Jalianwala Bagh Massacre

 102 years ago today, General Dyer of the British Government opened fire on peaceful protestors in Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar, India.

381 Indians lost their lives.  Many women jumped into wells. 376 were identified, of whom 220 were Hindus, 90 Sikhs, and 66 Muslims. 

It is one of the few massacres along with the Holocaust that has affected me deeply.  When I watched the movie Gandhi, it further affected me, and I cried.  

Queen Elizabeth and PM Theresa May have apologized and regretted the Massacre on behalf of the British people in 2019. Thanks to them for bringing closure to the 100 years old wound. 

None of us are responsible for the massacres in the past, and none of us should be held accountable for the acts that we did not commit. 

I urge the current Governments around the world to apologize and regret the Genocides and massacres of their people in our lifetime. Germany has apologized for the Holocaust. Many more nations should clean their records. If we cannot do that, what kind of humans are we? The list is very long, but it will bring closure. 

In our annual event called Holocaust and Genocides, we started addressing the many Genocides, Massacres, ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities on fellow humans by their fellow humans. Thus far, we have covered 33 such events and hope to cover all of them in the next few years. 

If we cannot feel the pain of fellow humans, then we are short-changed in our spirituality; there is something less about us, and we need to work on it to be a whole human being. 

I invite you to attend our 17th Annual event on Sunday, January 23, 2022. You will walk out with less burden of hatred towards others but with a commitment to say never again.

Dr. Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker, author, community consultant, pluralist, activist, newsmaker, and an interfaith wedding officiant. Mike is deeply committed to Free speech, Human Rights, and Pluralism in Religion, Politics, Societies, and the workplace. He is the founder and president of the Center for Pluralism and a writer at the World Muslim Congress, a Think Tank. He is the author of the book American Muslim Agenda, building a cohesive America. He has dedicated his life to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions to the media and the policymakers on issues of the day. Everything about him is at www.TheGhousediary.com

India - Genocide in Making

Preparation for genocide underway in India: Dr. Gregory Stanton

An internationally acclaimed expert raises concerns about the possible mass extermination of Muslims while briefing US Congress on the situation in Kashmir and Assam.

Courtesay Sabrangindia14 Dec 2019

Dr. Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, addressed an audience of Congressional and Government officials at a briefing titled Ground Reports on Kashmir and NRC in Washington D.C on December 12 where he said, “Preparation for a genocide is definitely under way in India.” He said that persecution of Muslims in Assam and Kashmir “is the stage just before genocide,” adding, “The next stage is extermination — that’s what we call a genocide.”

Dr. Stanton created the world-famous “Ten Stages of Genocide” as a presentation to the U.S. Department of State when he worked there in 1996. According to Dr. Stanton, the ten stages of genocide are as follows:

• The first stage was “classification” of “us versus them”.
• The second stage, “symbolization”, named the victims as “foreigner”.
• The third stage, “discrimination”, “classified [the victims] out of the group accepted for citizenship” so that they had no “human rights or civil rights of citizens” and were “discriminated against legally”.
• The fourth stage, dehumanization, “is when the genocidal spiral begins to go downwards. You classify the others as somehow worse than you. You give them names like ‘terrorists’, or even names of animals, start referring to them as a cancer in the body politic, you talk about them as a disease that must be somehow dealt with.”
• The fifth stage was creating an “organization” to commit the genocide: the role played by the “Indian army in Kashmir and the census takers in Assam”.
• The sixth stage was “polarization”, which is achieved by propaganda.
• The seventh stage was “preparation”
•  The eighth “persecution”, where Assam and Kashmir currently were.
• The ninth stage is “extermination” and;
• The tenth stage is “denial”.

Dr. Stanton also drafted UN Security Council resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, two places where genocides had occurred. A former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, his research on genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and of the Rohingyas, is recognized worldwide.

CJP secretary and Human Rights Defender Teesta Setalvad also addressed the audience via video conferencing and said that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam was “being used to subvert human rights in Assam. There are laid down guidelines and standard operating procedures to carry out this exercise but none of it is being followed. We have to ask if this exercise is being carried out within the ambit of the constitution.”

Setalvad also criticised the Citizenship Amendment Act saying it would “bring untold suffering to people across the country. It will damage, fundamentally and irreparably, the nature of the Indian republic. This is why they, and all citizens of conscience, demand that the government not betray the constitution.”

Also participating in the Briefing via video link, Dr. Angana Chatterji, a scholar with UC Berkeley, slammed the crackdown in Kashmir since the Indian government revoked the Constitutionally mandated special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5. She shared that reports have documented the “inhumane treatment and torture of children, the elderly, and women; illegal detentions, including mass detentions; the denial of the basic needs of life, the curtailment of freedom of speech and movement, the falsification of social facts and their amplification by the state, and the closure of sacred places,” she said. “Cries of pain” of a torture victim were broadcast via a mosque’s speaker system. “State forces have raided homes, destroyed property and mixed food with kerosene,” said Dr. Chatterji.

Raqib Hameed Naik, a journalist from Jammu and Kashmir said the ongoing lock-down in Kashmir was “one of the worst sieges in the last decade… Officially there are no restrictions, but unofficially the government has imposed an undeclared emergency.” Naik also disputed the Indian government’s claim that Indian troops had not killed any Kashmiris since August 5 when the state’s special status was withdrawn.

“Let me put it on record that, so far, we have been able to document five killings by security forces. The number could be higher, but due to communication blockade and severe restrictions on the movement of the press, we have not been able to get exact figures from the different parts of the valley.” Naik said he had met with “many minors” who were imprisoned “without charges”. 

The Congressional briefing was organized by three U.S.-based civil society organizations, namely, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Emgage Action, and Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR).

 

Holocaust denial is a serious moral affront

Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq

Economist; Islamic finance expert; Educational management and consultancy

This post is particularly meant for my fellow Muslims. Others can deal with their perspective and conscience.

20th century became known, among other things, as the Century of Genocides. The number of casualty is placed around 187 million people globally, and no continent spared. As part of the humanity, we all should learn more about it, especially to prevent any such future genocides or its lesser version, ethnic cleansing. An excellent work is Samuel Totten, et al. Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, 2004.

I am not aware of any genocide that has not been denied by some others. I have seen a genocide myself in 1971 in former East Pakistan, which is denied by some. Like any other genocide, denying the Holocaust or Nazi genocide of the Jews in particular is denying part of our humanity. One can talk about exaggeration, one can talk about specific numbers, one can talk about all the details, but Holocaust as a genocide particularly directed at the Jews is as true as the WWII. Shall we deny and claim that WWII also did not happen and it was just an invented historical narrative? As Muslims themselves are positioned now to be at the receiving end of the White supremacist, right-wing Islamophobia, let's not fall into the trap of the White supremacists, the perpetrators of the Holocaust and then the leading deniers of the same.

There are plenty of material used and presented by Holocaust deniers, but please do study and find if there has been any genocide that was not denied or questioned by some. People often confuse about the details with the event itself. Our conscience should prevent us from such blanket denial. Has Holocaust been used as a tool by some? Yes. Has it been used to cause persecution of others, especially by or on behalf of many victims of the Holocaust? Yes. But that should not cause us to deny the Holocaust itself.

Those who want to use Holocaust as a propaganda tool for the State of Israel also want to curtail the freedom of expression to challenge the Holocaust narrative. They want Holocaust denial to be illegal and a prosecutable offense. Criminalizing Holocaust denial is inappropriate and counter-productive, reinforcing the conspiracy theories further. Factually, such denial does not hold. Making such denial illegal only weakens the Holocaust narrative.

But more importantly, for the humanity Holocaust denial is a serious moral affront to all of us as part of the humanity and for Muslims it is inconsistent with the Islamic imperative too as affirmed in the Qur'an below. Let others deal with their prejudices, we are accountable before God for ours.

As Muslims, let's remind ourselves. "O ye who believe! stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and LET NOT THE HATRED OF OTHERS TO YOU MAKE SWERVE TO WRONG AND DEPART FROM JUSTICE. BE JUST: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that ye do." [The Qur'an 5/Al-Ma'ida/8]

Jews protected in Paris, France by Muslims

Muslims who protected Jews in Paris

U.S. Holocaust museum says this Muslim minority could face genocide

Rohingya Genocides | Buddhist Hate | www.HolocaustandGenocides.com 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/07/u-s-holocaust-museum-says-this-muslim-minority-could-face-genocide/  By Ishaan Tharoor May 7 at 5:00 AM 


Women and children wait in line for medical care at the makeshift Aung Clinic, which serves many Rohingya, with a few dedicated staffers providing free care. (Paula Bronstein for The Washington Post)

Women and children wait in line for medical care at the makeshift Aung Clinic, which serves many Rohingya, with a few dedicated staffers providing free care. (Paula Bronstein for The Washington Post)
The official American institution memorializing the Holocaust sounded the alarm this week on the threat of a genocide facing the beleaguered Rohingya of Burma, one of the world's most neglected communities. A report published by the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, a wing of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, charted the persecution, violence and systematic discrimination endured by this Muslim minority, and warned that it was a "population at grave risk for additional mass atrocities and even genocide."

The plight of the 1.3 million Rohingya is well documented, if not particularly well known. The majority live in Burma's Rakhine state, on the western border with Bangladesh and India. Even though many Rohingya can trace their roots in Burma, also known as Myanmar, through a number of generations, they are not recognized as citizens of the Burmese state, which has insisted on classing them as "Bengali" — a designation that suggests that they may be interlopers from across the border. They, therefore, struggle for access to basic state services in what is already an underdeveloped, fractious, multi-ethnic nation.

The partial democratization that has taken place in Burma, once dominated by a military junta, has not helped the Rohingya. In recent years, the climate of hostility has, as the report puts it, led to the Rohingya being "subject to dehumanization through rampant hate speech, the denial of citizenship, and restrictions on freedom of movement, in addition to a host of other human rights violations." 

Ethnic violence in 2012 led to tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to miserable, squalid camps; countless others have chosen to leave the country altogether, sometimes at hideous cost. The waters of the Andaman Sea and the jungles of Thailand still hold the unclaimed corpses of many Rohingya, whose vulnerable position on the margins of the Burmese state have made them prey to human traffickers.

The Simon-Skjodt Center's report was partly based on a fact-finding mission to Rakhine state in March, in which the researchers found what they deemed were "early warning signs of genocide." Earlier research and advocacy conducted by the Holocaust Memorial Museum has included studies on the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, as well as the Central African Republic.

"We’re very cautious when we invoke the term 'genocide,' knowing that it can be quite polarizing and sometimes even unhelpful," says Cameron Hudson, the center's director. "But there is a combination of factors — many of which you saw in 1930s Germany and 1990s Rwanda — that are quite concerning."

To be sure, slaughter and upheaval of the magnitude referenced by Hudson are so far not in the cards in Burma, but it is his institution's mandate to spot the roots of potential mass violence.
"What we're talking about here is the targeting of a specific group, based on their religious and national identity," he says. For the Rohingya, their continued denial of citizenship rights — a U.N. General Assembly resolution passed in December that demanded that Burma recognize the Rohingya was dismissed with derision by the Burmese government — has been reinforced by a growing Buddhist nationalism among some Burmese.

The report found the Rohingya to be the subject of "rampant hate speech" in Burma. It also documented widespread impunity for those carrying out violence against the minority, as well as worrying trends of local and national discrimination against the Rohingya, including restrictions on their movement and probably their ability to vote in elections expected later this year.

No wonder the United Nations recently described the Rohingya "as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world."

Questions that Hudson and his colleagues asked of local government authorities about the group's treatment were met with responses that "were not at all satisfactory," he says.

What has disappointed many outside observers, including Hudson and his team, has been the relative indifference of Burma's pro-democracy camp to the plight of the Rohingya. This includes Nobel laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who's now a prominent opposition politician.

"One of the things that concerned us the most was that this pro-democracy segment has been largely silent on the issue," Hudson says. The Rohingya's desperate lack of wider support within the country leaves them particularly exposed in the febrile, fractious Burmese political scene.
"This [upcoming] election could be the flash point that sets off an episode of mass killing," Hudson warns.

Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.

# # #  

Why do these Buddhists hate these Muslims so much?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/13/why-does-this-buddhist-majority-nation-hate-these-muslims-so-much/

In 2009, Burma's then-consul general in Hong Kong sent a letter to local newspapers and fellow diplomats posted in the Chinese territory. It was addressing concerns over the treatment of refugees from Burma's Rohingya population, a Bengali-speaking Muslim minority long marginalized in the country. Incidents of shipwrecked boats bearing half-starved, desperate Rohingya from Burma had won wider attention in the region.

By Ishaan Tharoor February 13  

Burmese Buddhist monks shout slogans as they march to protest against a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly calling on Burma to grant citizenship to Rohingya, Friday, Jan.16, 2015, in Rangoon, Burma. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)

Ye Myint Aung, the Burmese envoy in Hong Kong, hoped to dissuade others from feeling sympathy for the Rohingya. His method for doing this was by revealing his shocking racism. The Rohingya, he said, "are as ugly as ogres" and do not share the "fair and soft" skin of other Burmese ethnic groups.

Therefore, the Burmese consul general concluded, "Rohingya are neither Myanmar people nor Myanmar’s ethnic group," using the other name for Burma while trotting out his government's long-standing contention that the Rohingya are interlopers in Burma and don't deserve citizenship rights.

Burma to revoke minority ID cards(1:15)
The government in Burma, also known as Myanmar, is set to revoke temporary identification cards for minorities including its 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims. (Reuters)
More than half a decade has passed since then, and the situation in Burma has changed for the better. The country has opened up. The secretive, dictatorial military junta that once held sway has allowed the advent of a fledgling, albeit heavily curtailed democracy. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from decades of house arrest and is now a main leader of the opposition.

But the miserable condition of the Rohingya, a forgotten, stateless people, persists. The United Nations deems them "one of the most persecuted minorities in the world." There are some 1.3 million Rohingya, the majority of whom live in Burma's Rakhine state, on the western border with Bangladesh and India, and struggle to access basic state services. As WorldViews reported last year, around 140,000 Rohinigya eke out a squalid existence in ramshackle camps, displaced by ethnic and sectarian strife in 2013 and neglected by the Burmese government.

Recent U.N. calls on the Burmese government to grant the Rohingya full citizenship rights, including a General Assembly resolution passed in December, have been received with hostility. Angry anti-Rohingya marches this week persuaded the government to scrap tentative plans to give Rohingya carrying temporary documents the right to vote in an upcoming referendum.


Much of the ire is fanned by a hard-core of nationalist Buddhist monks. Certain groups play an outsize role in fanning sentiment against the Rohingya, whom they like to characterize as "Bengali" illegal immigrants rather than a distinct Burmese ethnic group. (Never mind that many generations of Rohingya have lived on Burmese soil.)

Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk notorious for his xenophobic rhetoric, even earned a spot on the cover of TIME magazine's international edition, with the cover line: "The Face of Buddhist Terror." The saffron-clad Ashin Wirathu dubs himself the "Burmese bin Laden," and indulges in frenzied, un-monk-like speeches calling for tough action against Muslims. He raises the fear of forced conversions and terrorism. Last year, he addressed a gathering of nationalist monks in Sri Lanka, another nation with a Buddhist majority, warning of "a jihad against Buddhist monks."

But critics say Ashin Wirathu and his ilk, more often than not, are the ones inciting mob violence against Burma's Muslims, including non-Rohingya Muslims. Hundreds have died in recent years amid riots and tit-for-tat attacks.


It's a worrying development in a diverse nation that's just emerging from the straightjacket of authoritarian rule. Perhaps the most depressing indication of the Rohingya's plight is the relative silence of Suu Kyi, a global icon for democracy and human rights. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, in keeping with Burmese government policy, refuses to even say the word "Rohingya" — which in Burma's polarized context would be an act of recognizing the community's rights, let alone its very existence.

30th Anniversary of Sikh Genocide, a survivor writes his story

Survivor of Sikh Genocides writes on 30^th Anniversary.
Published at:

• www.HolocaustandGenocides.com
• http://mikeghouseforIndia.blogspot.com and
• http://foundationforpluralism.blogspot.com  

Dallas, Texas, October 31, 2014.  It’s been 30 years since the Sikh Massacre took place in New Delhi; justice is still not served to the victims and their families. The fanatics among Hindus went on a rampage of killing 3000 Sikhs within a week, just because they were Sikhs and nothing but that. The Moderate Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others have condemned the acts of the fanatics.

As we have been learning about the mind set of criminals regardless of what religious garb they don, invariably they deny – some even say, why bring it up, there is no problem now. They are lying to themselves, the sparks of hatred are potent, and can catch the fire any time.

There is a criminal lurking in each one of us, we need to find him and destroy him before he eats us out from within. If we justify the rapes, murders, killing, massacres or genocides by believing "they asked for it" "they ignited it" or worse "they deserved it", then we have a serious problem and need to find a release.

What is needed is to face the problem squarely, acknowledging the wrong doing, and apologizing to the victims and finding mukti, the Jain Dharma offers a great phrase – Michami Dukadam, that is clean each other’s slates and start afresh.

Injustice is the mother of Adharma – i.e., everything that is wrong in the society stems from injustice, and Martin Luther King said, injustice to one is injustice to all at the end.

I hope one day, India will focus on cleaning up its dirty stains – there are many unfinished items on our plate that prick the nation from time to time. The hatred against the other is part of that mess.

Prime Minister Modi believes that when there is prosperity, most of the nagging things will go away, I hope they do. But I believe until we sit down face to face and acknowledge the evil in each one of us, and commit to go forward dumping the old baggage, we will be limping along. We need to reboot our souls, hearts and minds.

The following write up is from a Sikh Survivor of the 1984 Sikh Massacre.  It is a shame that many a families are still waiting for the whereabouts of their loved ones missing for over 30 years. The Indian Government has a responsibility to take this up, to bring relief to the victims of these massacres. I do hope Mr. Modi, as the Prime Minister of the nation, who claims to be a Hindu, acts like a Hindu and restores Dharma – the righteousness and justice to fellow beings.   

Pritpal Singh has spoken at our Holocaust and Genocides events and I am pleased to share his story with you, please feel free to share wherever you like.

The Foundation for Pluralism and the World Muslim Congress is commemorating Holocaust and Genocides for the last seven years, as a step towards reconciling with each other and learning about each others pain and suffering of each of us humans on this planet.

Wayne Slater of Dallas Morning News wrote, “Ghouse says he hopes attendees will walk out better appreciating the sufferings of others and seeing “the perpetrator in us” as a way of building trust across social and religious lines.

“I called on my friends with the idea of commemorating the event, and thus began this journey,” said Ghouse. “Education is the purpose; we have to learn, acknowledge and reflect upon the terrible things that we humans have inflicted upon each other, and we have to understand that our safety hinges on the safety of all others around us.”

“There is a shameless cruelty in us, either we shy away or refuse to acknowledge the sufferings of others, worrying that it will devalue our own or somehow it amounts to infidelity to our own cause,” he said. “We should be ashamed of ourselves in justifying the massacres by falsely propagating the myth that the victims deserved it, or asked for it.” It shows an absence of intelligence.

Our event is comprised of 3 segments; Holocaust is the anchor event every year, then Genocides and a Massacre. We have been able to address many Genocides around the Globe, as well as the Massacre of Bangladeshis in 1971, Sikhs in New Delhi in 1984 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.  

The criminals are still at large and need to be punished to restore peace of mind to the victims and their families. That is the least a head of the state can do for his countrymen and it is good for the psyche of the people.

Mike Ghouse

www.MikeGhouse.net

 

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1984:  My Struggle & Inspiration

According to famous Czech writer Milan Kundera, "the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory.  Destroy its books, its culture, its history.  Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history.  Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was...  The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."  We are here today to continue that struggle.  Never had the citizens of independent India experienced state sponsored genocide against its own people.

  After the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi, for three days the well-organized mob with explicit instructions from the federal government went to loot, destroy, rape, eliminate every identifiable Sikh on India.  Iron rods, crow bars, kerosene, and firearms were provided to mobs.  Voter lists, ration lists, and school registration lists were used to identify & track Sikhs, Gurdwaras, and Sikh businesses. 

Slogans like "blood for blood" were shown repeatedly on state controlled TV.  Rumors were circulated about the violence against Hindus in Punjab to incite hatred against Sikhs in India.  Sikh soldiers were disarmed and confined to barracks while army was deliberately kept outside Delhi until 11/4.  All this occurred in the presence of police who ignored the violence or at times aided in it.  The police officers who deviated from this order were neutralized and records were manipulated to destroy paper trail and to protect criminals from prosecution.  For the Sikh victims, the police refused to record FIR (First Information Reports) or falsified them.

 According to NY times, there was complete censorship of the press.  The relief measures were inadequate.  VM Tarkunde, retired justice of the Indian Supreme Court, stated "Two lessons can be drawn from the experience of Delhi riots.  One is about the extent of criminalization of our politics and the other about the utter unreliability of our police force in critical situation."  According to government report the number of Sikhs killed in Delhi was 2733; HS Phoolka, Delhi high court lawyer, estimates 4000; Affidavits have been filed for 5015; Madhu Kishwar, editor of Manushi, estimates 10,000.  These   estimates are just in Delhi while the killings occurred throughout India.

 Rajiv Gandhi justified the Sikh murders, rapes, loot & arson by saying, "When a great tree falls, earth trembles."  The result of the violence against an easily identifiable minority was winning 414/533 seats in the parliament for Congress Party of India.  Even the opposition party, Sangh Parivar, stated the Sikhs invited the attacks. 

There have been 11 commissions & inquiries but no high level politician or law enforcement official has been convicted despite eye witness accounts and abundant of evidence.  On the other hand, the perpetrators were awarded cabinet positions, governorships, and party chief positions.  The lack of accountability against the organizers of the Genocide paved the way to the violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. 

Pogroms will continue to occur in India unless the State acknowledges and records these violations in a transparent & honest manner, toward cleansing itself of the people and the institutions that perpetrate these crimes and addressing the survivors' rights to knowledge, justice, and reparation.

 I, as a survivor of the Sikh Genocide of 1984, wait for a day when the citizens of India will demand and display the very ideals of unity, justice, and healing as the citizens of America illustrated after the Wisconsin massacre in 2012.  So, my dear brothers & sisters, we cannot forget the killings of innocent people no matter where they occur.  Instead, we ought to remember, revive, and respond like our fathers & mothers did.  They sought Inspiration from within and channeled their energy toward discovering their role in pursuit of Justice.

Pritpal Singh 

Why Only Mike Ghouse? by Shah Alam Siddiqui

January, 29,2014

Why Only Mike Ghouse???

By Shah A Siddiqui

It was my second year to attend the seminar on Holocaust & Genocides. Every year has been organized by the Foundation for Pluralism  and American Together Foundation. This year the focus was on Native American Indian genocide in the American history.The venue was as usual the Unity Church of Dallas's beautiful auditorium. Before I elaborate the manifesto of this very well organized annual program under the superb management of Mike Ghouse, I will praise for the punctuality of his all events, whether it is a small get together or big event , starts on time and ends on time without waiting for the people to accumulate and fill the hall. This gesture of his punctuality shows the discipline in his life.

I was very much impressed when I had attended  last year's event on Sikh massacre and I was participating as a speaker on the genocide of Urdu speaking Pakistanis in Bangladesh in 1971 by the Mukti Bahini forces. This event was widely attended by the Indian Sikh and Hindu community besides of local dignitaries from the American offices. In my column in Urdu Times I had criticized the missing numbers of Pakistanis where, only 3 or 4 were present at the event to support the Sikh community on their memorial program of Sikh genocide in 1984 in all over India.

I will quote here the saying of John F Kennedy "Geography has made us neighbors.History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies". Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder" what a beautiful quote is that, and if we all start thinking in this way the world can be a wonderful place to live with harmony. Mike Ghouse in his program, always spreads the word that  "speak up for others and stand up for others" Unfortunately, as a human being our mental capacity is went below average for the others. We should come out of the shell of self centered policies and be useful person of the community.

Come to the point of the symposium on American-Indian genocide in the 17th century, which is a Stigma on the forehead of powerful civilized country of the world. The lobby was nicely displayed with the posters and pictures on the topic of Native American genocide. It was very good exposition of the history and frankly speaking, it was my first ever chance to attend a symposium on the extermination or genocide of Native Americans. I have had a little knowledge of Native Americans  that this tribe were brutally killed and exterminated by the conquerer. Christopher Columbus was also one of those who ordered to kill Native Indians during his governorship and. I read about the brutality that Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. There are many ore stories about him.

In the expo lobby, I met with one spiritual Mexican man whose nickname was "Gorilla" who told the story of being named "Gorilla" which was interesting, but his real name is  Ricardo Cervantes and he showed us a black shiny round stone plate about an inch thick and a spiritual torch burner. Later he displayed in the auditorium the lighter and the stone with the noble history of his ancestors related to stones and prayed or those who left this world for the betterment of the human being.

Mike Ghouse also introduced me with a prominent historian, lecturer of Full Blood American Indian, Citizen of Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Peggy Larney, who gave us a brief information on the Native American holocaust. 

At the symposium there were a couple of very impressive speakers like Civic Leader and Native American Representative  Steve Melendez, who briefly took us back to the history of the Native American Genocide in which more than 100 millions were brutally vanished from the earth.

There were many speakers like Coke Buchanan, Alan Keith, Michael Losurdo, Constance and I heard one speaker Gurvinder Singh of Sikh massacre in 1984 and also one Indian-American Civil right activist Sajee Gopal on Gujrat killings of Muslims in 2002 they both delivered very impressive and touch speech on the subject. Very young keynote speaker Mary Ann Thompson-Frank, who  is also a Civil Right activist delivered her speech with charismatic style and gripped the audience to listen to her findings and experience to visit Rwanda. She shared a very useful information to the audience.

A short documentary prepared by CNN and presented by International correspondent Christian Amanpour on Jewish genocide was also displayed for the audience. In the documentary the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland was focused which dragged me to my visit of this camp in 1986 when I was posted on a diplomatic assignment there. The Jewish Holocaust has  a horrible heart wrenching stories and in the concentration camp one can see and feel the pain and pesky scenes even after more than seven decades. I have written my memoir about this visit.

I had a very little knowledge about the genocide of native Americans, but in this symposium and its exhibition gave me a vast picture of this barbaric ethnic cleansing of a tribe where hundred of thousand of pregnant women killed with their babies in the womb and the invaders used different killing methods like  infesting  with deadly epidemics of diseases in women and children. New born babies were also not spared and got killed by the occupying soldiers. I read different  slogans printed in the flyer regarding the genocide. One interesting slogan of British soldiers  was " The only good Indian is a dead Indian". In fact, this slogan reminds me when the British soldiers use to put signs in different public places in Indian subcontinent before partition that" Admission of dogs and Indians are prohibited" etc.  

This  wonderful symposium and exhibition was full of knowledgeable materials and information. I can say it was an educational symposium or convention on the native American Indians and I congratulate Mike Ghouse for doing this wonderful job on his own.

I will again criticize our Indian and Pakistani community for not attending and supporting the cause of Native Americans on their genocide. I know this is history now, but to remember the history keeps you energized to face the consequences.Thanks a million to God that we are  now living in a civilized country and we did not go through the atrocities the people from the other communities have gone trough and we are reading their stories.

I would like to come to the title of this article " Why only Mike Ghouse???" most of my readers can understand the concept of this article but most of the readers  will just ignore knowingly.  First, I would like to say something about Mike Ghouse that whatever he is doing is a noble work. In the beginning when he started his 'Pluralism' mission to bring the different faiths at one platform, it was a rubbish and provocative act for other believers,in my opinion and I was very against of his all these activities being propagated his 'Pluralism' "faith" among the communities of different faith and cultures. I moved from Chicago in 2001 to this beautiful city Dallas and since then I have been listening Mike Ghause 's radio program and different papers and literally I use to hate him because of his illogical  theories  on pluralism and I thought this guy must be an '' atheist" or he hates Pakistanis or Muslims. In the beginning, in 2001 when I moved to Dallas from Chicago 

I started listening his radio program and most of the times I use to call on his radio show and complain for  not being fair with Pakistanis and Muslims and after listening and reading his articles about 'pluralism' I deadly gone against Mike Ghouse and thought that this guy is against Muslim ideology. By the time passes away, I use to read his  emails and couple of times I saw him on the Fox TV show with 'Sean Hanity show' in favor of the Muslim cause defending Muslims in the 9/11 scenario and after that I saw him on different occasions on Fox Tv and read his articles in 'Huffington Post' newspapers and in groups of community emails, gradually, I changed my opinion about Mike Ghouse. I extended my full support for the cause that Mike Ghouse is carrying alone on his shoulder for the humanity. He is serving the community in all walk of life, regardless of religions and ethnic backgrounds. He is trying to bring an impossible dream into reality and that is harmony, brotherhood and sincerity within the different communities.

He stands up for Ahmadis, Bahais, Buddhist, Christians, Sikhs, Hindu, Jains, Ismailis and of course for Muslims as well. He attends all kinds of worship as a gesture to show his and community's cooperation with them. 

The teaching of Islam is very broad who clearly speaks about brotherhood and harmony to the others and the other religions also support the same gesture, none of the religion teaches hatred or violence among different believers. This is a hard work which Mike Ghouse is doing alone under his own flag of 'Pluralism' .

Is his all activities are going against of humanity? Or it is in the right direction of humanity. If he is doing something positive for the community, for the different believers, then why we should not support him and extend our cooperation to him for the betterment of the human cause. Together we can stand strong and it is my believe that one day our dream will come true when all the  believers of different  faiths will live in peace and prosperity. We should join hands to hand with Mike Ghouse to make this planet a beautiful place to live.

The Genesis of Holocaust and Genocides commemoration

Draft in process, its my personal story

I was ten years old, and my mother held me back from reading the book, "Eishman 60 lakh yahudiyon ka qatil" - Eichman, killer of 6 million Jews in Urdu Language to protect me from the anxiety. I was probably 10 and had read a lot of her books, except this one. I stole the book and saw the images, and it shut me down for a long time.

 The fear of seeing the images of Holocaust, particularly where they were shot into into ditches, had prevented me  from seeing WWII movies for nearly 54 years of my life. Never had the guts to see the sense of betrayal they expressed on their faces, but never begged any one to save their life... I have held them in a very high esteem for the dignified death they faced.

We held the first public commemoration of the 9/11 event at Frisco Convention Center, about 650 People attended the event, about 10 Mayors and several Police and fire chiefs, and clergy from every faith was represented in the event.   Mayor Joe Chow was speaking and the Fire Alarm went off... creating a panic. My Jewish friends in the front row dashed out, I saw the fear in their eyes, and that bothered me to no end. No human should be afraid of the other.

It was a false Alarm, Mayor Simpson announced it within 3 minutes for the people to come back, the Fire Marshal was on the way to shut down the Alarm, and I asked the FBI Chief Guadalupe Gonzalez to assure the people... while all this was happening Mayor Chow continued with his speech.

That fear prompted me to do something about it, not sure what.

 The United Nations made a proclamation to commemorate Holocaust  on January 27, 2006.  All the images were coming back to me. I called my friends with the idea of commemorating the event, and thus began this journey. The purpose is education, hitherto, Yom HaShoah was commemorated in Synagogues only, and for the first time in history, the Muslims took the intiative to say to the Jewish friends, that we are with you in the most somber moment of your life.

The first commemoration lifted a huge burden off me. I felt the relief, then also felt guilty that I should not feel the relief. It was a freedom, mukti, nirvana.... There are incredible stories associated with this journey of harassment, threats, bias, prejudices... we have made though it all. Many dropped me from their list of friends... It has not been an easy story. Maria Arita of Fox News and I had a heart to heart on this, and she probably can share the full story some day, may be, we ill write a chapter together.

7th Annual Holocaust and Genocides

The Foundation for Pluralism, World Muslim Congress, America Together Foundation, Memnosyne Foundation, Dallas Peace Center and other organizations will be organizing the 7^th Annual Holocaust and Genocides on Sunday, January 26, 2014.

Highlight: Genocides of Native Americans  and Gujarat Massacre
Theme: Sparks of Hatred and how to extinguish them

Date: Sunday, January 26, 2014
Time: 3 PM – 7 PM
Venue: Unity of Dallas
Address: 6525 Forest Ln, Dallas, TX 75230
Site: www.HolocaustandGenocides.com
Email: HolocaustandGenocides@gmail.com 

Hate is one of the many sources of disrupting peaceful functioning of a society,  and it is our duty, both individually and severally to to track down the source of such hate and work on mitigating it. Indeed, each one of us needs to do our share of work. It is also our moral responsibility to keep law and order and faithfully guard the safety of every citizen.

The spark of hatred will not disappear through law and order, it would be temporary off the screen, but will reappear at every little conflagration.  As civil societies, this has to be worked out for the long term good. 

Neither the injustice done in the past will fall off the earth, it lingers and eats away peace between individuals and nations, we are responsible to bring a closure to the loose ends of many a conflicts, so we all can trust each other and feel safe,  and focus on the collective prosperity of all.

The program will address preventing such occurrences,  and most importantly,  how to bring closure to these sparks and work on building cohesive societies, where no human has to live in apprehension or fear of the other. 

L:ast year, we highlighted on the Genocides of Sikhs in 1984 and Bangladesh in 1971.

Mike Ghouse, Chair
(214) 325-1916/ text or talk
7^th Annual Holocaust and Genocides
Address: Foundation for Pluralism
2665 Villa Creek Dr, Suite 206
Dallas, TX 75234

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