Standing up for human rights does not make one a terrorist
I just stumbled onto a post over at Stephen Taylor's blog, via the Western Standard, and what I read was disturbing.
The title of the post was "Senior Liberal staffer spoke at rally organized by a terrorist group?"
The quick answer to his post title is "No.", but unfortunately, the rest of Stephen's post wasn't as carefully worded.
Last weekend, Cunningham attended a rally attended by former members of the International Sikh Youth Federation (current membership is illegal).
I attended the last thirty minutes of the rally, and it was NOT organized by the ISYF. It was organized by a small number of relatively independent Sikh youths.
Now, for those of you who remember watching last year's election coverage, Bill Cunningham, the Liberal aide who attended the rally isn't exactly very quick on his feet, so when he was questioned about his attendance, he gave a really weak reply:
"It's one thing I do is to make sure groups that have concerns feel that someone is at least willing to hear them. That doesn't mean I support them or agree with them."
Why wouldn't he support and agree with them? Well, maybe he was put under the false impression that the event was organized by the ISYF, and if that's the case, then I'm basically in the same camp - not agreeing with the ISYF all that much either.
Anyone who attended the rally knows that the sole focus was on human rights abuses, not just in Punjab, but throughout India, and not only against Sikhs, but also against Christians, Muslims and low-caste Hindus.
The focus of the protest was to promote awareness and to encourage the Vancouver Sikh community to pressure their elected officials to exert some influence on India, the nation that calls itself the world's largest democracy.
Never in my entire life of attending Sikh rallies have I ONCE witnessed anyone make a call to violence, and never in my entire life have I seen anything but peaceful and reasonable protests at these rallies.
India is capable of being reformed. It currently has a Sikh Prime Minister, a Sikh chief general, a Muslim President (ceremonial position), the Chief Minister of Punjab is naturally a Sikh as well. So in terms of the politics, the rally was not pointing any fingers towards political leaders, but it WAS pointing to systematic failures in the Indian system to ensure adequate and basic human rights.
And that is why I am SO disappointed and betrayed when I heard today that the Conservative Party was making an issue of Bill Cunningham attending the protest.
At the end of Stephen's post, he says:
At best this represents horribly poor judgment of a senior Liberal official. At worst this represents wanton and widespread ignorance to terrorism by the upper echelon of the Liberal Party.
Wrong again. At best, this represents a genuine effort among the Liberal Party to address the issue of human rights in developing nations, and at worst (likely scenario) this represents attendance for purely political reasons - i.e. wanting to appeal to the couple of hundred people in attendance.
For those of you who haven't noticed, I removed my membership in the "Blogging Tories" blogroll incase a scenario like this came up. I'm not a partisan, and I never really was. At this point, I'd still vote for the Conservatives, but if I EVER see the Conservative Party release a press release which implies that innocent and hard working Sikhs who are campaigning for human rights are "terrorists" - not only will I vote for the Green party (socialist, yes, but there's not many alternatives out there), I will work to ensure that dozens of others do so as well.
Update: I shouldn't have been so harsh on Bill Cunningham, here's something he also had to say:
I don't know if it was one or two people or if it's many, but I don't think the actions or past of a few should be reflective of the altruistic goal of the larger group.
That might not be popular to say, but he's exactly right. He was there, he saw what the protest was about, and thus he was unable to totally distance himself from what was said.
The title of the post was "Senior Liberal staffer spoke at rally organized by a terrorist group?"
The quick answer to his post title is "No.", but unfortunately, the rest of Stephen's post wasn't as carefully worded.
Last weekend, Cunningham attended a rally attended by former members of the International Sikh Youth Federation (current membership is illegal).
I attended the last thirty minutes of the rally, and it was NOT organized by the ISYF. It was organized by a small number of relatively independent Sikh youths.
Now, for those of you who remember watching last year's election coverage, Bill Cunningham, the Liberal aide who attended the rally isn't exactly very quick on his feet, so when he was questioned about his attendance, he gave a really weak reply:
"It's one thing I do is to make sure groups that have concerns feel that someone is at least willing to hear them. That doesn't mean I support them or agree with them."
Why wouldn't he support and agree with them? Well, maybe he was put under the false impression that the event was organized by the ISYF, and if that's the case, then I'm basically in the same camp - not agreeing with the ISYF all that much either.
Anyone who attended the rally knows that the sole focus was on human rights abuses, not just in Punjab, but throughout India, and not only against Sikhs, but also against Christians, Muslims and low-caste Hindus.
The focus of the protest was to promote awareness and to encourage the Vancouver Sikh community to pressure their elected officials to exert some influence on India, the nation that calls itself the world's largest democracy.
Never in my entire life of attending Sikh rallies have I ONCE witnessed anyone make a call to violence, and never in my entire life have I seen anything but peaceful and reasonable protests at these rallies.
India is capable of being reformed. It currently has a Sikh Prime Minister, a Sikh chief general, a Muslim President (ceremonial position), the Chief Minister of Punjab is naturally a Sikh as well. So in terms of the politics, the rally was not pointing any fingers towards political leaders, but it WAS pointing to systematic failures in the Indian system to ensure adequate and basic human rights.
And that is why I am SO disappointed and betrayed when I heard today that the Conservative Party was making an issue of Bill Cunningham attending the protest.
At the end of Stephen's post, he says:
At best this represents horribly poor judgment of a senior Liberal official. At worst this represents wanton and widespread ignorance to terrorism by the upper echelon of the Liberal Party.
Wrong again. At best, this represents a genuine effort among the Liberal Party to address the issue of human rights in developing nations, and at worst (likely scenario) this represents attendance for purely political reasons - i.e. wanting to appeal to the couple of hundred people in attendance.
For those of you who haven't noticed, I removed my membership in the "Blogging Tories" blogroll incase a scenario like this came up. I'm not a partisan, and I never really was. At this point, I'd still vote for the Conservatives, but if I EVER see the Conservative Party release a press release which implies that innocent and hard working Sikhs who are campaigning for human rights are "terrorists" - not only will I vote for the Green party (socialist, yes, but there's not many alternatives out there), I will work to ensure that dozens of others do so as well.
Update: I shouldn't have been so harsh on Bill Cunningham, here's something he also had to say:
I don't know if it was one or two people or if it's many, but I don't think the actions or past of a few should be reflective of the altruistic goal of the larger group.
That might not be popular to say, but he's exactly right. He was there, he saw what the protest was about, and thus he was unable to totally distance himself from what was said.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
4:11 PM
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