The newly-formed Student Sikh Association hosted their first event of the semester Wednesday night, a screening of the award-winning film “Divided We Fall” by filmmakers Valarie Kaur and Sharat Raju.
The film explores the fallout of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in terms of the backlash directed towards Sikhs, Arabs, Hispanics and other victims of racially motivated violence.
Going coast to coast across the country visiting Sikh communities and sites of hate crimes, the documentary focuses on why Sikhs specifically were targeted after Sept. 11 and how they have been the victims of racial profiling while trying to educate others about their faith.
Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world, originally from India, with a following of over 22 million people worldwide. Their faith centers on the idea of one universal God, and they wear turbans as a tenet of their faith, because they do not believe in cutting their hair.
Ninety-nine percent of all people who wear turbans in the United States are Sikh. Last Spring the student Sikhs held a “Turban Day” on campus to promote and raise awareness of Sikhism with great success. Their faith marks the keeping of their hair as extremely important; to the point where asking a Sikh to remove his turban is tantamount to a strip search.
Sikhs also stand for moral and social good, working to stand for social justice and provide people with help when asked. Sikhs regularly donate a full ten percent of both their income and time to humanitarian causes as well as support literacy and positive family life.
Screening “Divided We Fall” was a dedicated effort by the Student Sikh Association to once again educate SMU about Sikhism as well as raise awareness.
“That’s the mission of the organization, to educate. A Sikh guy or girl is supposed to help if you are in danger or in need. That’s what we take on when we adopt our religion,” said SSA President Jaipreet Singh Suri.
Following the film, the SSA held a panel discussion between the audience and Suri, special events coordinator Jupin Malhi, Vice Presidents Priyanka Kaur Hooghan and Karan Singh Wazir, and Historian Gunwant Singh Sachar. Suri opened the discussion.
“The thing to realize and take from the movie is that everyone can make a difference,” Suri said. “Never feel that you alone can’t change things. Whatever you believe, whatever you want in life: just go for it.”
One audience member, Swami Dev Singh Khalsa, noted how the film had a strong personal touch for him, both in terms of the terrorist attacks and the following racial violence.
“Somebody I grew up with in Long Island was the second-to-last person pulled out of the wreckage of the World Trade Center,” he said. “I had no idea that eight Sikhs had been shot in the San Francisco bay area.
“I knew about the two people who got killed in this area [Dallas]. I was not born into Sikhism, I’m an Anglo-American, but I got into Sikhism 30-40 years ago, and I’ve been subject to harassment. ”
Yet for many Sikhs in the film and here at SMU, their appearance has led to social separation and discrimination in the last seven years.
“Terrorists in general don’t have a profile; that was a point of the movie,” Suri said.
SMU student John Robinette added, “People have this image of terrorists that Sikh people [visually] fit better than terrorists do. In a way I’m scared that this belief exists and will continue to exist.”
He described the importance of the film’s message, “I thought it was very moving to see the situation that happened. I had no idea personally about all this violence that happened immediately after Sept. 11. I was fourteen at the time.
“All I can remember is a lot of anger and frustration and this idea that turbaned people with beards were terrorist Muslims. Thankfully, I’ve outgrown it. I had no idea what a Sikh was until a couple of years ago. It’s sad, but seeing the response of the people who see through and the people who come together, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Muslim coming together, is very moving,” Robinette said.
Suri explained why the screening was so important to him and the SSA:
“We wanted to be a part of the movie and part of the fall campaign of the movie and promote and raise awareness about Sikhism on campus, so that when you see a guy with a turban instead of feeling fear, you come to us and if you need any help or if you’re in trouble or if you’re in danger.
“We wanted to break the wall the people put up because we look different. Events like this, which are open forum, help to break down that wall. If you break down that wall there is an open flow of knowledge. I believe that everyone can learn from each other and it’s just about understanding that other person’s point of view and where they’re coming from,” Suri said.
After the discussion the SSA provided a free dinner of traditional Indian foods, including Chicken makhani, a spicy chicken dish, chole (like chickpeas), rice, kheer (a sweet rice pudding) and naan, a bread resembling pita. Many students and guests remained to eat and continue discussing the film.
Senior Andreas Vastardis said he enjoyed the film but it was not entirely new to him.
“Having known Jaipreet for the last few years and I really didn’t see much Sikh activity grow on campus,” he said. “When I first got here, I didn’t even know what Sikh, was, I never heard of it. He told me about it about a year and a half ago; he told me what it was and how it has been wrongly associated with Islam, but a lot of the numbers about the people who were killed I didn’t know about, I wasn’t aware of the magnitude.”
He was happy with the success of the screening,
“I would call it a success; this whole forum was almost full,” he said. “There were plenty of people and they engaged in intelligent conversation after the movie.”
Junior Derek Jones said, “The audience was very receptive and very engaged. It’s good that we’re in a liberal university in the sense of open-mindedness, compared to a lot of other places. I’ve always believed that while we do have a strong Methodist tradition in our history and in some of our practices we’re very open-minded.”
To Jones, the film “encouraged me to step back and take a greater look at those around me because I know several Sikhs that I didn’t know were Sikh, I really gained a greater sense of the diverse culture that’s around me. I always just thought of Jaipreet as Jaipreet.”
Vastardis commented on the poignancy of the film’s message, “People might not always see what you see. You see a human being and they see a turban.”
“That might be the best way to describe the film because we’ve all been told not to discriminate but it takes something like this to remind us what that really means,” Vastardis said.
