Vaheguru ji ka khalsa, vaheguru ji kefateh

Pyare jio, now that the infamous blog about sikh girls is closed, many will once again drift into our worlds and pretend we do not have a problem. Our community is often re-active rather than pro-active. We need to realise prevention is often better than the cure.

Home truths - A problem for all communities

It would be a huge mistake to feel shame at sikh girls. Instead we have many sikh girls who make our community proud. We need to acknowledge that and not create a problem in itself. These things can make people in our community or outside build unhealthy stereotypes of our sisters, which can be very damaging in the future, both in terms of their confidence and making them a further target.

Many of us do not know who the girls in the blog are. The pictures could just be lifted from social networking sites. Some could even be Pakistani girls. If fundamentalist hindus can mistake a hindu girl for christian, do we honestly believe these muslims cannot? Maybe they are from sikh families, who knows. But tell me any community that lives in the west, and does not want their children to adhere more to their cultural, religious and moral values. Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, everyone is facing the same problem.

We have a problem of sikh girls targeted by muslims. This causes anger, but we do not realise that so many more girls from sikh families are marrying Christians. However it is a blatant behaviour of muslims that upsets so many Sikhs. But they are not immune. Just like we have the sikh/muslim stigma, if you speak to muslims, particularly Pakistani, they admit their next generation is beyond their control. They have problems in the fear that so many Pakistani girls, sick and tired of adulterous behaviour of Pakistani men, and going off with young black men and white men. But it is the black men that particular angers them, to the point that Bradford Muslim girls school came to fruition on the back of such stories. People could make blogs of these cases, or how the Omar Bakri Mohammed (Tottenham Allaytollah and father figure of Al Majhoroun) daughter is a nightclub dancer. If we believe these cases, is the behaviour any better than that of Faria Alam in the FA. Their house is made of glass aswell. Apparently it is alleged the sister of a 7/7 suicide bomber who now wants to be a sikh. Hence nobody or community is immune, but at least Sikhs have the decency not to post pictures of sisters and daughter of others.

Girls from our community are no different from those of any other community and neither is their behaviour. This does not mean we condone such lewd behaviour, but it also does not mean we should allow other communities to negatively stereotype them. We definitely need to sort our own house out, and engage our young girls with positive female role models, that ask them to search for their higher morals and self-integrity.

One thing we must realise is that despite every community having such problems, there seems to be a common denominator in terms of instigating such depraved attitudes. Regardless of whether muslims are ready to admit it, the world is realising the truth behind the “kaffirisation” attitudes of islam. The convictions of the “Mothers for prevention” case is testament to the realities of “grooming”.

Home truths – Our attitudes

We also have to accept this reveals home truths in our attitudes. When we hear such stories, so many Sikhs display the instant reaction of they are “Punjabi” and not Sikhs at all. Sikhs do not behave in such a way. While technically this is true, others who target them do not see it in such a way. When I see such young boys and girls, I think they are all potential Sikhs, who just have not had access to good Gursikhi sangat as yet. I guess this stems back to the fact that I was a mona, and no different to them in thinking and attitude. But fortunately for me an open minded Gursikh did not look at the fact that I was a mona and devoid of sikhi, and approached me a gave me a Khalsa camp leaflet. It was that action that gave me access to good quality Gursikhi sangat.

I fundamentally believe that every human being is good inside, and they want good things for themselves and their loved ones. Often it is just a case they have never had access to anything different from their current lifestyles, but if they were ever blessed with access to real Sikhi then they would address their lifestyles.

To successfully provide this access, we as Sikhs have to learn not to be so easily dismissive of punjabi youth because it maybe convenient in our lazy worlds, but be far more pro-active in creating events for them to access real sikhi.

Practical steps...

1. In UK, I have never come across any Gurdwara, that has projects in place for engaging girls 12-24 years of age. This needs to change. We cannot ignore them any further. If the Gurdwara is not youth focussed enough to realise this, then youth, especially bibian, in each area need to take practical steps and set up projects themselves.
2. Sikh women role models need to be encouraged. Sikh women in Gurdwaras seem to think their place is the langar hall and at most keertan. Sikh women should be decision makers in gurdwaras, plus also doing seva like katha, talks, lectures, even degh, hukamnamas, etc. We have to accept, that while we have so many great sikh women role models in our history, today, currently we struggle to name prominent sikh women role models in our Panth who are alive.
3. Youth parchar can often be “machoistic” by nature, because is mostly young males there. Bibian needs to address this and be equal partners in youth projects and be more vocal spokespersons.
4. British organisation of Sikh Students (BOSS) was very active and partisan in the past. Whether it is active enough today, is something they know. Looking at such organisations from other religious groups, they are far better organised and professional. Much of this is due to the numerous full-time employees they have. Maybe it is time to step up the nature of this seva.
5. University sikh societies need to jointly make representations to their Deans, and also collectively via BOSS, to the national union of students about concerns of not only muslims students targeting, but also the increasing trend of Pakistani taxi drivers and unemployed attending freshers week in the guise of being new students.
6. 4 of us sikh representatives that attended the dialogue in Corrymela wrote a report. We are concerned with the manner muslims are speaking for us to the department of local communities. We feel Sikhs are far more capable of speaking on behalf of Sikhs. We have compiled an alternative report which we would ask all sikh groups to read, and endorse. If they wish to add to this discussion, they are welcome, but we have to realise we cannot just sit and moan, but directly engage the government on our concerns. Muslims are intentionally deflecting this discussion so that we engage them, and then go to the government in a manner censored by them. Now that so much funding is available in the name of social cohesion, muslims are jumping over themselves to engage all communities, especially Sikhs. We have wasted far too much time with their games, and now we should take them as the middle man out of the picture and speak directly to the government.
7. If Sikhs want to have a cohesive future in UK, then we must realise some real facts. Every year, according to the Guardian, 11000 young muslim men come out education. A significant percentage of them do not find jobs. We know they turn of credit card crime and gangs outside schools selling drugs and grooming of girls. The prisons now have muslim populations numbers which far exceed their population ratios. In some prisons, muslims are now one third of the prison population, and they breed extremism. This is a huge UK problem and the government is aware of this, but often choose to just pander them. We as Sikhs are directly affected by Pakistani gangs, extremist groups. They target sikh kids, aswell as hindus, jewish, and white. Rather than isolating this problem to a sikh vs muslim problem. We as communities need to come together and be very vocal for the government to stop pandering to them and accept the very real problems caused by “kaffirisation in minds in the name of Islam”.

One God: Waheguru
One Guru : Sahib Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji.
One Group : Guru Khalsa Panth!

This should be the Motto of Our Generation