SALDEF California Museum Removes Anti-Sikh Exhibit

[Admin]

April 23, 2009 (Washington, DC) – The Sikh American community has successfully urged the California Science Center to remove an anti-Sikh exhibit. Last week, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) issued an action alert about the Target America museum exhibit at the California Science Center, which distorted Sikh history and unfairly associated the Sikh religion with terrorism and the narcotics trade. Regrettably, the exhibit was sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration—a federal agency.

Thanks to your letters and phone calls, the California Science Center has graciously deactivated the exhibit segment relating to Sikhs, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is “assessing the content of the information displayed in the kiosk.”

Please help SALDEF ensure that exhibit revisions are fair and factually accurate:

(1) Contact the Drug Enforcement Administration directly by phone at 202-307-3463
(2) Express gratitude for their sensitivity to this issue; be polite and respectful

(3) Encourage them to work with SALDEF on a proactive basis to ensure fairness and accuracy
"We are encouraged by the speed and efficiency with which the Sikh American community responded to this matter," said Kavneet Singh, SALDEF's Managing Director. "Misrepresentations of the Sikh religion reinforce bias and ignorance of the sort that triggers hate crimes, discrimination, and school bullying against Sikh Americans. We commend the California Science Center for addressing our concerns with sensitivity and professionalism, and we hope that the Drug Enforcement Administration will follow suit."

SALDEF would like to thank Avneet Singh Chattha and Jagjit Singh of Southern California for proactively bringing this matter to our attention. If you see a similarly inaccurate or objectionable representation of Sikhs, or if you have been the target of bias, workplace discrimination, harassment, or a hate crime, please contact SALDEF immediately via email or by phone at (202) 393-2700.

 

[spnadmin]

This is good news but at the same time it is alarming news. Alarming because it should not have been in the first place. But also it confirms a theory I have had for a long time. Tape backward to 1984 and before that Throughout the time from Independence to 1984 the US media, US intellectual establishment, educational institutions, and manifest US government foreign policy was uncritically pro-Gandhi, pro-Nehru and pro-Indira. The average citizen, even one who was moderately well-educated, truly believed that there was no other perspective. How would they know? Then news filtered out slowly about Operation Bluestar -- and believe me there was a virtual news stoppage on this issue here in the states. So of course to say that Indira and her henchmen were dealing with terrorists (unqualified description) would not be questioned because there was almost nothing in the way of contradictory information. NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING

I think the only thing that made me question back in those days was the fact that there was an armed invasion of a holy place. I didn't know much about Sikhs at all then. Maybe 3 sentences worth and that is it. But it struck me as very strange. What was Indira Gandhi doing sending tanks into a place of worship. To go after 2 dozen people? Remember, I am old enough to remember the Gandhi, Nehru and Indira governments.

US foreign policy began to turn away from Indira when Indian foreign policy began its heavy flirtation with Marxist and Communist influences, Russian influences, which were essentially anti-Chinese policy sentiments. That rattled US government officials and foreign policy think tanks. Their dance was more about trade, economic theory and nuclear power and weapons than about religion and culture. Still hardly anyone in the US who was not a Sikh would know anything about the number of times Sikhs had been double-crossed by the British and later by the Indian government, or broken promises, or manipulations of the electoral process.

We are speaking of a period of 50 years - and so there are 3 generations of US citizens (again I repeat even educated people) who haven't a clue about the complexities and the realities of what actually happened during that era, leading up to Bluestar, and then after Bluestar. Therefore, an unquestioning and uninformed museum exhibit such as described can happen, and happen again, elsewhere. The museum believed what the government told them, and a whole lot of people believe what a museum will tell them. They are the experts, right? Then why not believe them?

It is very important to support organizations like SALDEF. Very important. It is important to Sikhs in the US, throughout the diaspora, in India. And it is important for all citizens to have balanced and truthful information that has not been distorted by government agencies. These agencies are themselves probably more uninformed than we imagine because they are staffed by people who are also the children of the uninformed generations and the products of an uninformed media and educational system that I have just described.

So -- this even is a learning experience for everyone including the US Enforcement Administration. And there is more to learn at every level of society and government.

 

[Gyani Jarnail Singh]

and a side point..i am not too enthusiastic about the US Education system....it produces "closed minds"...
i am shocked by such closed minds that predominate in the Rural USA..even Modern SCIENCE is feeling the backlash..Biology and all is being relegated to back burner while "Christian Science" based on the Bible is being taught....many schools and biology books have an injunctiona agisnt the theory of evolution..age of the earth..geology etc.. On a recent Series..Breaking the Science Barrier..i saw a US State Governor pretendign to walk hunched in front of an audience where he stood upright at the end and said..DO YOU THINK I WILL BUY THAT I CAME FROM A MONKEY ? and laughed...well THATS EXACTLY what these Evolutionist scientists want me to THINK..IF i want to know where i cmae from..I READ GENESIS..it tells the TRUTH fo where i came from..blah blah...

SO YES there are lots of such people taking over...in schools, govt offices, state govts, political office...and SIKHS will ahve a tough chance of educating such types...every level of society...

I wish SALDEF all the best...you have your work cut out for you...:happy:

 

[spnadmin]

Gyani ji

It is pathetic and who knows where it will end up.

 

[anders]

US intellectual

You're kidding, right?

 

[Tejwant Singh]

and a side point..i am not too enthusiastic about the US Education system....it produces "closed minds"...
i am shocked by such closed minds that predominate in the Rural USA..even Modern SCIENCE is feeling the backlash..Biology and all is being relegated to back burner while "Christian Science" based on the Bible is being taught....many schools and biology books have an injunctiona agisnt the theory of evolution..age of the earth..geology etc.. On a recent Series..Breaking the Science Barrier..i saw a US State Governor pretendign to walk hunched in front of an audience where he stood upright at the end and said..DO YOU THINK I WILL BUY THAT I CAME FROM A MONKEY ? and laughed...well THATS EXACTLY what these Evolutionist scientists want me to THINK..IF i want to know where i cmae from..I READ GENESIS..it tells the TRUTH fo where i came from..blah blah...

SO YES there are lots of such people taking over...in schools, govt offices, state govts, political office...and SIKHS will ahve a tough chance of educating such types...every level of society...

I wish SALDEF all the best...you have your work cut out for you...:happy:

Gyani ji,

Guru Fateh.

USA, the most powerful and the richest country in the world is also closed minded as you have aptly mentioned in your post.

That is the reason we have THE CREATION MUSEUM here which is based on the biblical myths and defies evolution and many Christians visit that museum so they can hang on to their beliefs. "Hell" with the Science. No pun intended.

As Don King, the famous boxing promoter would say," Only in America".

Tejwant Singh

 

[spnadmin]

You're kidding, right?

anders ji



There are a lot of people over here who think they are intellectuals. More than 25 years ago in graduate school one of my statistics professors said that he never met an intellectual -- but then he also admitted that he was not an expert. :}{}{}: Great guy. I never forgot him.

 

[singhaj]

Does anyone know and provide me with info what was in the museum ? I mean how was it anti sikh, can some one give me more info ?

what was DEA doing in a museum ?

 

[spnadmin]

singhbj ji

The museum exhibits were based on information from the DEA -- not that the DEA was physically in the museum - but their information was regarded as authoritative and then was used as "educational" material, and they sponsored the exhibit. The first article in the thread shows you an example of the offensive material in the pic upload over to the right hand side of the web page.

Specifically the exhibit was entitled Target America and it was sponsored by the DEA. So that means a government agency was promoting a distorted understanding of Sikhs and Sikhism in the US. From the SALDEF web site

(2) The Target America exhibit is being sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Museum & Visitors Center. You can reach them by phone at (202) 307-3463. Please urge them to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on slanderous and inflammatory museum exhibits.

If you write to SALDEV you can get more information -- or visit their web site.