are all human beings, living from the same human condition, and searching for similar things.  Instead of seeing a young white liberal Christian woman from the West coast, each of them chose to see and affirm a fellow human being also searching for a life of meaning and happiness.

Moving Forward

This is what I need to take with me: there is one possible universal truth, and that is love for my fellow humanity.  Not a love that requires uniformity in belief or political systems, not a love that dissolves diversity for a false sense of unity, not love that has any conditions or requirements at all.  This universal love then is a deep, unconditional positive regard not because of how people are in the world but because they are in the world.  This love honors people simply and wholly because they have a human nature and being, which means they are like us.

This universal love is something that needs to be cultivated and practiced.  In an economic system based on achievement and merit, giving anything unconditionally is uncommon.  Universal, unconditional love for the human nature of all people is not something that will happen overnight; it will happen in many specific moments and encounters.  Tariq Ramadan explains that, “Love too is a journey.  We have to set out, get away from ourselves.  We have to take the first step, and keep our balance.  And, ultimately, it is all a question of balance.”[4]  We need to step away from our specific selves, step into our common humanity, and live from a universal love and a shared reality that we are, in fact, all human and we share in this thing called life.

Bibliography

[1] Ramadan, Tariq, The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism (London: Allen Lane, 2010), xii.

[2] Ibid., 25

[3] Pandit, Dr. Bansi, “Hindu Tradition.”  Lecture, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL, 2 December 2011.

[4] Ramadan, Tariq, The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism (London: Allen Lane, 2010), 195.

Dr. Balwant Singh Hansra discusses Sikhism, the Gurus, the gurdwara, langar, and the practice of his religious tradition.

Dalip Singh Saund (C), the first Asian-American elected to the Congress, flanked by US President John F. Kennedy (L) and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson.

from The Link, Leading Indo-Canadian Newspaper

WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama on Tuesday heaped praise on Punjab-born Dalip Singh Saund, the country’s first Indian-American member of the Congress. In his address at the annual gala of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, the US President described the late Saund as a “trailblazer”.

“They were trailblazers like Dalip Singh Saund, a young man from India who came to study agriculture in 1920, stayed to become a farmer, and took on the cause of citizenship for all people of South Asian descent,” the President said to applause.

“And once Dalip earned his own citizenship, he stepped up to serve the country he loved-and became the first Asian-American elected to the Congress,” he added.

Saund was born in 1899 in Chhajalwadi village of Punjab. He came to the US in 1920 to study food preservation at the University of California at Berkeley. He eventually switched to mathematics and earned a master degree and a PhD in the subject.

Despite his educational qualifications, Saund took a job as a lettuce farmer since farm labour was the only work South Asians were permitted to do in the US in the 1920s. Indians were also not eligible for US citizenship at that time.

Following an amendment to the law, Saund became a citizen in 1949 and in 1956 was elected as a lawmaker representing California in the Congress, where he served three terms.

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