come on man –have some decency ——-such a n ice respectful community is pun jabi community —and this man by starting such a topic is nt any graceful act ——this is a bad attempt by the person who started such a topic—must be condemend and he should feel sorry for this.

I understand your argument, I am just questioning the politics of the vocabulary employed. ‘Western’ comes from the region imagined as ‘western Europe.’ There may be another word that we can devise is better descriptive.

Orientalism goes both ways. In fact Said’s thesis states that in many ways ‘orientalism’ affects the ‘oriental’ more than the ‘occidental.’ I do not deny the inverted binaries that some Punjabi families use. In the face of colonial oppression, the language of an ‘pure’ and ’spiritual’ East was devised. It has been as much the fantasy of Panjabi families as it has been of hippies traveling there.

They don’t recognise this false dichotomy of ‘East’ and ‘West’.

I couldn’t agree more with this statement. This is what I am trying to say as well. We should avoid these ‘false’ dichotomies in our language. That was what Said was trying to say in his Orientalism as well.

Thank you for the suggestion of Sanghera’s book. I actually have read it. And as you describe it is a brutal and tragic narrative. While I would not label her as an ‘Orientalist,’ if she is only dealing in the binaries that you describe (which I don’t believe she would be effective if that was the case), then yes, I would label her assumptions coming out of Orientalism.

Some of the blame goes on the host country and they need to do a better job of informing newcomers that things are different then what is in the homeland. In Europe some countries like Denmark and Holland have made changes to there immigration policy and all newcomers have to learn the culture and customs of the countries they come to.

I appreciate that you want your sister to have freedom. And if you think “the west is best” then you’re entitled to your opinion.

I’m sorry you didn’t have a good experience during your 4 month visit to Punjab, but it doesn’t benefit you to limit Punjab to just your 4 month experience of it.

Then why did they leave there precious punjab. It’s amazing how everyone from the Punjab wants to come out west, yet when alot of them get here they have such a negative view of the mainstream culture of the country they live in.I wonder if its some form of cultural jealousy. It eats them up inside that culture that is so different from is one that is found in the best countries in the world.

This is hilarious… one of the main reasons people leave Punjab (or emigrate generally) is economic NOT cultural.

What makes a country “best” in your mind? Wealth? Well, if that works for you, that’s cool- but some people are just more comfortable when people dress like them, speak/understand their language, and appreciate their history. That’s why most immigrants are nostalgic for their native homes, not any sort of cultural jealousy.

Think about the things that make up ‘culture’… that’s what people miss. Eating pooray after the rain.

People want to come to the west because of economic opportunity, and don’t always realize the cultural consequences when they make that move. But trying to say that a culture is “better” or “worse” is pretty sweeping and …. not true. It leads people to say that people from a specific culture are “better” or “worse” and I know you don’t want to go there.

I just get sick and tired when punjabi immigrants to the west talk about how much better things are in the homeland and how people in the west have no culture or morals. Then why did they leave there precious punjab. It’s amazing how everyone from the Punjab wants to come out west, yet when alot of them get here they have such a negative view of the mainstream culture of the country they live in.I wonder if its some form of cultural jealousy. It eats them up inside that culture that is so different from is one that is found in the best countries in the world.

I always find it funny how many in community talks about the mainstream community women sleep around and they get divorced so easy and how the parents don’t support the kids and how women are allowed to drink alcohol among other things. I just love it how we will cry racism over the almost anything, yet have no problems making sterotypes about other groups.

Even though I didn’t agree with everything my parents did, I am happy when they came to Canada in the early 70’s they moved to an area in which we one of the few minority’s. So my parents had to make an effort to learn the culture and customs of the great new country they moved to and make friends of other races[many who 30 years later they still friends with]. But most of all I’m happy that my young sister was able to grow up there where she had more freedom then she would had if she grow up in parts of the Vancouver area with a big punjabi area.

I’m sorry if my comments upset anybody, but I think the west is best, and after spending 4 months in the punjab in the late 90’s I’m very glad that my parents came here and even happier for all my female relatives that grow up in Canada or the United States, cause there have a chance for a much better life then they would back in my parents homeland.

Why is it wrong to speculate about these women and there choice of the person they ended up with. The reason I brought up these women was that they may be the most visible punjabi women in the United States.

West = Good East = Bad. I think Edward Said addressed Orientalism long ago. In fact, 2008 marks thirty years since the classic was published.

This has nothing to do with ‘Orientalism’ my friend. As a description of the social reality of some Sikhs living in the West, born and raised in societies whose value systems are starkly different from those of the ones in which their parents migrated from, and the value systems that they are oppressed by when their parents continue to practise extremely reactionary cultural pressures like coercive arranged marriages, denying their children the right to choose their own partners, extreme patriarchy accompanied by violence, the feudal residues of the caste system, unquestioning religiosity; when this lived reality for a small section of the Sikh (and wider South Asian communities) persists, it’s not ‘Orientalists’ defining ‘West’ as good and ‘East’ as bad, it’s the families themselves who persist in the reactionary social values rooted in Indian culture who insist that ‘Eastern’ values are good and ‘Western’ values are corrupting, polluting, and evil. The social reality is that it is the reactionaries who perpetuate these practises in the name of some mystical values of the ‘East’ who impose these distinctions.

Sikhs in the diaspora overwhelmingly embrace the freedom and rights of the individual. They don’t see them as alien impositions. They see them as their birthright, because they were born in lands in which individuals can choose their own partners, lead their own lives, and so on. They don’t recognise this false dichotomy of ‘East’ and ‘West’, because they can take for granted all the things everyone else born in America, England or Candada takes for granted. That is their birthright.

If you want to get snapshot of this, read Jaswinder Sanghera’s book ‘Shame’, which deals with her life growing up in a Punjabi immigrant family in England in the 1980’s, in which she and her sisters were subjected to the most incredible brutality, all done in teh name of ‘protecting’ their izzat from the ‘evil’ western cultural influences like, you know, freedom of choice, freedom to marry who you want to, freedom to go to university and live an independent life. To describe her, one of the most respected women’s activists in Britain as an Orientalist is utterly absurd.

The search for ways in which Sikhi as a religion can battle against reactionary social values in Punjab or elsewhere is a noble and great activism and I hope it succeeds. Me personally, like lots of Sikh men and women, don’t need to make recourse to it. We already have our solution to the reactionary values that oppress some people in our community: in the UK, it’s called the Human Rights Act. In America it’s called the Constitution. In Canada it’s called the Bill of Rights. The same laws and rights granted to you as an individual that allows a Sikh to practise his or her faith freely, give individuals the right to reject oppressive customs imposed on them by their families. No need to wait for religion to offer a rescue. The solution is already there.