Sikh separatism raising its head again, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Sikh separatism raising its head again

By Tom Deegan (with inputs from Sat-Bhambra)

Sep 2009, London

EARLY MORMONS on their trek from Illinois to Utah in 1846. Their descendants today have so much in common with American compatriots that the idea of any separation from the U.S. would be risible

Those familiar with the Mormon faith (a Christian sect) will recall that it began with the Prophet Joseph Smith's discovery of some divinely inscribed golden plates in America in 1827. Evidently, the sacred plates did not survive. However, according to Mormons, their sacred inscriptions were recorded and represent Mormon doctrine to this day. There are now some 10 million Mormons worldwide, most of them in the U.S. state of Utah. This poses the question: should the Mormons in Utah start a separatist movement to gain independence from the rest of the United States? This may seem laughable now but, in fact, history teaches that if there is just one common factor such as ethnicity, cultural, tribal or religious differences, which can be used to divide people from their neighbours and compatriots, then some people, sometime, somewhere, will seek to exploit the situation to undermine the natural unity of man in favour of division and separation. Their motives are either a genuine concern to put an end to a perceived persecution of their people, in which case they may be heroes; or else they are simply personally ambitious, in which case they are certainly demagogues. The critical factor in determining the nature of the separatist cause is the existence or absence of persecution. The early Mormons were persecuted by orthodox Christians.

http://newageislam.com/sikh-separatism-raising-its-head-again-/current-affairs/d/1738

The Priest, the President and the Persian Peugeot, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

The Priest, the President and the Persian Peugeot

By Saif Shahin

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

By Hooman Majd

Penguin, pp 272

3.5 stars

“If you want to know us, become a Shia first.” That is what Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, an ayatollah and a former president, told a foreign visitor to Tehran. But if the picture of Iran that emerges from ‘The Ayatollah Begs To Differ’ – journalist Hooman Majd’s travelogue-cum-reflections about his homeland – is to be believed, you could do a pretty good job of that by simply being an Indian.

Majd lives in New York, and he attempts to offer an affectionate glimpse of Iranian life to people who have for three decades viewed Iran as a mortal enemy. On every other page, he reminds his American readers just how vast is the cultural gulf between them and his compatriots, how difficult it is for them to sometimes even tolerate, let alone comprehend, Iranian social customs and practices. (Hence the need to be patient when dealing with Iranians – like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.)

But to an Indian reader, many of these civilisational concepts – the good, the bad and the ugly – will appear eerily familiar. Take, for instance, the laat. He is the Iranian neighbourhood tough, not quite the Sicilian mafioso shooting his way around Chicago streets, but very similar to the dada who commands respect at knifepoint in the bylanes of many an Indian town and city. The laat can also be easily recognised in the formulaic hooligan-with-a-soft-heart roles played by countless Bollywood actors ranging from Amitabh Bachchan to Sanjay Dutt in the 1970s and 80s.

http://newageislam.com/the-priest,-the-president-and-the-persian-peugeot/books-and-documents/d/1783