It is happening again
May. 23rd, 2005 07:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittyI remember 1984. The news footage of the assault on the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. The Sikhs are a religious sect that follow certain yoga practices of prayer and meditation. Peace is one of their central tenets, but they are fierce fighters, and have been long been the preferred body guards of the Indian upper class. Think Kung Fu -- don't want to fight, but deadly. At the time, some Sikh extremists had been fighting for their own homeland because of a variety of issues, and skirmishes had been widespread throughout India. The government thought that insurgents were being sheltered in the temple. They crossed the line.
Indira Ghandi was killed by her own Sikh body guards. The bloodbath that followed was horrendous. It took many years and many innocent lives to quell the violence on both sides. I was into yoga at the time, trying to find my own peace. It shook me to the core.
This morning the news came over the radio. Two cinemas in New Delhi were bombed for showing a movie that some extremist Sikhs thought was inappropriate. 1 killed, over 50 injured.
What color is extremism? Red.
Indira Ghandi was killed by her own Sikh body guards. The bloodbath that followed was horrendous. It took many years and many innocent lives to quell the violence on both sides. I was into yoga at the time, trying to find my own peace. It shook me to the core.
This morning the news came over the radio. Two cinemas in New Delhi were bombed for showing a movie that some extremist Sikhs thought was inappropriate. 1 killed, over 50 injured.
What color is extremism? Red.
