 Together We Stand  |
In a world climate where racial and religious intolerance claim thousands of lives every day, the Sikh community was shocked by images and text in the videogame Hitman 2 portraying Sikhs being killed within their most prominent temple, the Harimander Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple.
In response to the video game, Sikh organizations around the world organized the Hitman 2 Recall Campaign. The campaign began on October 16 when the Sikh Coalition contacted Sikh organizations around the globe to begin drafting a petition to the company. On October 17th, representatives of SikhNet, Sikh Coalition, Sikh Communications Council, The Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force, and the Sikh Council on Religion and Education began to meet and discuss strategic responses to the company and the video game.
At the same time, WORKSE and other Sikh organizations were meeting in England. On October 20, these groups, in conjunction with 40 other Sikh organizations around the world, launched an on-line petition drive to recall and change the game. This was followed, on October 31st, by a letter-writing campaign to retailers and elected officials. Over the course of three weeks, the recall campaign and online petition garnered the co-sponsorship of over 150 Sikh and non-Sikh organizations world-wide. Over 10,000 people signed the online petition. In addition, California Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante and New Mexico Lt. Governor Walter Bradley publicly offered their support to the Sikh community, issuing statements to the public, the company, and the retailers about the issue.
The setting for some of the worst violence in Hitman 2 was a Sikh temple whose description matches the Harimander Sahib located in Amritsar, the most prominent shrine for the Sikhs and one of the few places of worship on earth built to welcome people from all religions, cultures, and backgrounds to worship God together.
After weeks of non-stop negotiations with Eidos, Eidos announced on Friday, November 8th, 2002, that it would modify existing versions of the game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and that the new game would be ready for the market within three to six weeks. Modifications will be done on the versions of the game already released on the PC, XBOX and Playstation 2 platforms. In addition, the game will be modified for the not-yet-released Gamecube version.
The agreement is being seen as a sign of social and corporate responsibility on the part of Eidos. In a corporate statement published on its Hitman 2 website, the company stated, “Eidos recognizes the value of upholding the Company’s good corporate citizenship status and strives to observe high standards of ethical behaviour in all its business activities. To that end, the lessons learned from the concerns expressed by the Sikh community will help to ensure that the Company continues to observe and respect cultural, religious and ethical sensitivities in its future products.”
A public statement to the Sikh community on behalf of the Sikh organizations leading the campaign reads, in part, “We would like to thank Eidos for being receptive to our concerns once they were raised and we applaud the positive steps taken by Eidos in showing corporate sensitivity to Sikhs. It should be stressed that neither Eidos nor IO Interactive meant to cause any offence to Sikhs. Accordingly, we believe that a satisfactory conclusion has been reached in the interests of all parties.”
On Thursday, November 14, Wal*Mart, the largest retailer in the United States, announced that it had run out of stock of the Hitman 2 game and would not reorder until the updated version of the game was available for the market.
“We believe this outcome is testimony to the power of working collectively as a Sikh community as well as to approaching difficult situations in a spirit of cooperation with the corporate world,” said Avtar Hari Singh Khalsa, Executive Director for SikhNet. “Going into this process with a win/win attitude from the outset set the stage for a successful resolution. We would like to thank all the Sikh and non-Sikh organizations and all the members of the public worldwide who supported these important efforts.”