Where is Gurudawara in Ottawa???
Recommend this site!
| |
> Peaceful Sikhs, noble warriors
>
Miami Herald
Published Thursday, October 11, 2001
ROB BOYTE
In her Sept. 29 article about Sikhs being mistaken for Muslims and
bearing misguided reprisals due to the horrific actions of Muslim
terrorists, Herald staff writer Donna Gehrke-White points out the
honorable and peaceful nature of this 500-year-old religion. I met
many
Sikhs while traveling overland to India in the 1970s and can attest
to
their honorable and tolerant nature.
On many occasions, my partner, Jim, and
I were assisted by Sikhs who were fellow travelers on the bus
journey
through Turkey and Iran. They were traveling from work in Europe
back to
their homes in India and took us under wing in these foreign lands.
We
found that they indeed lived according to their creed, which
enjoins
them to succor the helpless. We always felt safer in our travels
when we
saw men in the familiar turban and beard.
The Sikhs are a warrior culture that, under the leadership of their
last
living guru, Gobind Singh, waged a resistance warfare with the
ruling
Muslim Moguls in Northern India in the late 17th and early 18th
centuries. It was not a sectarian movement against Muslims, as
Singh
also fought oppressive Hindu rulers, and he had devoted Muslim
followers
in his own ranks.
Singh initiated his first khalsa (Sikh community) with five men who
proved that they would give up their lives for him. Henceforth they
were
all surnamed Singh, meaning ``lion.´´
One of the five symbols of the khalsa is the kirpan (sword).
However,
unlike the fanaticism of the Muslims who had conquered much of the
world
by the sword, the Sikhs were not to use theirs for aggression or
self-aggrandizement but for self-defense -- and as a last resort.
As
Singh wrote, ``When all other means have failed, it is but lawful
to
take to the sword.´´
I know it sounds romanticized and Arthurian to think that there
really
are noble warrior cultures, but that is the history of the Sikhs
who
inherited a code of conduct from Singh. Sikh men are called to help
the
helpless, fight the oppressor, have faith in one God and consider
all
human beings equal, irrespective of caste and creed. They also are
not
to have sexual relations outside the marital bond.
The sad irony is that a Sikh, an ally in the battle against
religious
oppression, was senselessly killed by an ignorant American fanatic.
Rob Boyte is a resident of Miami Beach.
http://www.miami.com/herald/content/opinion/opcol/digdocs/079483.htm
|
