ISLAM – A RELIGION OF PEACE

• Lesson from world Punjabi Conference

• Immigrants to America & their efforts

• Ethnic Education

LESSONS FROM WORLD PUNJABI CONFERENCE

Punjab is the largest Province of Pakistan and more than 50% of the population of the country consists of Punjabi speaking people. Inspite of being a majority linguistic group of the country, the Punjabi intellectuals have fears and apprehensions about the onslaught of other cultures and languages on their  language and  culture or what they call Punjabiat. The third World Punjabi Conference was held at Lahore from 13th April to 16th April, 2001 in which over 100 delegates from India and several delegates from U.S.A, U.K. and Canada participated. A few extracts from news reports on the conference  are reproduced below, to give an idea about what this majority linguistic group of Pakistan is thinking and doing for preservation of their language and their identity.

Memon Community is a very small linguistic group. If a large group like Punjabi speaking people are working for preservation of their language and identity, why should not the Memon community think about maintaining their identity in future. The threat of loss of identify to a small community like ours is much greater than that of a large group which forms the majority of Pakistan. The third Punjabi conference is a lesson to be learnt by our small but respectable and prestigious community which is now spread through out the world and is most likely to face an identity crisis in year to come.

The four day World Punjabi conference opened here on Friday with scholars and intellectuals, mostly drawn from Pakistan and India, emphasizing an earnest desire to make the language and culture a strong bridge between the Punjabi speaking peoples of both the countries to promote peace and goodwill.

The conference, third of its kind to be held in Lahore since independence and sponsored by the World Punjabiat Foundation, was inaugurated by former caretaker prime minister Malik Meraj Khalid. Conference Chairman Fakhar Zaman, welcoming the

participants to the Lahore moot, said “we all are preachers of peace and firmly associated with our language and culture”. Mr. Zaman said Punjabis living on both sides of the border were opposed to extremism and wished to strengthen relationship on the basis of language, literature and culture. The new generation, intellectuals and writers, he added, had started feeling that the identity crisis had been controlled and now it was time for bringing an end to hatred and estrangement between them.

Indian scholar Sardar Satindar Singh Noor said the Punjab is had been associated with Punjabiat for centuries and added that it no longer was a concept but had become an ideology. The Punjabiat, he added, was of a great value to the interest of humanity and as such it had to be protected and strengthened.  (Dawn of 14th April, 2001)

Languages  have no borders and the people knitted closely in the bond of language are also above all limitations. Such were the scenes observed on The World Punjabi Conference 2001.  Never before that many Punjabi lovers have rubbed shoulders together at Falleti’s in the history. The place emersed in a unique sense of belonging to each other despite huge barriers erected around them. World Punjabi Conference pulled in every Punjabi lover from both sides of the border to rejoice in the mist of days bygone spent together – speaking same language in the absence of any border just like 50 years ago.

Hundreds of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim Punjabi intellectuals, poets, play writers, writers, artists, human rights activists and educationists queued up at the entrance of the main hall of the hotel to get registered as participants in this big event, for some, the biggest of their lives. Renowned Indian film star Raj Babbar expressed his feelings on the occasion as: “Language is the only means of recognition. Adoption is only through language. I was missing this Punjabi part for my language. We should start from the small steps. We should not be confined to these four walls to make decisions now”.                                                                          (The News of 14th April, 2001)

IMMIGRANTS TO AMERICA & THEIR EFFORTS

FOR PRESERVATION OF THEIR NATIVE

CULTURES

Memon community is a very small community consisting of less than a million people spread over Indo-Pakistan sub-continent as well as in Africa, U.S.A., Canada, U.K. and Middle East. Such a small community and spread over almost the entire world can easily loose its separate and distinct identity under the influence of culture of the majority community with the passage of time. History will tell us that this has happened to several ethenic groups. The onstaught of dominent culture of majority community is and could prove a serous cause of threat even to large ethenic groups such as Chinese, Koreans and Nigerions etc. The following extracts from NEWSWEEK of 2nd April, 2001, shows what these larger groups are doing to preserve their culture and their identity. In these circumstances, will it be too much to request the Memon community do something to preserve its identiy?

ETHENIC EDUCATION

(An Extract from Newsweek of 2nd April, 2001)

IN AMERICA, MORE AND MORE IMMIGRANT CHILDREN ARE ATTENDING SPECIAL PROGRAM TO LEARN THEIR NATIVE CULTURES.

AS AMERICAN WELCOMES ITS LARGEST influx of immigrants since 1910, it is seeing the rise of an alternative kind of educational institution – the culture school. From California to Connecticut,

more and more such programs, also known as cram schools or ethnic-heritage schools, are opening to help preseve children’s native culture and language. In some cases they also aim to compensate for short-comings in the American education system. “There is a real rebirth of interest in these programs now”, says Laurie Olsen, an education scholar who is directing a two-year study of ethnic-culture schools in America for the organization California Tomorrow.

“Almost every ethnic roup now has a cultural program of its own, from Latvians and Nigerians to Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants, who have some of the oldest and best-established schools in the United States. Though there are no national statistics encompassing all schools, some individual ethnic groups keep track: the number of Polish-language schools on the East Coast, for instance, has more than doubled since 1990; the number of Korean schools nationwide has boomed from 490 in 1990 to 890 today; and the number of students enrolled in Chinese-heritage programs nation-wide has grown by more than 25 percent since 1995, topping 100,000. Alongwith language, culture and history instruction, many of the schools also instill ethnic customs and values.