Not on many occasions in my life have I made written speeches. But for the occasion of being presented the inaugural Civil Courage Award by the Wallenberg Sugihara Civil Courage Society on Sunday, January 18th at the Jewish Community Center in Vancouver in the presence of over 400 people I had written out brief remarks. However I chose to speak without notes or the prepared text. Nonetheless what I said then is more expansively reflected in the prepared remarks which are reproduced below:
It is a tremendous honour to be considered fit for an award named after the great Wallenberg and Sugihara. It recognises my life long struggle to speak truth to terror. I most humbly accept the recognition in memory of the recent victims of terror at Charlie Hebdo and the Jewishh Market in Paris.
In the name of religion, terrorism has been at war with us. It is at war against reason. The offendedness some feel and use as an excuse for terror is a choice, not a compulsion and never be an excuse for killing. In a fee and democratic society there can be no excuse for violence. Our weapons are secret ballot and free expression; there can be none other.
In Canada we are no strangers to terror. Since my arrival in Canada in 1968 there have been the FLQ crisis, the Squamish five, Air India, the Toronto18 and the recent killings of soldiers in St. Jean sur Richleau and Ottawa', just to name a few. Sadly we are destined to suffer the scourge of terror for some time to come. Our principles, what we stand for; a free and democratic world where freedoms thrive, where freedom of expression does not contract but expands, that is what will give us the strength, the courage to fight on.
We have not willed this war upon ourselves; a war that seeks to silence differences of opinion. Nigerians have not asked to be mercilessly slaughtered by the butchers of Boko Haram. Hundreds of Kurds, Shias, Christians and the dissenting Sunnis have done nothing to provoke being shot and beheaded by the infidels of ISIS.
I say infidels because they may not be infidels in their own minds or to their distorted version of their professed faith; but they are complete and utter infidels to Humanity. The venom that moves them has blinded them to our universal siblinghood (a gender neutral word for brotherhood). Because of the overwhelming and often self induced hate the idea of our common humanity eludes them. It is to our common humanity that we must owe our first loyalty, our complete fidelity.
The equality embedded and implicit in our common humanity nurtures and sustains the idea of human freedom. Ours can't be the freedom of the slave be it slave to some ideology, religion or anything else. Ours can only be the freedom that means equality and respect for all human beings. There is nothing more sacrosanct than absolute human freedom under the rule of law in a free and democratic society.
No, we are not a perfect society; only more perfect than most. But we must work harder to be free from racism, gender discrimination and violence and poverty. Our journey for meaningful equality shall be incomplete without economic and social justice for our Aboriginal peoples. Much work remains to be done. The struggle continues.
By the way the honour given me today is way beyond whatever I stand accused of doing. There are co-conspirators such as my extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins, my brother, my sisters; And Raminder, my wife who has always unflinchingly stood with me and my children who I think still love me despite the long periods of neglect I visited upon them; and now my six grandchildren for whom I continue my fight and will pen my life's story. There have been countless friends and supporters without whose help I would not have been able to stand up, speak out and fight on. They, far more than I, deserve this honour.
My inner determination has always come from what I learnt from my heroes and freedom fighters: my father Pritam Singh Dosanjh, my grandfather Moola Singh Bains and Mahatma Gandhi the father of the nation I 'deserted' to make Canada home. My father used to say: Walk a few steps less in life but always walk with dignity; His personal credo, my faith that has sustained me on the journey from the dusty roads of rural India that I still so vividly remember. All of that is responsible for any good that I may have done. For all the mistakes in my life, believe me there have been more than a few, I alone am responsible.