麻豆社

Good morning

Star Hobson. Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. And now, the deaths of four boys, two sets of twins, in a fire in Sutton. Since the beginning of this month, the news seems to have been filled with the killings or deaths of children in the most awful of circumstances, and it has been all the more poignant, coming as it does in the run up to Christmas.

For Sikhs, the poignancy is even greater as this time of year marks the anniversaries of the martyrdoms of the children of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru. Known as the four Princes or Sahibzade, his oldest two sons were teenage boys killed in battle by imperial Mughal troops and the youngest two - aged 7 and 9 - were captured and when they refused to convert, they were bricked up in a wall while still alive.

The Guru, the leader of the Sikh faith, lost all of his children in the space of a week. Separated from his family in the midst of this tragedy, he found himself barefoot in the thick thorny jungle, all alone, resting on the ice cold ground of the winter night. In his grief, he composed a famous verse which starts 鈥淭ell my Beloved Friend the state of his disciples鈥�. In it, he talked of how, even in that darkest of dark times, his faith in the Almighty remained strong and unwavering.

The Sahibzade have had a profound and lasting impact on Sikh identity, resonating with Sikhs both young and old in a unique way that other historical figures haven鈥檛. I remember my aunt having a huge image of the Guru and the four princes covering one of the walls in her small home. My father would listen to sermons about the children and have tears rolling down his cheeks. Whenever we visited Punjab as a family, without fail we would pay our respects at the memorial sites of these children killed over 300 years ago. In fact, a film about the Sahibzade released a few years ago remains one of the highest grossing animations ever made in India.

The deaths of children are always felt differently, lives never truly fulfilled, futures that might have been and will now never be, and many of us have struggled to understand how Star, Arthur and the four boys from Sutton could have died as they did. There are many questions to be answered, and a national review by the government of safeguarding for children is currently underway. As a family law barrister myself, I have seen how local authorities and other agencies have been struggling due to increasing pressures upon them.

Finding meaning in death is incredibly difficult, especially so when it comes to the violent deaths of young people. However, the onus is on us as a society to find the right way to remember them and more importantly learn lasting lessons from the circumstances of their untimely deaths.

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