SURVIVOR STORIES: Pardeep Singh
Pardeep Singh’s father was killed during the mass shooting at a gurudwara in Wisconsin. He founded the organisation Serve 2 Unite in response to the attack.
Pardeep Singh talks about how it feels to survive a mass shooting attack, which took place in his local gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. He describes a mixture of trauma and survivor guilt. The attack, mounted by white supremacist and veteran Wade Michael Page, ended with the shooter’s suicide. Pardeep sees Page as an outsider, alienated and miserable, and feels empathy for Page’s struggles, despite his anger at his actions. He speculates that Wade was compensating for a lack of self-esteem, and dealing with an internalised sense of inferiority. Pardeep is also concerned about violent and racist attitudes instilled during military service. He is concerned about all groups which become closed off and exclusive, and create dichotomies of good and evil, instead of embracing the full complexity of human experience. He identifies white supremacist attitudes as deeply embedded in American culture, and speaks to the power of forgiveness to move forward.