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Respect Diversity, accept the Kirpans
What is all the fuss about kirpans? And why did they suddenly become an issue at Gurdas Maan's concert at the Telus Convention Centre when they've never been an issue at public venues in Calgary before?
Sunday night's concert was halted because 10 elderly men arrived wearing kirpans under their clothes, as is required by the Sikh religion. So what? No doubt Calgary Sikhs have for years attended plays at Theatre Calgary, concerts at the Jack Singer, Flames games at the Saddledome and so on. No concert by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, no play and no hockey game have ever been shut down because of a Sikh in the audience, wearing his kirpan.
People are entitled to wear religious symbols. That means a Sikh should be as free to wear a kirpan as a Christian is to wear a crucifix around the neck. If we're not prepared to accept this in Alberta, then the next skid mark down the slippery slope to outright xenophobia will be for us to be like Quebec, whose government is being pressured to ban the wearing of religious symbols by civil servants, including teachers and doctors. Oppress one, oppress all is their motto.
France has long since gone that way. Let's not follow. In 2004, the French government banned visible religious symbols in public schools, including Sikh turbans. Just before the ban came into effect, then-president Jacques Chirac said: "Secularism is one of the great successes of the republic. It is a crucial element of social peace and national cohesion. We cannot let it weaken."
Chitac didn't weaken it. He destroyed it. Secularism should not involve suppression of people's religions or enforced cohesion; it should acknowledge people's individuality, respect their personal choice to wear a given religious symbol, and treat them all the same regardless. Secularism should make no big deal out of diversity. Otherwise, it becomes the great oppressor, not the great leveller of society, and its own dubious practice of equal opportunity oppression is far worse than the harmless wearing of religious symbols.
Kirpans have sharp points, which is why Transport Canada regulations require them to be taken on a plane in checked baggage, rather than carried on board. One can only imagine the harm a kirpan could do if it were wrested away from a Sikh passenger by some individual with terrorist leanings. But a concert hall is not an airplane, to be hijacked or crashed.
"The kirpan is no more symbolic (of) a weapon than the Christian cross is symbolic of a torture instrument," historian Sandeep Singh Brar explains on his website, sikh.org,which was the Internet's first Sikh site, and has been around for more than a decade. "To Sikhs the kirpan is religiously symbolic of their spirituality and the constant struggle of good and morality over the forces of evil and injustice, both on an individual as well as social level. The usage of the kirpan in this religious context is clearly indicated in the Sikh holy scriptures (Sri Guru Granth Sahib) and wearing it is meant to inspire a Sikh in their daily life," Brar says. So if Sikhs do not regard kirpans as weapons, why should the rest of the world show an overweening concern about them? Live and let live. Brar makes an interesting point about the cross. If Christianity were not the majority religion in Canada, would its followers be roundly condemned as advocates of torture for wearing that symbolic "torture instrument" in public?
To see how ludicrous the to-do over the kirpans at the concert is, one need only reverse the roles, as I learned a few years ago when there was an uproar about Sikhs not wanting to remove their turbans to wear bicycle helmets. Much grumbling at the time seemed to focus on the grumblers' refusal to pay the health-care costs of a helmetless Sikh who might be involved in an accident. Happy Mann, a Calgary Sikh, phoned me to say that the public needed to be set straight. "Sikhs don't smoke, but we are paying for health care for smokers and they are the biggest burden on the system. Baptized Sikhs don't drink, either, but we pay for the drunk-driving violations, the cost of counselling, the health care. But, Sikhs never complain about any of that," Mann said
What bothers me most is the indignity suffered by the 10 elderly men wearing their kirpans. They were ordinary folks who came to the show in anticipation of enjoying a pleasant evening at a concert, just as any Calgarian would. Prevented from entering because of a religious symbol that they carry to remind them to live in a godly manner, they ended up being treated like "the other." Their ouster resulted in the entire show being halted. Where was all the respect for diversity that we're constantly told is a basic tenet of this Canada we live in?
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald ( Alberta, CANADA )- August 5, 2009 7:55 AM
What is all the fuss about kirpans? And why did they suddenly become an issue at Gurdas Maan's concert at the Telus Convention Centre when they've never been an issue at public venues in Calgary before?
Sunday night's concert was halted because 10 elderly men arrived wearing kirpans under their clothes, as is required by the Sikh religion. So what? No doubt Calgary Sikhs have for years attended plays at Theatre Calgary, concerts at the Jack Singer, Flames games at the Saddledome and so on. No concert by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, no play and no hockey game have ever been shut down because of a Sikh in the audience, wearing his kirpan.
People are entitled to wear religious symbols. That means a Sikh should be as free to wear a kirpan as a Christian is to wear a crucifix around the neck. If we're not prepared to accept this in Alberta, then the next skid mark down the slippery slope to outright xenophobia will be for us to be like Quebec, whose government is being pressured to ban the wearing of religious symbols by civil servants, including teachers and doctors. Oppress one, oppress all is their motto.
France has long since gone that way. Let's not follow. In 2004, the French government banned visible religious symbols in public schools, including Sikh turbans. Just before the ban came into effect, then-president Jacques Chirac said: "Secularism is one of the great successes of the republic. It is a crucial element of social peace and national cohesion. We cannot let it weaken."
Chitac didn't weaken it. He destroyed it. Secularism should not involve suppression of people's religions or enforced cohesion; it should acknowledge people's individuality, respect their personal choice to wear a given religious symbol, and treat them all the same regardless. Secularism should make no big deal out of diversity. Otherwise, it becomes the great oppressor, not the great leveller of society, and its own dubious practice of equal opportunity oppression is far worse than the harmless wearing of religious symbols.
Kirpans have sharp points, which is why Transport Canada regulations require them to be taken on a plane in checked baggage, rather than carried on board. One can only imagine the harm a kirpan could do if it were wrested away from a Sikh passenger by some individual with terrorist leanings. But a concert hall is not an airplane, to be hijacked or crashed.
"The kirpan is no more symbolic (of) a weapon than the Christian cross is symbolic of a torture instrument," historian Sandeep Singh Brar explains on his website, sikh.org,which was the Internet's first Sikh site, and has been around for more than a decade. "To Sikhs the kirpan is religiously symbolic of their spirituality and the constant struggle of good and morality over the forces of evil and injustice, both on an individual as well as social level. The usage of the kirpan in this religious context is clearly indicated in the Sikh holy scriptures (Sri Guru Granth Sahib) and wearing it is meant to inspire a Sikh in their daily life," Brar says. So if Sikhs do not regard kirpans as weapons, why should the rest of the world show an overweening concern about them? Live and let live. Brar makes an interesting point about the cross. If Christianity were not the majority religion in Canada, would its followers be roundly condemned as advocates of torture for wearing that symbolic "torture instrument" in public?
To see how ludicrous the to-do over the kirpans at the concert is, one need only reverse the roles, as I learned a few years ago when there was an uproar about Sikhs not wanting to remove their turbans to wear bicycle helmets. Much grumbling at the time seemed to focus on the grumblers' refusal to pay the health-care costs of a helmetless Sikh who might be involved in an accident. Happy Mann, a Calgary Sikh, phoned me to say that the public needed to be set straight. "Sikhs don't smoke, but we are paying for health care for smokers and they are the biggest burden on the system. Baptized Sikhs don't drink, either, but we pay for the drunk-driving violations, the cost of counselling, the health care. But, Sikhs never complain about any of that," Mann said
What bothers me most is the indignity suffered by the 10 elderly men wearing their kirpans. They were ordinary folks who came to the show in anticipation of enjoying a pleasant evening at a concert, just as any Calgarian would. Prevented from entering because of a religious symbol that they carry to remind them to live in a godly manner, they ended up being treated like "the other." Their ouster resulted in the entire show being halted. Where was all the respect for diversity that we're constantly told is a basic tenet of this Canada we live in?
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald ( Alberta, CANADA )- August 5, 2009 7:55 AM
