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CKNW CONTROVERSY
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CKNW'S BRUCE ALLEN SHOULD HAVE APOLOGIZED MUCH EARLIER - BUT NOW THAT HE HAS, WE SHOULD FORGIVE AND MOVE ON |
By RATTAN MALL
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It's good that CKNW's Bruce Allen has clarified his remarks and finally apologized - and now it is time to move on.
For sure, he should have apologized much earlier instead of being downright arrogant - but he did finally swallow his false pride.
(However, some Indo-Canadians still feel that his apology was not `sincere` enough.)
Allen is not a racist - many Indo-Canadians who have known him and interacted with him have told me so over the past week.
But his comments such as "shut up and fit in" and "This is easy to solve. These are the rules. There is the door. If you don't like the rules, hit it. We don't need you here. You have another place to go. It's called home. See ya!" were totally racist and bigoted and readers of The VOICE know what all I have fearlessly written in the past decade against this kind of nonsense.
We all make mistakes - but then the decent thing to do is to apologize instead of being arrogant.
In any case, The Vancouver Sun (and to a lesser extent, the Province newspaper) have done far more damage to the Indo-Canadian community with their negative coverage over the years than Allen can ever do, as readers of The VOICE are well aware. Yet many cowardly Indo-Canadian leaders have never had the guts to start a campaign against these newspapers - they just crave to see their names appear in these newspapers; others are obviously scared of them for various reasons!
Unfortunately, the whole controversy gave white racists a good opportunity to spew out their venom in the mainstream media, especially the Vancouver Sun, and add to the confusion.
I don't need to repeat my arguments here about why white guys should be the last ones to tell anyone such crap after all the horrific damage they inflicted on Native Indians and their culture.
As I have said before to racists and the white-controlled mainstream media (for which they hate me!): "This is our land, too. Get used to us. We are here to prosper and rule with others, too. We will fight for our rights and we are not going anywhere."
(The VOICE is also carrying Allen's CKNW commentary this week so that readers can in all fairness get his side of the story also.)
I would like to say how happy I am that members of the community are now finally standing up for their rights - for the past decade The VOICE has been the only one consistently taking on the governments (civic, provincial and federal), the police forces and practically everyone else on a host of issues while fighting for the rights and dignity of the Indo-Canadian and other minority communities.
Until quite recently, political, religious and social leaders seemed scared to open their mouths. Now it's all changed and that is a very healthy sign - even if we have different opinions on how exactly to tackle this issue.
I especially congratulate Sukhpreet Singh (SEE PHOTO), Regional Coordinator, Canadian Organization of Sikh Students, who boldly took up the racist comments by Allen more than two weeks ago - while the rest of us were asleep on the switch.
I also commend MLA Harry Bains (who has also written a column on the topic for The VOICE this week) and MP Raymond Chan for being the first ones to speak out boldly against Allen's racist and bigoted comments.
Sukhpreet, who initiated the whole fight against the racist and bigoted comments, took the noble step of forgiveness this week after Allen finally apologized on CKNW on Wednesday. He explained why he decided to forgive.
This is his statement:
"We had the opportunity today to listen to Bruce Allen's Reality Check which was in response to his earlier comments made on September 13th. We are glad that Mr. Allen came on air in a sincere fashion to clarify his earlier comments. Mr. Allen spoke in favor of immigrants and we're happy to see that he has spoken in favor of what we have been lobbying for.
""Canada would not be the great country it is without immigration…" - Bruce Allen September 26 Reality Check
"The Canadian Organization of Sikh Students raised this issue on September 14th, the very next day after the original comments were aired. In that commentary, the issues raised by Mr. Allen were not presented in the manner in which they were presented today. Although the actions of others may have been politically motivated, ours were not.
We were motivated by the particular incorrect statements made by Mr. Allen such as calling religious headgear a "handkerchief", incorrectly referring to the Singh/Kaur issue as the Singh/Khan issue, and making remarks such as "shut up and fit in" and "we don't need you here". We felt these remarks were harsh, ignorant in nature, and were not warranted in today's society.
"Today, Mr. Allen apologized for mistakes that he made in his commentary and took steps to educate himself on issues such as the religious headgear and the turban wearing Mounties. We are hopeful that communities affected by this will find resolution in Mr. Allen's comments today and that such an issue does not arise in the future.
"It must be mentioned, that Canadian society is made up of a mosaic of different cultures which make Canada such a vibrant and diverse country. We hope that the dialogue encouraged by this issue will be helpful in promoting the positive multiculturalism of our country amongst Canadians. The Canadian Organization of Sikh Students will not be pursuing this matter any further except as to continue to promote tolerance and respect amongst all of the communities of Canada."
Meanwhile, Attorney General Wally Oppal told The VOICE on Wednesday that he did not tell a local newspaper that he was defending Allen.
Oppal said: "I did not defend Bruce Allen. What I said was that every reasonable person knows that we need more immigrants. Our businesses need more immigrants. Our society needs more immigrants. Our economy's going to come to a grinding halt if we didn't have more immigrants … Our country is built on immigration. And what I said was that Bruce Allen is not a racist. I know him. But at the same time there's no question that some of the words he used were insensitive - calling the patka a handkerchief … (it) was insensitive and wrong. So I think that that needed to be corrected."
Oppal also said that Allen's remark telling immigrants 'you have another place to go. It's called home. See ya!' shouldn't have been used.
He pointed out that Allen had on Wednesday clarified his remarks.
But Oppal added that what he didn't like was that Allen and his kids had received death threats. He called that inappropriate and illegal.
ALLEN MEETS GROUP
Allen contacted some Indo-Canadian friends and arranged to meet with some community leaders on Tuesday to try and understand facts about the Indian culture and met a large group of businessmen and Sikh and Muslim religious and community leaders that included Vancouver's Khalsa Diwan Society President Gurdip Gill.
He was asked tough questions about his commentary and the general consensus was that Allen was not a bigot but that it was a misunderstanding caused by his wording and tone. One of those present at the meeting told The VOICE: "Allen listened to everything we said. He had a positive dialogue about our community and offered his explanation for what he said. At no point did we beg him to apologize because he said from the get go 'I am here to clarify my comments. I am not against immigrants. My parents immigrated here.' In fact, the reason why this meeting went on for so long was that Allen kept asking questions about our history - the five K's and their meaning, the patka, Mahatma Gandhi and so on. He was very sincere.
The Indo-Canadians gave CKNW's Programming Director Tom Plasteras a tough time. Gurdeep Gill told him words to the effect: "You know the only time we hear about
Diwali or Vaisakhi is when CKNW does a traffic report about road closures. No one at CKNW ever discusses these big cultural events."
Realtor Jagmohan Singh then jumped in and said words to the effect: "Every other day you speak about Indo-Canadian gangs, then the next day it's Air India, then that's followed by violence against women, or Indo-Canadians involved in drugs. When is there ever good news about our community? All you do is focus on the 5% that is not good. What about the 95 per cent?"
They also discussed how in the 2010 bid there was no South Asian culture involvement (a shocking omission that only The VOICE highlighted while other so-called community leaders kept their mouths shut at the time!). Allen promised that he would work to include all community cultures of B.C. in 2010.
At the end of the meeting, Allen said words to the effect: "I thank you for taking time to meet with me to better educate me about the Sikh and Muslim communities. I have learned from everyone here today. Thank you and tonight I am going to go home and see how best I can make amends with your community, cause I am the son of immigrants and I am not anti-immigrant. I realize how I phrased my commentary did not come out the right way."
DISAGREEMENT WITHIN COMMUNITY
However, on Wednesday, a large gathering of Indo-Canadians decided to initiate their own action in the matter.
Here is their statement put out by Charan Gill, CEO of the PICS service organization:
"Over 300 community people gathered at the Grand Taj Banquet Hall on September 26 to discuss the issue of Bruce Allen's racist comments. The meeting chaired by Mr. Charan Gill, CEO of Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society (PICS) was represented by all Sikh Temples and supported by several Hindu and Muslim Associations.
"PICS is at the forefront of a movement to make sure that Mr. Allen is removed from his current position on the 2010 Olympic Ceremonies Committee, as the Society along with a majority of other community groups, feels that he would not be able to appropriately represent immigrants and various ethno cultural groups.
"Mr. Allen's humiliating and offensive remarks on a radio talk show have seriously hurt the pride of all minorities and immigrants as most of them have adopted Canada as their homeland and have proved to be good and law abiding citizens of the country. Although Mr. Allen apologized later, a majority of the people present at the meeting were unhappy with the apology because they felt it was not heartfelt. Except for two people in the crowd, the majority rejected Mr. Allen's apology and felt he should be removed from the 2010 Olympic Ceremonies Committee because of his biased views towards minorities in Canada. The forum was not used for criticizing other community members who may have different views.
"The main purpose of the meeting was to form an action committee which will work towards removal of Mr. Allen from his current position and lobby parliamentarians for the same. It was also decided that a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission should be filed at the earliest. Additionally, politicians who have presented a soft view on racism should be solicited and lobbied for their support to strengthen their positions. The group also urged that media personalities in the South Asian community, who have done a distinguished job, should be commended as they are active members of our community and cannot be isolated.
"Mr. Gill has been assigned to coordinate the efforts of the community to achieve these goals set by the group. The community chose the following members to continue to work on this issue: Charan Pal Gill, Kultar S. Thiara, Balvinder S. Chahal, Joginder S. Johal, Kulwant Kaur Deol, M. S. Bhullar, Pram S. Binning, Guljar S. Binning, Ajit S. Badh, Harvinder S. Sohi, Harvinder Singh, Harbhajan S. Gill, Gurmant Grewal, Harinder Cheema."
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