Did you dispute that they were the "Security" company at the Murrah Bldg.? Or is the connection just threatening your employment in your mind?
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
The Denver Post
November 18, 2001 Sunday
Pg. A-01
Ignorance fuels anger against Sikhs in U.S.
By Jim Hughes, Denver Post Staff Writer
ESPANOLA, N.M. - By 3:45 one recent morning, a dozen or so Sikhs who live here had arrived in the dark to worship at their golden-domed gurdwara, or temple, each clutching cushy carpets for the hour-long yoga session that follows the 4 o'clock prayer service.
They convened outside of town on the headquarters campus of Sikh Dharma, a small, distinct, Western branch of Sikhism, a religion rooted in India.
The bright-eyed morning people among them already wore clean white turbans. But neatly winding nearly 20 feet of cloth around one's head requires both time and concentration, so many wore hasty kerchief triangles. Some stopped by a small spotlit niche in the courtyard wall to touch the skinny, gilded statue of Baba Siri Chand, a 17th-century yoga master. 'A lot of people turn to him for miracles,' explained Hari Charn Kaur Khalsa, a Sikh woman of the kerchief-in-the-morning variety. 'A lot of times when people have challenges in their hearts, they'll turn to Baba Siri Chand to help them through.'
And since the Sept. 11 attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists in New York City and the Pentagon, Sikhs here and elsewhere have faced a significant challenge: Because of their beards, their turbans and, for many, their brown skin, Sikhs have become targets in the backlash that's followed.
'Because Osama bin Laden wears a white turban, the stupid man, many people, Indian Sikhs, have been really harassed - beaten up and stabbed and killed,' said Bibiju Inderjit Kaur Khalsa, wife of Yogi Bhajan Singh Khalsa, the Indian Sikh who founded Sikh Dharma here in 1970. 'It's a very sad situation, what happened in New York. We still cannot comprehend what happened. But no one should be beaten up.'
Sikh Dharma members run a website, Sikhnet.com, which has logged 250 reports of anti-Sikh harassment since Sept. 11. Postings have come from across the U.S., Canada and England.
Beatings, insults
Sikhs have reported being kicked out of restaurants, followed, shot at, pummeled and insulted. Windshields have been broken. Eggs have been thrown. In Calgary, Alberta, a Sikh man reported that two white men attacked him and shaved off his beard.
'Everywhere was blood. I think he thought I had died,' wrote another Sikh, a Seattle man who reported on Sikhnet that he was beaten with a cane by a man shouting, 'You still here? Go to Allah!'
Allah is the Arabic name for God. Sikhs aren't Muslims. Islam was founded in present-day Saudi Arabia about 1,400 years ago. Sikhism was founded in the present-day Indian state of Punjab about 500 years ago. Sikhs call God 'Naam.'
They also are distinct from Hindus, who make up the biggest religious group in India.
In fact, the Sikhs of Central Asia often have found themselves at odds with both Hindus and Muslims - Sikhism developed a strong warrior tradition after its early proponents challenged the rigid Hindu caste system; in later years, Sikhs resisted Muslim incursions into Punjab, said Anne Monius, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia.
Sikhs today, still a very small minority in India, constitute a majority in the Indian army, she said.
'All the great gurus have some kind of story surrounding them about fighting the Muslims,' Monius said.
Sikhs believe in one supreme god, like Christians, Muslims and Jews. They wear turbans to show respect to God and don't cut their hair or shave their beards, believing that they shouldn't alter God's creation. They abstain from tobacco, alcohol and meat. And they wear simple steel bracelets called karas signifying slavery to God.
Sikh men also usually carry a small knife called a kirpan to honor the Sikh warrior tradition. Many Sikhs have stopped carrying them in recent days, though, to accommodate heightened security concerns in public buildings.
While most of the Sikhs here are U.S.-born converts, they say they share Indian-born Sikhs' commitment to pious living.
Turbans draw attention
As people who once wore whatever most other Americans were wearing, they understand why Sikhs sometimes draw attention, said Guruka Singh Khalsa, who works as a computer consultant in Santa Fe. He came to Sikh Dharma by way of the hippie communes that sprang up around Taos in the '60s and '70s, he said.
'When you walk around dressed like this,' he said, billowing his robe with his hand, 'you have to be unoffendable.'
Converts receive new names in Gurmukhi, an old form of Punjabi. Some in Espanola carry names that translate into 'Brave In Spirit,' 'Intuitive Ease,' 'To Look After With Love' and 'Out Of The Oneness Comes The Vibration That Creates Reality.'
Sikh women all take the surname Kaur, which means princess in Gurmukhi. Sikh men all take the name Singh, which means lion. Those who have proved their dedication to Sikh ways are baptized and given a second surname of Khalsa.
Sikh Dharma officials estimate there are 23 million Sikhs around the world. There are about 300 Sikhs in Espanola and 1 million in North America, they said.
And if anyone remains suspicious of Sikhs, they might want to know how the federal government feels about them: Akal Security, a firm that is one of several Sikh-owned businesses run from the Sikh Dharma campus here, provides security for government installations around the country, including NASA and FAA facilities, military bases and more than 300 federal courthouses, including Denver's. Fighting bias with education
The Sikhs have taken their concerns about harassment to the federal government, which has been responsive, said Avtar Hari Singh Khalsa, a former Hollywood television executive who gave up that life to be a Sikh.
He now runs a Sikh Dharma nonprofit foundation.
'They want to understand, and we don't want them to waste their resources,' he said. 'Every minute they spend dealing with people who have nothing to do with anything is a minute they lose in dealing with the criminals.'
And though the mostly Caucasian converts to Sikhism who worship at the Sikh Dharma temple here are somewhat protected by their standing in the local community and by the fact that most of them are native-born U.S. citizens, they're engaged in a public relations campaign they hope will help distinguish Sikhs from Muslims.
Sikhnet has become a big part of that effort, said Guruka, who helped found the website.
He hopes not only that Sikhs will be left alone, but that Sikhism's new visibility might help more people understand their religion.
'It's about recognizing the divinity in every person,' he said. 'One of the problems we have as a culture is we take each other too casually. It's events like 9-11 that make people stop and think about what's important. What I try to do as a Sikh is do that every day.'
Still, Sikhs worry about how they'll be treated in the future, as evidenced by one Indian-born Sikh who owns a restaurant in Santa Fe.
The man, who sometimes comes up to worship in Espanola, has a nervous mother back in India. Shortly after Sept. 11, she sent him a special turban to protect him here in America.
It's red, white and blue.
'He looks so beautiful in that turban,' Bibiju Inderjit said. 'It's so cute.'