Change In Labour Leadership May Signal A Shift Towards...

[Nirvair S Khalsa]

[align=center:66e52dea6f]SIKH FEDERATION (UK)

Tanglewood House, Pine Walk, Chilworth, SO16 7HQ

www.sikhfederation.com

info@sikhfederation.com

PRESS RELEASE

Saturday 16 June 2007

CHANGE IN LABOUR LEADERSHIP MAY SIGNAL A SHIFT TOWARDS GREATER APPRECIATION OF SIKH ISSUES[/align:66e52dea6f]

[align=left:66e52dea6f]The Sikh Federation (UK) has over the last three to four weeks been in regular contact with each of the Deputy Leadership candidates for the Labour Party and Sikhs have taken part in several of the official hustings in several parts of the UK.

Each of the candidates has been made aware of some of the key concerns of the Sikh community. These issues have included:

The need to ensure fair treatment of Sikhs and their organisations with regards to government funding for capacity building, improved consultation, better representation in the House of Lords, an increase in the number and profile of public appointments for Sikhs etc.

Support for the inclusion of Sikhs as a separate ethnic group for the Census 2011 questionnaire and if a language question is introduced for there to be a separate tick box for the Panjabi language, which is believed to be the second most widely used language in the country.

An expectation that a Code of Practice concerning Sikh articles of faith that will properly protect the Sikh identity and articles of faith at work, in business and in public places is introduced as soon as possible in the UK. In addition, a pledge that the UK Government will try to get a similar Code of Practice introduced across Europe.

The need to work with the British Sikh community to see if the Criminal Justice Act can be used to prosecute those coming to the UK who have been involved in torture, genocide and other crimes against humanity against Sikhs in the last 25 years. In particular, to prosecute those who have committed human rights violations against British Sikhs and their families.

A request to work with the Canadian and US Governments (other countries where more than 500,000 Sikhs live) to act as the international voice of the Sikhs and to exert international pressure to:

i) force the Indian Government to allow Amnesty International access to Panjab where they have been unable to investigate for almost 30 years;

ii) ensure India stops denying the UN Rapporteur on Torture from examining the situation in Panjab; and

iii) permitting a UN led-investigation to be set up to investigate the persistent failure of successive Indian Governments to ensure the prosecution of those alleged to be responsible for the killings and destruction in the November 1984 ant-Sikh pogroms.

Today was the last official hustings that took place in London. There were around 400 Labour Party members from London and the South East. The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown MP, the Prime Minister elect, when answering a question on faith communities and community cohesion started by first mentioning the Sikhs.

It was no coincidence that he first mentioned Sikhs when speaking about faith communities and this is in stark contrast to recent times when the current Prime Minister and other Ministers have on a number of occasions forgotten to mention Sikhs on more than one occasion.

Gurjeet Singh

National Press Secretary

Sikh Federation (UK)[/font:66e52dea6f][/align:66e52dea6f]

[tSingh]

This stuff is pathetic. It depresses the crap out of me. Essentially, the purport of these 'representative' organisations is that regardless of the national and international issues and events, regardless of the complexity of modern identity - politically, economically, environmentally, ideologically - all that matters is what benefits the Sikh community per se, on an agenda and defintion that they themselves create. I charge these types with intentionally trying to undermine any Sikh's own autonomous and independent sense of politics. It should be the other way around, that political identity should be developed by the individual based on their own understanding of everything that they are and believe in. Instead of getting hot and bothered about Gordon Brown mentioning Sikhs 'first' (oh please!!), they should be educating all those uncles and aunties who don't read much english about the British political issues of the day (which are not inherently religious or communal) and the various political stances on them...admittedly not much choice in modern homogonised British politics.

As for the 'Sikhs as an ethnic group' crap...I charge these people with knowingly, deliberately and willingly distorting the Sikh religious tradition into a punjabi birthrite. This is another step toward the death of a mystical tradition. What they can't seem to answer is that;

a) If Sikhs become an ethnic group, i.e. a birthrite, this means that...

anyone including sharaabi, khadoo, athiest can lay EQUAL claim to being a Sikh! Which means that..

c) they have effectively relegated the teachings of the 10 Gurus and the institutions of the Sikh tradition to nothing more than nominal components of Sikh identity.

UNLESS they then turn around and state that 'only amritdharis are ethnically Sikh'!

What if I go to the shop and I steal a packet of monster munch (hmm), willingly forsaking my Sikh beliefs for 30 seconds...has my ethnicity changed in that time? Did I stop having an ethnicity? Did I experience a moment of non-self, the buddhist state of enlightenment? This is total idiocy. The fact that it is effectively British law already through the Race Relations Act on the kirpan is an embarrassment. Is this the only way a religious article can be justified, by turning it into an act of 'racism' to not allow it otherwise? Surely they should be trying to change the basic premise of post-war politics that concessions are made to ethnic groups, not religious minorities.

But why are they so bothered about the category of 'ethnicity'? Don't we know that the number (less) of Sikhs through the census? I presume that more numbers will mean more clout in their agendas...and no doubt increase the clout of their petitions to the UN over the claim for a Khalistani ethnic homeland.

[drawrof]

I just created the SIKHI federation...it wants exactly the same thing, we only do paats for 101 pounds