Re: Trouble
drkhalsa, my experience is varied and deep. I've directly experienced a number of different sikh communities around the world. I've talked to people, all over, about their experience too and thus formed a fairly well-informed opinion of Sikh society. I'am aware of points you raise, and have long made such considerations to my judgement.
Further, I understand fairly well how certain sikhs behave in their direct communities. Those who originate from Panjab directly have certain prejudices and attributes which they bring with them to the communities they belong to. Then there are the second, third and even fourth generation sikhs who've lived only in the West, and they too share some similarities with the Panjabis. Infact this is hardly a deep observation: since most sikhs today tend to be of originally Panjabi origin, one can characterise sikhs in general fairly well. To the extend to which Sikhs fall away from these generalisations is also well understood. Depending on the exposture to western prejudices and ideals, parental upbringing, education and so on; these factors can be taken into consideration to approximate a given sikh's attributes fairly well.
You speak of the American Sikhs, the followers of 3H0 and Yogi Bhajan, and the like as true followers of Sikhism, because they do not have the prejudices of ordinary (panjabi) sikhs. This may be true, that they hold very closely to the (neo-sikh) ideals of utopian society. But these ideals are not Sikhi ideals: they are modern day liberalism ideals projected on Sikh philosophy, history, and society.
It may well be that these american sikhs are on the right path, and are admirable people to be regarded highly for their egalitarian society. They may be inspired by Sikhism to achieving this, but what they practise then, is not Sikhism, because it is distinct from conventional Sikhism, in that, it gives rise to vastly different societies. Then the approach, goals and successes of 3H0 society cannot be meaningfully compared to ordinary Sikh society, because the latter simply does not have those goals, and those approaches in sight. Thus too, will ordinary sikh society, probably, fail to achieve the same results as 3H0.
This is not a problem to me, for 3H0 members can probably meet their needs in running their society according to their ideals; and ordinary sikh societies can also do the same, but with different ideals, and there is no conflict, in so much as, they are different societies, with different needs, with different means, and different cultural backgrounds.
Culture can not be sensibly divorced from religion, for they are inextricably joined. It is not my opinion that ordinary Sikh society is in jeopardy: and that 3H0 society is close to perfect: I happen to disagree utterly with such a view. I hold that 3H0 ideals are wrong and misguided: and that ordinary sikh society is far from perfect: but that is quite alright, for it is mostly good enough. This is a seperate issue though, that we can discuss elsewhere.
I disagree most strongly with you, when you say that current Sikh society is so far from good Sikh society: for i do not believe this to be the case at all. It is true that current sikh society does not measure up to the ideals of 3H0 sikhs: but this is not a reasonable comparison to make, in order to judge current sikh society. Instead judge it against sikh societies in the past, sikh societies in recent history. The comparison will not always be favorable: but it wont be as bad as you seem to think. In any case, those past sikh societies never had anything remotely resembling 3H0 ideals, and so they too would fall short of the mark.
It doesnt seem worth mentioning, but it was ordinary sikh societies that survived history and achieved successes and failures: they did so with all their flaws and all their limitations which we judge so lowly today because they fail to meet liberal ideals. Let 3H0 survive for a few hundred years, let it suffer the hardships, and then we can start to compare it to ordinary sikh society. Until then, 3H0 is only a new shop, that opened yesterday: lets see how it copes with time. I do not wish to slight 3H0, but only point out the aburdity of claiming 3H0 is 'ideal sikh society', when it has only been around for a short time, and has not been subjected to the experiences of orthodox sikh society.
