Sikh, Sikh, Sikh

A couple of years back, when Agent 78 visited Toronto for the first time, she was taken by her host on a tour of downtown Toronto which included a stop at Osgoode Hall, seat of the Supreme Court of Ontario. In the beautiful Queen's Bench courtroom, she was shown a bullet hole in one of the lawyers' desks.

That, she was told, is where Oscar Fonseca was killed in 1982. Mr. Fonseca, a lawyer, was working at the time, representing a group of Sikhs fighting -- literally -- for control of a temple. Click here to read the story.

The bullet hole is still there, and it should remind us that the Sikh way of resolving disputes is, er... not exactly the Canadian way. Better to kill someone than go to court and take your chances in front of a Canadian judge.

28 years later, no lessons seem to have been learned. On April 4th, a Sikh lawyer, was stabbed at a Sikh temple in Brampton. (Brampton, a bedroom community northwest of Toronto, is home to a large community of Sikhs, so much so that one of its subdivisions, Springdale, is known to locals as "Sikhdale".)

A local news report concludes, "Harvans Jandali, president of Ontario Sikh and Gurdwara Council, condemned the violence, saying 'the fight should have never happened at the temple — that’s a sacred place.'”

Yes, well... On the 18th, it happened again. This time there was a "pitched battle" (I'm quoting the report in the Toronto Star) at another temple. Four people were injured and three arrested.

Violence is the Sikh way of resolving disputes and settling scores. Am I exaggerating or generalizing? Don't forget the bombing of Air India Flight 182. Read the Wikipedia article, particularly the list of suspects. See all those "Singhs"? Although not all Singhs are Sikhs, all Sikhs are Singhs. Thanks to the super-fairness of the Canadian court system and the vaunted Canadian Charter of Rights, only one Sikh was ever convicted.

Why are all these Sikhs killing (or trying to kill) each other, here in Canada? Why can they not leave the battles of their homelands (India and Pakistan) behind them? Why do they insist on wearing their turbans and special underwear and carrying their small but deadly kirpans, even into our schools?

Before you start telling me to be more tolerant, let me quote the wise words of Ujjal Dosanjh, an Indian-Canadian, a former federal cabinet minister and onetime premier of British Columbia. He is quoted in today's Globe & Mail as saying Sikh extremism is on the rise in some parts of the country. And he blames, in part, “politically correct” Canadians who let it happen in the name of diversity.

Mr. Dosanjh was savagely beaten in Vancouver in 1985 after speaking out against religious violence, Canadian multiculturalism, he says, has allowed extremism to take root in Sikh and other ethnic communities.

Don't accuse me of racism and intolerance! Take Mr. Dossanjh's word for it. "Separatist extremism is more entrenched in some Canadian Sikh communities than in Punjab, the Indian region where the "Free Khalistan" movement originated." Jane Armstrong's excellent article is worth quoting at length.

"Mr. Dosanjh blamed what he described as Canada’s polite brand of multiculturalism for giving extremists the space to nurture old grudges brought from their homelands. At the same time, Canada has failed to instill its own values on new immigrants.

"'I think what we are doing to this country is that this idea of multiculturalism has been completely distorted, turned on its head to essentially claim that anything anyone believes – no matter how ridiculous and outrageous it might be – is okay and acceptable in the name of diversity.'

"'Where we have gone wrong in this pursuit of multiculturalism is that there is no adherence to core values, the core Canadian values, which [are]: That you don’t threaten people who differ with you; you don’t go attack them personally; you don’t terrorize the populace.'

"Mr. Dosanjh urged mainstream Canadians who aren’t part of these ethnic communities to step up and speak against extremism. 'I think Canadians need to engage in this cultural diversity debate,' he said. 'We should stop being politically correct and have a debate.'"