Thursday, 5 June 2008

Indepth look at the Hyde Park Rally


This is no way a dig at the hard work put in by the organizers. I mean there are always one or two solid speeches at the event every year. But that is not good enough; we have to make it much better!

Current atmosphere:

  • A lot of Sikh groups go there and walk like they the top dons, they give it large and shout out Khalistan and then go home and back on their ps3
  • A lot of youth just see it as a day to meet up and have a conversation (hook up place)
  • The elders just want their name to be said on stage and get happy then go home and eat somosa with hot cup of tea.
  • It seems more like a carnival of ego without the music.
  • Puppets are hanged, hahaha tremendous seva for the panth NOT!
  • A “warrior” risks their freedom and burns a flag (not worth it)


Improvements suggested:

We are meant to be victims of the brutal genocide that was committed against us. We are there to mourn our dead and remind our selves we are slaves. So a better way of doing this would be:

  • All should wear black clothes, imagine if thousands of people were dressed the same and held candles in their hands. The Media would be there straight away. On-lookers would pay more positive attention and understand this is some sort of mourning.
  • Have a few funeral cars leading march with caskets saying "20;000 Sikhs murdered in 1984" etc
  • Having better banners which address the reason we are there.
  • Have English speakers addressing public on loud speakers throughout the whole march. No point shouting out Sikhi slogans as on-lookers don’t understand them. We are there to create awareness.
  • Invite the Jews or Tibetans, and have them march with us against genocide. That creates more attention and helps spread the message.

The march is always advertised in a crap manner, with so much media in this day and age. Very little people ever know the right date of the rally!

We need to organize and evaluate the rally, if not it will become a dying trend as a lot of people are getting fed up with the atmosphere and choose not to attend.