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Chirinjeev Singh's race for the U.S. Senate is an opportunity for the Sikh community to have a voice on a national and international level.
June 18, 2003

Chirinjeev Singh's race for the U.S. Senate is an opportunity for the Sikh community to have a voice on a national and international level. Sure, Chirinjeev is running to make life better for the people of the state of Illinois, but there is no doubt that if we have a Sikh Senator, the outcome for us can only be good.

We need a public figure who can communicate the needs of the Sikh community and who can speak on our behalf.

Over the last couple of years we have undergone considerable change, especially after 9/11. We have seen the worst in hate crimes with the shooting death of Balbir Singh and the shooting of Avtar Singh, both in Arizona. We have seen Sikh kids in school face more violence. We have seen identity assasination with the release of Sony's Hitman 2 videogame which shows Sikhs being assasinated in a Gurdwara. We have seen films such as "Turbans" which justify abandoning the Sikh identity. We have seen TV shows with unbalanced portrayal of Sikh issues such as the murder of Jaswinder Kaur of Canada and the racist comments made by an author named Mukharjee on the Air India case. But what we have not seen is Sikh issues in the mainstream media. Even with all the efforts that we have put into outreach, the general public is still not informed about Sikhs.

How long will this go on? Indefinitely - because we do not have a voice. We have advocacy groups which have been created to tackle these issues, but they are too grossly underfunded and understaffed to handle everything. Our Gurdwaras are too self-absorbed or too busy fighting court battles to take on the problems that are facing us as a community.

This is our chance to have a voice in our country. Chirinjeev is a second generation Sikh who is a well educated and a well accomplished man. He has the means and the connections to make a good run for public office, but he cannot do it alone.

Chirinjeev has outlined several different areas for volunteering on the campaign:

1.Educating the Illinois electorate and the USA on Sikhism and having them become comfortable with the religion. We need to have them focus on issues and our credentials in the campaign. What are our ideas and how we will accomplish them.

2. To win Illinois we need to win the southern parts of the state where farmers live. We have to find ways to educate them about the strength of Sikh farmers and our history in California.

3. We will need between 100 to 200 volunteers for phone banks, door-door, mailings, developing issues, media campaigns, and fund raisers. The volunteers do not have to live in Illinois.

4. We will need help developing an effective media campaign. We need to develop effective designs, brochures, leaflets, and buttons. We need to find people who can design, produce, and print these media flyers and signs and send them to Illinois.

5. We will need to think through the issues and come up with unique, well thought out strategies for the economy, education, healthcare, and homeland security. These are national issues, not particular to Illinois.

6. We will need a media and advertising campaign to get the message across. Articles in local and national papers, television stations, and talk shows will be important. If anyone has a strong relationship with the media, that would be helpful.

7. We will need to be creative with fund raising. We need to raise $2 million for the primaries.

8. We will need to develop ideas on how to reach out to the different constituencies in Illinois.

We are open to all ideas. This will have to be both a traditional and non-traditional campaign to win. Any one who would like to join the campaign committee would be very welcomed.

If we create enough excitement and credibility we will win this race.

Most importantly we will need your best wishes and prayers.

comment: If you are interested in volunteering for the campaign, please send you contact information to cs2004@sikhsentinel.com.