Thursday, April 28, 2016
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I've said this for a long time, written quite a few poem on the matter as well, struggled with this question of where I belong in terms on nations since I was a kid and only had a vague idea of what nation means. The only answer that ever came to me was nature. I've always known that. I belong in nature and that is it. It just took a long time to figure out how nations fit in nature or nature in nations. The thing is, it doesn't. It can't. It simply isn't possible and to try to fit them together would be an atrocity. Nations, well as far as that goes, I'm a Sikh. It inherently means, I'm a global citizen. The philosophies, the nation of Khalsa, was never, has never and simply cannot be tethered to a peace of land. Any land. True it started in what we now call Pakistan's Punjab, and true when Khalsa rule was established it was established in greater part of the northern sub-continent of India. But Gur Nanak raised Sikhi all over middle east and Asia and it simultaneously grew in all those places. What land a Sikh was born in, what land is a Sikh's ancestry from has never mattered. The heritage of a Sikh, any and every Sikh belongs with Sikh history and that has never been limited to a nation nor did it belong to any nation. Simply because most of us have forgotten that, make no difference. As a Sikh, I will live fighting for everyone's rights and die fighting for justice. Doesn't matter which so called race, nation, family, or even spices they come from. Borders, have no place in Sikhi. Biases have never been tolerated in Sikhi. Multi-culturalism might be a new thing for the world, but to a Sikh it's as old as Sikhi is. For all intensive purposes, p.c. or not, as a Sikh I am a global citizen and will always be. Disclaimer - if you can't read Gurmukhi, I apologize but some poems I simply refuse to provide a written translation of. There aren't enough words in English to provide the right connotations and some words don't even exist in the current English language. I'll be happy to explain the poem with a kind of a translation verbally to anyone, any day. Because those things that can't be translated have to be explained. And there are words in there people have written entire books upon. Hard to put those words into denotatively correct phrase when it loses all of it's feeling. P.S- I'm always happy to teach Gurmukhi if anyone ever wishes to learn the language itself. Rakind Kaur |
Because I will always belong to nature and never a nation.