Sikh Wants Kirpans Banned

[Archived_Member16]

source: http://www.bramptonguardian.com/news/article/661746--sikh-wants-kirpans-banned
　
Sikh Wants Kirpans Banned

Taking a stand. Condemning the spate of violence that has rocked his community recently, a prominent member of the Sikh community in the Greater Toronto Area, said kirpans or ceremonial daggers worn by orthodox members of his religion has no place in Canada and should be banned. Ken Hay

RADHIKA PANJWANI - Brampton Guardian
April 8, 2010

Condemning the spate of violence that has rocked his community recently, a prominent member of the Sikh community in the Greater Toronto Area, said kirpans or ceremonial daggers worn by orthodox members of his religion have no place in Canada and should be banned.

Mississauga resident Dr. Bikram Lamba, whose name is being proposed by several South Asian groups as a possible candidate for the Governor General’s post, came out swinging against orthodoxy during a press conference in Brampton, Wednesday.

The event was hosted by India Pakistan Dosti (IP Dosti), a Brampton-based international organization promoting friendship and harmony, which along with several other groups has launched a campaign calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to nominate Lamba as Canada’s next governor general.

"I condemn violence. As a matter of fact, I think the kirpan should be banned. It has no place in this country," said Lamba, a Sikh, referring to an attack against the president of a Sikh temple last Friday.

Last week, a crowd of protesters punched and stabbed the 53-year-old Brampton man. Several witnesses recalled that at least two other men from the crowd had brandished their kirpans.

Lamba, ombudsman for National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, denied the incident had tarnished the image of the Sikh community in the country. He criticized the mob that had engaged in violence that day saying "they behaved like the Taliban."

The former political strategist said if selected as the constitutional head of Canada, he would become the voice that unites not just the Sikhs but all Canadians.

Members of IP Dosti (Dosti means friendship in Hindi) who have garnered some 12,000 signatures from GTA residents supporting Lamba, said the South Asian community is one of the fastest growing minority groups in Canada. As a result, it’s only fitting that a member from that community become the governor general.

The petition, along with the signatures, will be handed over to the Prime Minister by the end of the month, said Akbar Warris, founder/chairman of IP Dosti.

"We need a governor general who can help with the emotional integration of the new Canadians with the mainstream," Warris said. "A person (like Lamba) who upholds and cherishes Canadian values and understands cross-cultural currents."

 

[Admin]

Dirty Sikh political scene getting from worse to worst...

 

[Mai Harinder Kaur]

Dosti means friendship in Hindi

Perhaps that is the place to start.

 

[Sinister]

How will banning help anything?

if a kirpan is used purely as a ceremonial dagger, why do some have to be so sharp, large and look so intimidating?...why not use the smaller necklace type? (or change the shape to something resembling a butter knife?)

Like recent events have shown...some sikhs believe it to be more than just a ceremonial dagger but an actual weapon for protection...

Sikhs were even banned from entering the whitehouse with them (just a while back) so this symbol/ornament call it what you will is already polarizing 'host communities' (for lack of a better word).

canada is not america, in some american states you are allowed to carry a rifle to a coffee shop...not the case in canada

these types of incidents can be avoided altogether and a ban is not necessary if sikhs are willing to change the image of the kirpan itself.

 

[roab1]

This guy looks like a joker. Why is he wearing a turban and a beard?

 

[spnadmin]

How will banning help anything?

if a kirpan is used purely as a ceremonial dagger, why do some have to be so sharp, large and look so intimidating?...why not use the smaller necklace type? (or change the shape to something resembling a butter knife?)

Like recent events have shown...some sikhs believe it to be more than just a ceremonial dagger but an actual weapon for protection...

Sikhs were even banned from entering the whitehouse with them (just a while back) so this symbol/ornament call it what you will is already polarizing 'host communities' (for lack of a better word).

canada is not america, in some american states you are allowed to carry a rifle to a coffee shop...not the case in canada

these types of incidents can be avoided altogether and a ban is not necessary if sikhs are willing to change the image of the kirpan itself.

Just today a Singh was arrested for brandishing a meat cleaver in a gurdwara in Cleveland Ohio.

The Associated Press: Man with cleaver shot by cops in Ohio Sikh temple


The problem is not the "kirpan" which means "hand of mercy." Just about any object can be used as a weapon. The problem is an unbridled ego, a sense of personal entitlement, and uncontrollable anger, coupled with ignorance of the tenets of Sikhism. Some people act it all out. Others stand on the sidelines cheering them on. Who is the more guilty?

Banning solves nothing.

 

[gurumanyogranth]

source: http://www.bramptonguardian.com/news/article/661746--sikh-wants-kirpans-banned
　
Sikh Wants Kirpans Banned

Taking a stand. Condemning the spate of violence that has rocked his community recently, a prominent member of the Sikh community in the Greater Toronto Area, said kirpans or ceremonial daggers worn by orthodox members of his religion has no place in Canada and should be banned. Ken Hay

RADHIKA PANJWANI - Brampton Guardian
April 8, 2010

Condemning the spate of violence that has rocked his community recently, a prominent member of the Sikh community in the Greater Toronto Area, said kirpans or ceremonial daggers worn by orthodox members of his religion have no place in Canada and should be banned.

Mississauga resident Dr. Bikram Lamba, whose name is being proposed by several South Asian groups as a possible candidate for the Governor General’s post, came out swinging against orthodoxy during a press conference in Brampton, Wednesday.

The event was hosted by India Pakistan Dosti (IP Dosti), a Brampton-based international organization promoting friendship and harmony, which along with several other groups has launched a campaign calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to nominate Lamba as Canada’s next governor general.

"I condemn violence. As a matter of fact, I think the kirpan should be banned. It has no place in this country," said Lamba, a Sikh, referring to an attack against the president of a Sikh temple last Friday.

Last week, a crowd of protesters punched and stabbed the 53-year-old Brampton man. Several witnesses recalled that at least two other men from the crowd had brandished their kirpans.

Lamba, ombudsman for National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, denied the incident had tarnished the image of the Sikh community in the country. He criticized the mob that had engaged in violence that day saying "they behaved like the Taliban."

The former political strategist said if selected as the constitutional head of Canada, he would become the voice that unites not just the Sikhs but all Canadians.

Members of IP Dosti (Dosti means friendship in Hindi) who have garnered some 12,000 signatures from GTA residents supporting Lamba, said the South Asian community is one of the fastest growing minority groups in Canada. As a result, it’s only fitting that a member from that community become the governor general.

The petition, along with the signatures, will be handed over to the Prime Minister by the end of the month, said Akbar Warris, founder/chairman of IP Dosti.

"We need a governor general who can help with the emotional integration of the new Canadians with the mainstream," Warris said. "A person (like Lamba) who upholds and cherishes Canadian values and understands cross-cultural currents."

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh ji.

My personal opinion is that banning the kirpan would make it difficult for those Sikh's who are following the Sikh Rehat Maryada and have taken amrit.

I would hope that a fellow Sikh would maybe try to understand that.
I understand, we are living in another country and have to abide by their rules, but for a country to invite more immigration (if they want it) - within the law that keeps us safe - I would feel that they would understand that it is a part of our faith and we value it. Just as the American's have the 2nd amendment to carry firearms for the defense of their families.

Dr. Lamba has his own opinion - probably due to his environment, based on his experiences - but that doesn't mean it's the consensus of the whole population right? We are living in a democratic society, people have the option to voice their opinion, but in the end it is those who have more votes for an idea for which a policy is implemented. In addition, we believe in the panthic Sikh Rehat Maryada as it stands, as it took many years and hard work to end up with what we have today.

It's unfortunate that events such as the one at Sikh Lehar make more cracks than build bridges and those "bad apples" deserve the rule of law just as any other person living within that society. Though I still feel, that the proportion of crimes committed with kirpan's is much less than those committed with other objects you could be carrying in the trunk of your car.

Nevertheless, it is our responsibility as Sikh's who value the kirpan for what it means and from which has saved lives countless times in history, to teach our children the Sikhi from which we enchant the world, not scare it.

I just realized, it's not necessarily about what weapon one carries, it's about the one who is holding it, and the ideals they carry. Just as in war a military fights for the rights of its people and against injustice, the terrorists use those same weapons to kill the lives of their own innocent civilians to further their ideals. The only difference is their Sikhia.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh ji. ikonkaar

 

[Gyani Jarnail Singh]

In an effort to analyse all these various..."conversations" emerging from this incident of violence....those DGranthies blaming Prof darshan Singh..or the Sikh Lehr Gurdawra..or the Sangats for inviting such and such etc etc...and others calling ofr a BAN on this and that (most probabaly becasue they THEMSELVES DONT want/to wear the Kirpaan/or dont wnat the "inconvenience" and at the same time project an image of a Good Sikh ( Monas/Ghonas and those who dont wnat to keep Kesh.wear dastaars also suggest that Kesh/dastars are not essential ofr a sikh..the Anti-Kirpan lobby is just an extension of thsoe anti-kesh..anti-kachhera lobbies)..I came across a term called PROJECTION...in Psychology...
Here it is from Wkipedia...
Psychological projection or projection bias (including Freudian Projection) is the unconscious act of denial of a person's own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to the weather, the government, a tool, or to other people. Thus, it involves imagining or projecting that others have those feelings.
Projection is considered one of the most profound and subtle of human psychological processes, and extremely difficult to work with, because by its nature it is hidden. It is the fundamental mechanism by which we keep ourselves uninformed about ourselves. Humor has great value in any attempt to work with projection, because humor presents a forgiving posture and thereby removes the threatening nature of any inquiry into the truth.
Paleo-anthropologically speaking, this faculty probably had survival value as a self-defense mechanism when homo sapiens' intellectual capacity to detect deception in others improved to the point that the only sure hope to deceive was for deceivers to be self-deceived and therefore behave as if they were being truthful.
One modern, radical view of projections is that they are prerequisites for normal social functioning. A person incapable of ascribing their own feelings to other people has great difficulties in understanding them. Unfortunately, human beings have done great harm laboring under the delusions of projection. This is especially true for historical cases of projection between ethnic or cultural groups, for example in Apartheid or Nazism.<sup class="Template-Fact" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from January 2010" style="white-space: nowrap;">[citation needed]</sup>
In classical psychology, projection is always seen as a defense mechanism that occurs when a person's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]</sup>
An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and redirect their libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another.
Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.

The theory was developed by Sigmund Freud and further refined by his daughter Anna Freud; for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as "Freudian Projection"<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference">[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference">[3</sup>According to Sigmund Freud, projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one "projects" one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else. It is a common process that every person uses to some degree.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference">[4]</sup>
To understand the process, consider a person in a couple who has thoughts of infidelity. Instead of dealing with these undesirable thoughts consciously, they unconsciously project these feelings onto the other person, and begin to think that the other has thoughts of infidelity and may be having an affair. In this sense, projection is related to denial, arguably the only defense mechanism that is more primitive than projection. Projection, like all defense mechanisms, provides a function whereby a person can protect their conscious mind from a feeling that is otherwise repulsive.
Projection can also be established as a means of obtaining or justifying certain actions that would normally be found atrocious or heinous. This often means projecting false accusations, information, etc onto an individual for the sole purpose of maintaining a self created illusion.
Compartmentalization, splitting and projection are ways that the ego continues to pretend that it is completely in control at all times, when in reality human experience is one of shifting beingness, instinctual or territorial reactiveness and emotional motives, for which the "I" is not always complicit. Further, common in deep trauma, individuals can be unable to access truthful memories, intentions and experiences, even about their own nature, wherein projection is just one tool <sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[5]</sup>.
Historical uses

Peter Gay describes it as "the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable—too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous—by attributing them to another."<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference">[6]</sup>
The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach based his theory of religion in large part upon the idea of projection, i.e., the idea that an anthropomorphic deity is the outward projection of man's anxieties and desires<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference">[7]</sup>.
Psychological projection is the subject of Robert Bly's book A Little Book on the Human Shadow. The "Shadow"—a term used in Jungian psychology to describe a variety of psychological projection—refers to the projected material <sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference">[8]</sup>. Marie-Louise Von Franz extended the view of projection to cover phenomena in Patterns of Creativity Mirrored in Creation Myths: "... wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown, there we project an archetypal image". <sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference">[9]</sup>.
Psychological projection is one of the medical explanations of bewitchment that attempts to diagnose the behavior of the afflicted children at Salem in 1692. The historian John Demos asserts that the symptoms of bewitchment experienced by the afflicted girls in Salem during the witchcraft crisis were because the girls were undergoing psychological projection. <sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference">[10]</sup> Demos argues the girls had convulsive fits caused by repressed aggression and were able to project this aggression without blame because of the speculation of witchcraft and bewitchment.
[edit] Counter-projection

When addressing psychological trauma the defense mechanism is sometimes counter-projection, including an obsession to continue and remain in a recurring trauma-causing situation and the compulsive obsession with the perceived perpetrator of the trauma or its projection.
Jung writes that "All projections provoke counter-projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject."<sup class="Template-Fact" title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from January 2010" style="white-space: nowrap;">[citation needed]</sup>
The concept was anticipated by Friedrich Nietzsche:

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." <sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference">[11]</sup>
​

 

[roab1]

This pea{censored} has forgotten that if Sikhs didnt have Kirpaan he wouldnt be wearing a turban today and his name would have been probably Dr Muhammed Mangat.

 

[Sinister]

<FONT color=black>

Just today a Singh was arrested for brandishing a meat cleaver in a gurdwara in Cleveland Ohio. fficeffice" /><?"urn:

The Associated Press: Man with cleaver shot by cops in Ohio Sikh temple

The problem is not the "kirpan" which means "hand of mercy." Just about any object can be used as a weapon. The problem is an unbridled ego, a sense of personal entitlement, and uncontrollable anger, coupled with ignorance of the tenets of Sikhism. Some people act it all out. Others stand on the sidelines cheering them on. Who is the more guilty?

Banning solves nothing.

Your post although understood, cannot be implemented in any pragmatic sense.

kirpan literally translates to sword…a material object…that ‘hand of mercy’ requires input and subject to interpretation of a scenario. If a kirpan was just the hand of mercy…why shape it like blade at all?

I don’t think you have grasped the subject from the perspective of a Canadian. It rings of American Idealism, which, until recently, I have no particular love for, after examining the unimpressive statistics emanating from that region. There are levels ascribed to objects, it’s called lethality of a weapon (the statistical probability it has to cause death and escalate a situation).

from a pragmatic viewpoint if you are holstering a sharp blade, 24/7 the statistics automatically work against you...no matter how "level headed" the community is.

It can escalate a situation in a ‘hot burglary’ or a confrontation that would otherwise end without serious harm.

Canadians are NOT Americans. there is no second amendment...you are not allowed to carry a lethal firearm (unless its locked and only to and fro from home to the shooting range or hunting ground or if you have a special restricted permit which they give to very few people) nor is anyone allowed to brandish a blade at a public meeting in an intimidating fashion. Knife laws are subjective but usually anything over 15 cm (5 inches) from tip of the handle to end of the blade will get you in trouble, in a public setting. (camping, fishing etc. are tolerated) … Heck even using a knife in self-defense while the aggressor has non will land you IN JAIL if the aggressor is INJURED. (use of excessive force)

Dr. Lamba is not entirely wrong in calling for a ban, but the ban should be on particular kirpans. his motives may be argued to be political in nature but also ‘examinable’. the problem is the image of the kirpan itself...It is a media relation magnet and keeps re-surfacing when things go wrong…over and over.

however if all kirpans were made harmless, then the symbol would be readily accepted and life made easier for everyone.

evolution and adaptation are sometimes necessary. could you imagine if every muslim or christian (child to adult) was required and thought themselves privy to brandish a 6 inch sheathed blade (of their choosing) to their side?

does anyone honestly believe that would ease any tensions or have positive effects in a well developed multicultural society?

 

[ballym]

How do we answer following scenarios: (Each one may be taken independent of others)
1. canada seeks a written assurance from sikhs' representative body that this symbol will be used only as a symbol and not as a weapon.
2. Another such incident happens tomorrow in next smaagam planned for exposing Dasam granth's inadequacies. It is highly probable to the extent of being a certainty.
3. some individual brandishes it to attack neighbor, frighten his girlfriend/ boyfriend.
4. Was the size specified anywhere? In historical references.... at the time of its initiation.
5. What is the repercussion of making it even smaller. How was the size of 6" was arrived at earlier. Can we apply similar logic to reduce it further in view of present information and history of incidents?

Theory and practice are different things. Guru Nanak Devji wanted to remove this difference in preaching and practice. that is why this religion is best only till we keep the same principles. otherwise .... there are so many already .....

 

[BhagatSingh]

Awesome points ballym ji,
I personally agree with Sinister ji. Chaning the shape or going with a necklace one sounds good.
Previously the length was reduced to 6inches to make it so that it was not anymore dangerous than a common object like a pencil or something.

I think the necklace kirpans will catch on much faster since its fashionable for even non-amritdharis to sport one or more khanda necklaces.

 

[spnadmin]

Of course I am speaking as an American! And the police in Cleveland are in the US too! Isn't it interesting that they are quoted as saying, Police don't believe Ravinder Nijjar, 41, of Bedford, had a religious motive for his behavior at the temple, where he worshipped, Police Chief Greg Duber said.


And that suggests that they might have had some inkling of events in Brampton, Ontario. Or perhaps not. The article gives no context for the comment. They seem to have considered whether a religious motive was evident, reflected, and then concluded it was not. From my perspective the article suggests also that Cleveland police may be actively aware of issues related to religious identity of Sikhs in their own area. As opposed to completely ignorant.

Yes in the US there has to be compelling evidence of a clear and present danger to the community.I am wondering having read your remarks why some Sikh legal/advocacy groups in Canada have a similar notion, given that they would have some idea by living on Canadian soil of a Canadian perspective.

This would be an example Sikh organization defends kirpan after man stabbed in Brampton

What statistics are you referring to? I did not quite understand that part of your argument.