Kali maa and infinite multi-tasking, and our inability to say, do or write about many things in one breath.

Not a day passes without someone accusing you of not including his or her issue in your talk, write up or act. Per the legend, only a woman, Kali Maa could perform many tasks at one time, she has multiple heads and hands to do that.  When Obama speaks, no matter how good his presentation is, there is always a group - anxiously waiting for him to recite their name, and everything else is meaningless to them if their group is not mentioned. 

It's not only Obama, everyone in the community service, a Pastor, Pundit,  Imam, Father, Rabbi, Gyaniji, Shaman or a religious head is also put to the same tests. During the month of Ramadan, I have heard a few Imams who drag their prayers to include every representation, and take a very long time to recite such inclusive prayers, yet that would not be enough. 

You are not an exception to such treatment and neither am I, and here is my experience. 

One of the three major annual events we hold is Holocaust and Genocides.  Given the 2 hours program, we divide it up into three segments; 30 Minutes for Holocaust and 20 minutes for a Genocide (of the 50 Genocides on our list), and 20 minutes for a Massacre, the rest of the time goes for other chores. 

Two years ago, we included a skit in the program to knock off the consistent complaints. In the skit, I would go on the podium and start speaking, “Today, we are going to talk about Holocaust, Sikh Genocide and Gaza Massacre… “Immediately an individual who was assigned to play my father’s role would walk up to me and slap hard on my face… and I fall on the floor.  

He takes over the microphone and says, “I cannot believe you my son, I did not teach you to exclude others and talk only about yours.” I get up from the floor and grab the microphone and recite a long list of names about 25 Genocides until I ran out of breath….  and fall again. 

He grabs the phone again and says, “Oh I see now, sorry my Son, I did not realize you can pack only 25 names of Genocides in one breath and not all the 50 on your list.”

Those who do not show up to the events always complain that, “Mike you are biased, you did not include Kashmir Pundits or the Bosnia Genocide… My eternal question to them is why did you forget Rwanda? Why did you forget Pol Pot? Why did you forget…?

In the last 9 years, we have been able to talk about 12 or 13 Genocides, but always show the entire list on the screen, even then there are Genocides we don’t even know about.  Indeed, some day, I will write a book about dealing with some of the most difficult situations with different communities; – Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, African Americans, Native Americans and others.  

The first time we put the program together in 2006, a few members (just a few) of the Jewish community were on the edge and concerned about bringing up Palestinian Massacres (Sabra and Shatila).  We do talk about every one, we must see the inhumanity embedded in all of us to reflect and find solutions.  God has always been good to me and guided me during that critical moment in the opening speech,  in my invocation, instead of naming all the Genocides and Massacres, I called on a silent prayer and asked people to pray for the Genocides and Massacres they knew, to make it an all inclusive event. There was a sigh of relief on the faces of those few, wow! Silence is Golden. 

 We have to learn our limitations, we are not Kali Maa or a computer to perform infinite multiple tasks in the given time, a single breath to a single hour.   

Now coming back to you, (the man who sent an email about me to groups) you can deal with one issue at a time.  The Yoga was the issue and that is what we dealt with.  If you want to talk about Kuwait Massacre, why didn’t you mention other massacres including Charleston Massacre? If you go to one of the Chinese buffets – why don’t you eat each one of the 72 items they have placed on the table? 

When you leave early from a party – do you go to every one of the 50 fellow guests and say goodbye to them? If you do, I’ve to learn from you. 

Let’s be contributors and not complainers.  

Mike is a speaker, thinker, writer, pluralist, TV-Radio commentator and a human rights activist committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His info in 63 links atMikeGhouse.net and writings at TheGhouseDiary.com 

30th Anniversary of Sikh Genocide, a survivor writes his story

Survivor of Sikh Genocides writes on 30^th Anniversary.
Published at:

• www.HolocaustandGenocides.com
• http://mikeghouseforIndia.blogspot.com and
• http://foundationforpluralism.blogspot.com  

Dallas, Texas, October 31, 2014.  It’s been 30 years since the Sikh Massacre took place in New Delhi; justice is still not served to the victims and their families. The fanatics among Hindus went on a rampage of killing 3000 Sikhs within a week, just because they were Sikhs and nothing but that. The Moderate Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others have condemned the acts of the fanatics.

As we have been learning about the mind set of criminals regardless of what religious garb they don, invariably they deny – some even say, why bring it up, there is no problem now. They are lying to themselves, the sparks of hatred are potent, and can catch the fire any time.

There is a criminal lurking in each one of us, we need to find him and destroy him before he eats us out from within. If we justify the rapes, murders, killing, massacres or genocides by believing "they asked for it" "they ignited it" or worse "they deserved it", then we have a serious problem and need to find a release.

What is needed is to face the problem squarely, acknowledging the wrong doing, and apologizing to the victims and finding mukti, the Jain Dharma offers a great phrase – Michami Dukadam, that is clean each other’s slates and start afresh.

Injustice is the mother of Adharma – i.e., everything that is wrong in the society stems from injustice, and Martin Luther King said, injustice to one is injustice to all at the end.

I hope one day, India will focus on cleaning up its dirty stains – there are many unfinished items on our plate that prick the nation from time to time. The hatred against the other is part of that mess.

Prime Minister Modi believes that when there is prosperity, most of the nagging things will go away, I hope they do. But I believe until we sit down face to face and acknowledge the evil in each one of us, and commit to go forward dumping the old baggage, we will be limping along. We need to reboot our souls, hearts and minds.

The following write up is from a Sikh Survivor of the 1984 Sikh Massacre.  It is a shame that many a families are still waiting for the whereabouts of their loved ones missing for over 30 years. The Indian Government has a responsibility to take this up, to bring relief to the victims of these massacres. I do hope Mr. Modi, as the Prime Minister of the nation, who claims to be a Hindu, acts like a Hindu and restores Dharma – the righteousness and justice to fellow beings.   

Pritpal Singh has spoken at our Holocaust and Genocides events and I am pleased to share his story with you, please feel free to share wherever you like.

The Foundation for Pluralism and the World Muslim Congress is commemorating Holocaust and Genocides for the last seven years, as a step towards reconciling with each other and learning about each others pain and suffering of each of us humans on this planet.

Wayne Slater of Dallas Morning News wrote, “Ghouse says he hopes attendees will walk out better appreciating the sufferings of others and seeing “the perpetrator in us” as a way of building trust across social and religious lines.

“I called on my friends with the idea of commemorating the event, and thus began this journey,” said Ghouse. “Education is the purpose; we have to learn, acknowledge and reflect upon the terrible things that we humans have inflicted upon each other, and we have to understand that our safety hinges on the safety of all others around us.”

“There is a shameless cruelty in us, either we shy away or refuse to acknowledge the sufferings of others, worrying that it will devalue our own or somehow it amounts to infidelity to our own cause,” he said. “We should be ashamed of ourselves in justifying the massacres by falsely propagating the myth that the victims deserved it, or asked for it.” It shows an absence of intelligence.

Our event is comprised of 3 segments; Holocaust is the anchor event every year, then Genocides and a Massacre. We have been able to address many Genocides around the Globe, as well as the Massacre of Bangladeshis in 1971, Sikhs in New Delhi in 1984 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.  

The criminals are still at large and need to be punished to restore peace of mind to the victims and their families. That is the least a head of the state can do for his countrymen and it is good for the psyche of the people.

Mike Ghouse

www.MikeGhouse.net

 

---

 

---

1984:  My Struggle & Inspiration

According to famous Czech writer Milan Kundera, "the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory.  Destroy its books, its culture, its history.  Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.  Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was...  The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."  We are here today to continue that struggle.  Never had the citizens of independent India experienced state sponsored genocide against its own people.

  After the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi, for three days the well-organized mob with explicit instructions from the federal government went to loot, destroy, rape, eliminate every identifiable Sikh on India.  Iron rods, crow bars, kerosene, and firearms were provided to mobs.  Voter lists, ration lists, and school registration lists were used to identify & track Sikhs, Gurdwaras, and Sikh businesses. 

Slogans like "blood for blood" were shown repeatedly on state controlled TV.  Rumors were circulated about the violence against Hindus in Punjab to incite hatred against Sikhs in India.  Sikh soldiers were disarmed and confined to barracks while army was deliberately kept outside Delhi until 11/4.  All this occurred in the presence of police who ignored the violence or at times aided in it.  The police officers who deviated from this order were neutralized and records were manipulated to destroy paper trail and to protect criminals from prosecution.  For the Sikh victims, the police refused to record FIR (First Information Reports) or falsified them.

 According to NY times, there was complete censorship of the press.  The relief measures were inadequate.  VM Tarkunde, retired justice of the Indian Supreme Court, stated "Two lessons can be drawn from the experience of Delhi riots.  One is about the extent of criminalization of our politics and the other about the utter unreliability of our police force in critical situation."  According to government report the number of Sikhs killed in Delhi was 2733; HS Phoolka, Delhi high court lawyer, estimates 4000; Affidavits have been filed for 5015; Madhu Kishwar, editor of Manushi, estimates 10,000.  These   estimates are just in Delhi while the killings occurred throughout India.

 Rajiv Gandhi justified the Sikh murders, rapes, loot & arson by saying, "When a great tree falls, earth trembles."  The result of the violence against an easily identifiable minority was winning 414/533 seats in the parliament for Congress Party of India.  Even the opposition party, Sangh Parivar, stated the Sikhs invited the attacks. 

There have been 11 commissions & inquiries but no high level politician or law enforcement official has been convicted despite eye witness accounts and abundant of evidence.  On the other hand, the perpetrators were awarded cabinet positions, governorships, and party chief positions.  The lack of accountability against the organizers of the Genocide paved the way to the violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. 

Pogroms will continue to occur in India unless the State acknowledges and records these violations in a transparent & honest manner, toward cleansing itself of the people and the institutions that perpetrate these crimes and addressing the survivors' rights to knowledge, justice, and reparation.

 I, as a survivor of the Sikh Genocide of 1984, wait for a day when the citizens of India will demand and display the very ideals of unity, justice, and healing as the citizens of America illustrated after the Wisconsin massacre in 2012.  So, my dear brothers & sisters, we cannot forget the killings of innocent people no matter where they occur.  Instead, we ought to remember, revive, and respond like our fathers & mothers did.  They sought Inspiration from within and channeled their energy toward discovering their role in pursuit of Justice.

Pritpal Singh