History, Politics and 3H0 | Shabd Singh

Shabd has been someone who I’ve been following for a  while and inspired me to start my own podcast, so it was great to get to  know a bit more about him and I cannot thank him enough for taking the  time out to talk.

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In this episode, we get to know a bit more about  Shabd and his upbringing near Washington DC in Northern Virginia,  amongst the 3HO community, his parents, who are both converts to Sikhi  through 3HO, his background including his mixture of Jewish, Basque and  Parisian ancestry, his attendance at Miri-Piri academy in Punjab, his  further education, a period of change in his life more recently and his  involvement in politics and how it took him further then he could have  imagined.

Did you know his mum travelled overland through Afghanistan to reach India in the 1970s?

We  continue and talk about how Shabd spends some of his spare time  focusing on his own podcast – The One: Intersection of Sikhi/Sikh  Affairs and Left/Progressive politics.

How  Sikhi is more than a religion, a book called the “Jakarta Method” which  helps to map the American backing of the Indonesian death squads of the  1960s (resulting in the death of over a million people) and how this  was part of the CIA’s broader project of extinguishing the left wherever  it was. Those who doubt socialism and use a lack of historical examples  sometimes miss that since inception socialism has been aggressively  attacked and undermined by the USA and Western powers & specifically  undermined.

Can Sikhs be part of a modern day military? How WWI  and WII are not unrelated or disconnected from colonialism and the  purpose of modern militaries. The tokenisation of Sikhs, the concept of  langar and the human right of food security, the relationship of  colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy.

Malcolm X, truly  questioning the system, the Khalsa mindset, the acceptance of death,  learning and teaching and how Shabd tries to use this to keep grounded  when involved in politics.

We then dive into Shabd’s upbringing as  a Sikh, experience of the 3HO community and the cult, criminal  activities and systems of abuse controlled by Yogi Bhajan. Shabd  outlines his own personal journey and the importance of Kashi House’s  accessible production of pre-colonial Sikh history that was particularly  helpful. Amongst other things, we round off the episode focusing on the  3HO community today, the entities and community of 3HO and why it is  important to identify and change the systems around us.

We spoke  about so much more than that. More importantly, I learnt so much and  thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend time talking to Shabd Singh.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!