Canada’s way to deal with seperatist states.

I find it interesting how Canada as a country will support small groups in the middle east who are going through major revolutions and lend their support in the fight for democracy but when it comes to a world power such as India they fully support a government that has been run with lies, deception and corruption for years. In Chapter two of Spindlove’s book he refers to Sikh’s as extremists and people who would not be supported for their own state without ever referring to the conditions that the Sikh people, lead by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, were being oppressed by the larger majority Hindu population led by Indira Ghandi who was at point exchanging letters with Adolf Hitler and they were on friendly terms. (See link: http://comingworldwar3.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/1939582-ghandi-s-letter-to-hitler-11.jpg). If the Hindu government had not placed such taxing conditions on crop production and marginalized Sikh people and put into place political puppets to run them then maybe they would not want to separate from India. Spindlove did not once mention how the Indian government had set up agencies set out to kill, rape and burn alive Sikh’s in the street once Gandhi had died and her successor also of her family had approved of all this. I think if this happened in any European nation or South American Nation that Canada, “The world’s peacekeepers” would have been the first to intervene but since India is a big powerful country they were afraid to make enemies all while not doing the right thing. Spindlove only explains the after effects of a war that never needed to be fought but not the underlying mistreatment towards Sikh people by the Hindu government which led to this in the first place. It seems like Canada only wants to get involved when Canada knows that there will not be any backlash to face.

Gagan’s Intro

My name is Gagan Sran, I am currently in my fourth semester at Kwantlen and I am currently enrolled in the BA in Community Criminal Justice program. I am a part-time volunteer at the Pacific Institution and Regional Treatment Centre where I am the program head and coordinator of a recreational basketball program and I will soon be a part of the suicide awareness program as a facilitator later on this semester. I am currently involved in my practicum program at the Hobden Halfway House in Surrey BC. In my free time I enjoy weight lifting, watching and playing sports as well as socializing with my friends. Once I have completed my education I hope to be working for the Correctional Service of Canada as a security officer or as a program coordinator. My knowledge of terrorism is only of what I have seen on television or read in the newspapers but my opinion on terrorism is one where terrorism is defined by those in power and the struggle they face with others who oppose their power and pose a threat to the powerful and they in turn become labelled as terrorists. I believe the label is more harmful than the actual acts committed or the cause that a group may believe in because in today’s society there is no single word that scares a country more than the term terrorist and the negative connotation of the word marginalizes groups and turns the general populations view of them and their cause into something that they fear and do not want to succeed.

Societal Racism

In the United States, ever since the day’s of slavery there has been a racial tension amongst blacks and whites and now Hispanics as well. In the USA the white privilege feeling had been fading up until fairly recently where it seems like in the Southern United States the white on black violence seems to be ending in deaths that were preventable, as in the case of Trayvon Martin. Martin was an innocent African-American teenager who was shot by a white male who was a block security guard (unpaid) who thought Martin was brandishing a weapon when it was really a bag of candy and a can of pop. George Zimmerman, the shooter, is now in court on second-degree murder charges and has not yet put in a plea. If Zimmerman has any integrity what-so-ever he will put in a guilty plea and avoid the racial fury that will come from the African-American population. In this case it has a lot of similarities in terms of the anger the African-American population feels towards a white man as it did in the case of Rodney King. The riots, the racial tensions and pleads for “getting along” need to be avoided at all costs and the American justice system must quash this societal racism where the color of your skin dictates whether you are viewed as a criminal or not. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED to avoid chaos.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Trayvon+Martin+shooter+George+Zimmerman+appears+court+remains+jail+with/6448147/story.html 

Racism

In this story two white men shot at 5 black people killing three of them and wounding two. The area in which the shooters opened fire was a predominantly black area in Tulsa, USA. Racism has been a major issue in the United States ever since the days of slavery and is still present in the Southern United States where tensions seem to be boiling after the shooting of Trayvon Martin and now the killing of innocent African-Americans by Alvin Watts and Jake England. England’s father was slain by a black man and he wrote on his facebook wall that he was “gone in the head” and he clearly believed that he was not going to treat blacks with respect anymore and as an inferior race that he needed to exact revenge on. Gun violence, racial violence, and racial tensions in the United States between whites killing blacks seems to enforce the definition of racism as it seems like the whites hold a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices to justify the superior treatment of their own and inferior treatment of blacks.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/arrested+Oklahoma+shootings+that+killed+wounded/6427852/story.html

Mean-World Syndrome

Syria violence kills over 100 ahead of ceasefire deadlineRead more: http://www.theprovince.com/news/Syria+violence+kills+over+ahead+ceasefire+deadline/6425332/story.html#ixzz1rNjlPW6U

It almost seems as if every time the Middle-East makes the news in a western society the only thing that the headlines will tell you is a death toll. I understand that war and revolution and change is in the air and violence is present and people are dying but I feel as if I don’t know the issues, the successes and failures, or the general feeling amongst the people who are living there. In Kwantlen, I believe you would be hard pressed to find out who is winning the war in Syria, or Egypt or many of the other countries in that region because we are only shown the sensationalized headlines of death tolls and bombings. I have a personal connection to Syria because a good friend of mine has gone back to Syria to visit his newly wed bride and to make sure she is safe from any danger. I believe once he is back I will be much better informed about this situation than what the newspapers are feeding the Western society with statistics and numbers that are seemingly irrelevant if we do not know who is winning the war and who is fighting for which causes. The lack of knowledge by the West may be due to our desensitization to war issues in the region but I believe in part it is because the media is failing to educate us but rather show us violence and fighting and war to sell their papers.

Everyday Racism

In this case of everyday racism a high-profile African-American writer, producer and actor, Tyler Perry was racially profiled as a deviant in a case of everyday racism in Florida. Mr. Perry was following safety precautions set out by his security team in an event that someone may follow him and he admitted to taking an illegal turn which was caught by police. The police had “seemingly benign ideas about the relative superiority of their group both as white privileged males as well as recognizing his possible inferiority as being an African American male who had just done something he shouldn’t have. The position of power also related to their superior feeling above him and influenced their decision to question Mr. Perry in a tense manner and with a relatively disrespectful tone. The scene could have turned much worse until a black police officer came and recognized the situation. This is just one case where someone famous with the power the draw attention this issue is able to speak about it on a national level. The thousands of young black males who face this daily in the USA who have no voice in the mass media are living through everyday racism literally everyday. This case has drawn national attention after the murder of Trayvon Martin a young black male shot to death by a local block security official while holding a pop can and some candy that was mistaken for a gun.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Police+probe+Tyler+Perry+racial+profiling+charge/6425297/story.html

Genocide

In 1984 “The World’s Biggest Democracy” (self-proclaimed), India, launched a full scale genocide against the Sikh people. The Indian government set up agencies to perform ethnic cleansing of the Sikh people in both the capital city of New Delhi as well as attempting to enter into the state of Punjab and attack the holiest Sikh shrine the Harminder Sahib. The goal of Indira Ghandi at the time was to cleanse India of Sikhs and the state of Punjab to fall from being such a prosperous and strong state with rumblings of separatism into their own state called Khalistan, named after the Khalsa, which is a follower of the Sikh religion. The Hindu government supported full blown attacks on Sikh temples, their businesses, and their homes all while forcing a media blackout around the world and labelled Sikh’s as radicals and rebels. The genocide committed by Indira Ghandi only differs from that committed by Adolf Hitler in that the world did not hear the Sikh’s side of the story and for the most part the world went along with their business due to a media blackout and propaganda tactics employed by Indira Ghandi. “The World’s Biggest Democracy” is actually the world’s biggest hypocrisy because at least in the case of the German’s in charge they faced their punishment whereas in India the people in charge of committing massive war crimes are now sitting pretty in positions of power in the congress.

http://www.sikhgenocide.org/background.htm