“I don’t want to talk about the pictures,” Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal said, according to a CBC story in Canada’s state-owned media, instead inviting everyone to just come and watch the fancy parade celebrating Vaisakhi, one of the holiest days in the Sikh calendar —the day recognizing the birth of the Sikh religion and the burgeoning Sikh religion and culture in Vancouver.
Yes, forget the terrorists being honored as “martyrs”, here amongst us in an annual display that includes photographs glorifying the founders of the Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) which are terrorist organizations, and the assassins of Indira Gandhi, and which last year included a parade float honoring the terrorist mastermind of the Air India bombing, Talwinder Singh Parmar. Just watch the pretty parade!
Yup. Sounds like a Liberal. Liberals love symbolism instead of action. But overlook some of the symbolism today! Forget the reality. Forget making a principled point and taking a stand. Good golly look at all the yummy symbolism of me fitting right in with these
voters
Canadians!
Ignore the reality of terrorism and this promotion and honoring and normalizing and saluting of the terrorists as “martyrs” on huge billboards in festive tent displays. Call them “so-called” terrorists, perhaps, just as your state-owned media division often calls the war on terror a “so-called war on terror”! Just watch the parade and make merry! (Oh and vote for me!)
NDP MP Penny Priddy also attended. While Dhaliwal addressed the crowd from the main stage, giving further credence and a sense of normalcy to the practice of honoring terrorists in our midst, which the terrorists and their supporters so seek, Priddy spoke to the crowd from a secondary stage set up by a Punjab radio station.
As we know, no festival in Canada is complete without a representative of the state—a politician—endorsing it with their words of wisdom, the likes of which no citizen could conjure-up on their own. (Yes of course I scoured the photos available online, but couldn’t find the 
logo which I’m sure was there somewhere!)
The extent to which these politicians suck-up to constituents who as a “mosaic” group willingly choose to accept and endorse the honoring of terrorists at their celebration …is almost breathtaking until you remember that the politicians in question are liberals. Celebrating the multi-cult mosaic. Forget trying to get votes for just one day? Never. (Unless the festival is about Christians, silly. Oh hang on—those aren’t allowed!)
An event organizer, Sudager Singh Sandhu, president of a Sikh Temple, defended portraying Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar as a “martyr”, saying putting his picture on a float is no different to Christians putting up a picture of Jesus Christ in a church. “Whoever is working for their countries or religion, people kill them because they are terrorists. But they are not terrorists for everybody,” Sandhu said as reported in an article in the Vancouver Sun.
The “symbolism” went right over their heads.
Both Dhaliwal and Priddy chose to appear at the Sikh festival wearing some Sikh head gear, covering their heads, but Priddy chose to adorn herself in full East Indian dress as well, so as to look like them, I suppose, and show them great respect by adopting their culture and things that are important to them and their religion and standards in their country of origin. No irony detected by Priddy or Dhaliwal, here.
The mayor of the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, Dianne Watts, attended as well, but only as “a citizen”. Not in an “official” capacity. Nice try.
By way of additional explanation, as we know, unlike Sikh parades which are shown great honor and respect by liberal and far-left politicians even if the festivities include honoring terrorists, Christmas parades and anything even remotely hinting at displays of Jesus or any semblance of Christianity are all but banned in this country in the public square, by the politically-correct liberals—the secular-progressive minions—all around us. The Sikh religion is of course not Christianity. So it’s OK. Vote liberal. Peace out.
EXTRA
A reader named Japnaam Singh submitted a comment that I won’t approve because it was cross-posted at another blog already, reading in part:
Hey Joel,
Can you tell me which terrorists were being celebrated at this parade?
The ones who killed Indira Gandhi? Do you know enough about Indira Gandhi’s brutal, dictatorial and oppressive regime to say that killing her was the act of terrorists? If a Kurd had killed Saddam prior to 2003, would they have been a terrorist too? …
My article didn’t refer only to the parade but also the festive displays in and around the parade.
…“Enjoy the parade. Thank you,” Sandhu told The Vancouver Sun, refusing to comment on the displays his group erected for the celebrations, including portraits of the assassins of Indira Gandhi and dead leaders of the Babbar Khalsa and International Sikh Youth Federation, both banned in Canada.
A day earlier, Sandhu had issued a news release claiming no banned organizations would be allowed in the parade and that there would be no “pictures depicting violence or the outcome of violence.”
“No acts to promote hate and violence against any person or group will be permitted,” said the release, contradicted by the graphic bloody pictures on special display at the temple.
And the parade was full of floats with photos of “martyrs” from terrorist groups banned in India, including the Khalistan Commando Force, the Khalistan Liberation Force, Bhindranwale’s Tiger Force and the Babbar Khalsa.
[…]
New shirts were printed for this year’s event, with the logo of the Babbar Khalsa and its crossed guns, but minus the banned group’s name. Instead, the shirts said: “Long live the Republic of Khalistan.” … Other shirts featured pictures of Babbar Khalsa leader Sukhdev Singh Babbar. …
Babbar Khalsa and the Sikh Youth Federation are both officially designated as terrorist organizations in Canada.
UPDATE (April 17 2008):
I’m informed that the NDP’s Penny Priddy actually did shun the organizers and criticized the images at the festivities, and withdrew her own parade participation.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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