B.C. Sikh community rallies in support of Syrian refugees

2015/11/25 Leave a comment

Good vignette:

The Sikh community in B.C.’s Lower Mainland is rallying to provide support for thousands of incoming Syrian refugees, with offers this week that include food, transportation and even private school for children.

Randeep Sarai, MP for Surrey Centre, convened a meeting over the weekend where roughly 30 community representatives immediately offered a variety goods and services. The federal government will announce details of its Syrian refugee plan on Tuesday, but – if past distribution models are used – B.C. is projected to receive between 2,500 and 3,500 refugees in the next couple of months.

Community organizer Balwant Sanghera, who attended the meeting, said Gurdwaras from Vancouver, Richmond, New Westminster, Abbotsford and Surrey have all agreed to collect food, clothing, blankets and other donations from their congregations. They also plan to launch a provincewide campaign to find free accommodations for the refugees.

“We are very proud to be Canadians and we are also proud of our heritage,” Mr. Sanghera said. “We feel really good if we can be of any help if we are needed.”

Source: B.C. Sikh community rallies in support of Syrian refugees – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Multiculturalism, Refugees Tagged with , ,

Celebrating Sikh soldiers on Remembrance Day

2015/11/11 Leave a comment

Poppy

Timing is perfect with Canada’s first Sikh Defence Minister:

When Pardeep Singh Nagra was a kid in Mississauga, he didn’t see Sikh soldiers in his history textbooks.

Now, the 45-year-old is standing in a room where you can read about the first Sikh soldier to win a Victoria Cross (Captain Ishar Singh, 1921), look at propaganda posters extolling the virtues of the mighty Sikh whiskers, and admire row upon row of toy soldiers in turbans.

Nagra is the director of the Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada, and he was still up at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning, putting the finishing touches on the museum’s “Outwhiskered” exhibit for Remembrance Day. The exhibit covers the 1800s to present, with a major focus on the two world wars, highlighting a history that is often forgotten.

“Let me tell you, I’m going to be all over the place, so don’t mind me,” Nagra says before launching into a whirlwind tour of several centuries of history.

“There is an Indian man in Flanders, but we’ve never been raised or nurtured here, even in our education systems, with this type of stuff,” he says, pausing by a photo of an Indian soldier in Ypres.

Pardeep Singh Nagra, the museum’s Executive Director, poses in front of a 1944 edition of the Picture Post, a British photojournalism magazine.

LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR/ TORONTO STAR

Pardeep Singh Nagra, the museum’s Executive Director, poses in front of a 1944 edition of the Picture Post, a British photojournalism magazine.

In Canada, 10 Sikh soldiers enlisted for the First World War. None enlisted in the Second World War, fed up with a country that hadn’t given them the right to vote, he said. (That would come in 1947.)

More than 65,000 Sikh soldiers fought in the First World War as part of the British Army and over 300,000 Sikhs fought with the Allies in the Second World War. Their reputation as fierce military men was a staple of Allied propaganda and even Kellogg’s cereal box inserts.

“They wear beards and a long moustache. And all of them wrap their heads in turbans. The Sikhs ride and shoot well. A great many are in the Imperial forces,” reads the back of one Sikh trading card, possibly from the 1940s or 1950s.

At the entrance to the museum, images of Canada’s newest Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan line the walls, drawn recently by students at Khalsa Community School in Brampton. One student has given Sajjan the acrostic poem treatment — H for “Helpful to Sikh community,” A for “Amazing progression in politics and military,” and on from there.

Source: Celebrating Sikh soldiers on Remembrance Day | Toronto Star

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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