Year in Review: The Best and Worst Sikh Moments of 2013
The Best:
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Bhai Gurbaksh Singh went on a hunger strike for 44 days which led to the release of 4 political prisoners and increased international attention on human rights in India. We were all deeply moved and inspired, and Bhai Sahib sparked a new movement!
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Sikh women claimed their place in new and outstanding ways!
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Balpreet Kaur gave this inspiring talk. We all love her.
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SAFAR held it’s second annual Young Women’s Leadership conference, took us beyond International Women’s Day and shared a beautiful message on the International Day of the Girl.
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The Sikh Coalition acknowledged International Day of the Girl for the first time.
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The Sikh Activist Network featured poems about rape in India.
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Sikhnet hosted an online youth film festival focused on KAUR. How amazing is that?!
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The Sikh Art & Film Festival added a female speaker to their panel and 18MillionRising stepped in to support gender equality.
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My awesome friends are building a Dastaar Tutorial Project for women (more details to come soon). Maybe now I can figure out how to keep a patka on my head that doesn’t slip off underneath my dastaar. Win!!!!!
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We marked the one-year anniversary since Oak Creek and grieved several other hate crimes but still came out on top.
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Piara Singh was attacked in Fresno and the community rose to the occasion in inspiring ways, serving meals and buckets full of compassion to local families.
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Dr. Prabhjot Singh invited his attackers to worship with him and shifted the narrative of justice when it comes to hate crimes.
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The Sikh Coalition released a new version of Fly Rights. Rockin it!
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Jasjeet Singh spoke at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. No big deal.
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Dr. Kiran Arora began a study on religion and race-related stress among North American Sikhs. Much-needed.
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Turban Myths was released, the first national public perception assessment on the Sikh American community, conducted by SALDEF in collaboration with Stanford University. Nicely done!
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7 Responses to “Year in Review: The Best and Worst Sikh Moments of 2013”
Pretty good list!
Did you think at all about the fact you are just one person and this list says "sikh" moments?
Did you canvass all "sikhs"? really curious by what legitimacy this is a list of best and worst sikh moments? It seems like its the authors list of things she is feels are good or bad and related to her conception of what is "sikh".
How can the author or others who might have some input into the blog not see that, given your apparent backgrounds in and commitment to critical analysis?
In this and other posts, the "good" and "bad" seemed based on a ersatz reading of a given situation
assessed as a conflict between forces that line up as oppressed or privileged by cisheteropatriarchal global capitalism.
This basic formulation seems like some combination of marxist thought – capitalism is the root of all oppression with the addition of New Left and post modernist critical analysis providing new combinations to the old single class analysis. The key is that the right side to be on is the side most oppressed by cisheteropatriarchal global capitalism.
Where is the explicit treatment of the forces that in gurubani are thought to drive suffering and ignorance, injustice, death, and pain? I struggle to find the five thieves in the analysis used on this site. The five thieves and the ensuing attachment to Maya being described in gurbani – these have gone missing in this new, apparently "sikh" progressive vision. Instead, the five thieves have been replaced by cisheteropatriarchal global capitalism. Maybe cisheteropatriachal global capitalism is really the manifestation of attachment to Maya in our current time. Can you make this connection more explicitly?
At some point don't you have to engage with gurubani on an explicit and on-going basis? When is this going to start happening?
sorry: cisheteropatriarchal white supremacist anthropocentric global capitalism. shout out to those keeping it real for the non human animals!
You forgot one:
Gurbaksh Chahal, resident douche bag millionaire, was charged with domestic abuse.
BUT HE'S RICH GOD DAMMIT, HE'S IMMUNE!
I think the Langar Hall should post some of my writings from my blog: http://www.singhsdoingthings.com.
Yes, I just inserted myself in here. Thanks.
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