AFVOA Newletters of Year 2004

Page 118 of 153 only demean the sacrifice of Sikh Gurus. It should be acknowledged and forgotten. 105. Atrocities caused by the Catholic church on scientists, physicians, scholars, mystics and healers which has come to be known as the Spanish Inquisition, where thousands of scientists and women were tortured and killed, should teach one to not fall into the same pit, being dogmatic about one’s religion. Branding of non-Abraham religions as satanic, calling them pagans and polytheists, causing fear in the minds of people should not continue in this 21st century. 106. Such theories are even today professed in the North Eastern states in India, where people are so scared to even accept anything from any other religious traditions. Every religion has a place and should be respected. Very few know about the atrocities on the Native Americans where ten million native Americans were killed by the Europeans and about ten million killed by the Spanish in Central and South America. There is a total lack of sympathy for the victims. 107. The bitterness among the blacks about Apartheid still lingers on; many are unable to get over it even though it is only history now. That hatred has contributed to the rising crime still witnessed in the African cities. It is unjust for people in India to hold a grudge against the British, even after 57 years of independence, just as the suffering of Jews cannot be held against Germans forever. 108. The atrocities by Mongols and Turks, the Exodus of Asians from Uganda, the massacre of millions of people who did not subscribe to Stalin’s ideologies, the Celtic massacre in Ireland, the extermination of 750,000 Kashmiri pandits from the Kashmir valley, the riots in Gujarat, Mumbai, Marad (Kerala), Bhagalpur, Bihar, Meerut, Mumbai and the atrocities against the Sikhs should all teach humanity the lesson of tolerance and not allow such atrocities to recur in future. 109. If you deny this, you are doing injustice to history. But if you hold it against the people and chew it in your mind, you are perpetuating a heinous crime in a reverse way. How would someone feel if you go on pointing the wrong that his community did centuries ago? Keeping these atrocities in one’s memory will not allow you to have a warm and friendly relation with those communities. 110. Perhaps in this connection some historians feel we should change history and hide the atrocities and project only the positive things. Hiding facts is not the way. We need to educate people, as it was done in Germany - the holocaust was known to everybody. Education about previous aggression and the suffering it has caused will check future atrocities. 111. When an atrocity committed by one’s own community comes to light, people will have compassion towards the victim: when Britishers know how much third world countries suffered under British rule they will take more affirmative action, like the sympathy that poured on Gujarat after the earthquake from all over the world. How Srinathji’s idol was brought from Mathura to Rajasthan in a cart of vegetables and the untold suffering of millions of people of Mathura when Srinathji’s idol was damaged - these things are not to be hidden, but learnt from and forgotten. 112. Just because a ruler belongs to our community, we cannot hide his wrong doings and just because a ruler belongs to another community, we cannot blame him. Instead of pointing