We’re All Sikhs Now
The shooting of Sikhs at a temple in Milwaukee is generating the usual blather about senseless violence, the paranoid racialist right, and the patriotism of Sikh immigrants. I finally heard, this morning, the inevitable, "Today, we are all Sikhs."
Excuse me, but no, I am not now and shall never be a Sikh.
Sikhs, because they are frequently confused with Muslims have been subjected to harassment since 911. The confusion is unfortunate but not inexplicable. (people from the subcontinent with beards and turbans and a history of violence. It is true that there was an anti-Sikh pogrom in India in 1984, but that was after Indira Gandhi was murdered by her Sikh bodyguards.
Sikhs claim, probably sincerely, that theirs is a religion of peace, but it is a pro-active kind of peace that requires them to carry a dagger at all times. This custom has led to numerous legal battles in which, generally speaking, Sikhs have won the right to carry their kirpans in places where all other weapons, including small pocket knives, would be banned.
In interviews Sikhs in America have stressed their patriotism and called for better education about Sikhs. I wonder. Is it really the duty of Americans to study the cultural oddities of every group our anti-American government decides to foist upon us?
Speaking personally, I have nothing against Sikhs, and of the peoples who have come her from the Subcontinent, they seem the most admirable. But if the term "American" still means anything, Sikhs are not Americans, and their incessant demands that Americans learn more about this very alien culture and religion comes very close to whining.
The shooter did something very evil. Let us make no mistake about that. And decent people should resist the temptation to sympathize with a killer, simply because the Southern Poverty Law Center calls him a racist and a Neo-Nazi. This is a great moment for the SPLC and for America-haters everywhere, but please remember that the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. One of the main reasons I disapprove of the pagan ethnic nationalism that is on the rise is the disastrous moral effect it has on weak-minded people.
While I wish no harm to Sikhs, I have no idea why such people have been permitted to take up residence in the United States. Yes, I know, their children go to public school, play football and video games, drink and probably snort coke. But so long as they belong to an extremely alien religion, they can have little or nothing in common with Americans who understand that their heritage is classical, European, Christian, and British.
When Sikhs had their own empire, they privileged their co-religionists. In the end, they lost out and have a hard time in their homeland, squeezed between Hindus and Muslims. The old prover, "You have made you bed so you can lie in it," might be applied to them, but, no. So long as America exists, there will be a bed for every failed revolutionary or violent loser in the world.
I take it back. If everyone in the world can be an American, then we Americans can all be Sikhs.
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This is what needed to be said.
It might be worth pointing out that imperial hubris seems to be one reason why Sikhs have so diasporized (if you will). Originally confined to the Punjab, Sikhism was defeated in its national manifestation by Great Britain and then geographically violated by the partition of the subcontinent.
It also seems less weird than Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and many varieties of Buddhism and less physically threatening than Islam. It's a kind of "low-mosque" Islam--no rituals, no priests, no religious (monks, celibates, mendicants, etc.). Reminds me a little of Quakers (woops! Shouldn't've said that).
Sikhism is NOT a religion of peace. I say this despite having very close Sikh friends whom I admire fondly. It's not an insult, but a matter of FACT.
Sikhs - or Sardars as they are more commonly known here - were formed as a membership group, not a religion. A membership group formed strictly for the purpose of **fighting foreign invaders**. The word "Sardar" itself means "Officer" of any army. When the sole purpose of this membership group is to serve as a soldier in a time of war, how can we call it either a religion or a religion of peace? I attest on all these details from older Sikhs to whom I have spoken.
As a matter of fact, a very old Sikh poet - who is the father of a close friend - told me it was a serious retrogression in their tradition that one could become Sikh by birth or that it became a separate distinct religion (which it never was, since anyone can be a "Sardar" or officer in an army). It's why this man's son does not wear a turban or grow a beard or call himself a Sikh - one must become a Sikh, not just be born as one. If anyone can be a Sardar, it's as good as no one being a Sardar.
However, Dr. Fleming, they do have *something* in common with the Anglo-American world. Bhagat Singh Shind and other Sikhs who have lived in the US have served in the US Army and fought in the World Wars on the American side, so that at least privileges the likes of Shind to being called American. Also, since being a Sikh by definition means being a soldier, it is so that Sikhs were one of the largest forces in the colonial British army and have fought in El Alamein, Gallipoli, and other parts of North Africa. (If that counts for British heritage at all.)
The inhuman and dastardly act of an Caucasian religious fanatic killing six innocent Sikh worshippers in Wisconsin needs to be condemned in the strictest possible terms.
It is high time that Americans review their lax and antiquated gun laws, as we live in times which are different from the days of the old wild west when the gun was a mandatory protective weapon.
Today sophisticated weapons are easily purchased from stores in America and more often than not , being used not as a weapon to protect one but to further his sects or group's extremist views ,perpetrated through massacre of innocents.
The diaspora of Sikhs spread across the world are law abiding peaceful citizens holding eminent positions in both government, corporate and their businesses.
I was also shocked that not a word of condemnation was received from either Preet Bhararah, Bobby Jindal Ojjwal Dosanjh or Nikki Hailey prominent Sikhs and Punjabis.
This is a shot across the bow and henceforth Sikhs need to be extra vigilant about their own safety and security.
The steps i suggest are as follows
The Sikhs should lobby with American law makers that nobody should be allowed to carry an arms weapon any where near a place of relious worship barring for law enforcement officers.
Sikhs should increase security across Gurudwaras and introducing frisking of everyone who wishes to enter the temple including the much revered Golden temple.
More education is necessary to dispel the notion about Sikhs being a similar religious sect as that of Muslims, as we seem to be falling prey to a case of mistaken identity far to frequently.
More Prominent Sikh citizens of preeminent standing in society should increase their endeavors to lobby with Governments all across the world to demand that our religious rights and Identity is not only protected but preserved.
The absurd frisking of Sikh Turbans, which is a Sikh religious dress needs to end, we have seen the discrimination that we were subject to in France and tarred with the same brush as Muslims there.
Are Christian nuns and the Priests including the Pope defrocked or asked to remove his cassock, in airports as a part of security check when he travels abroad
It is high time we proud martial race stood up for our religious rights rather than remain meek and submissive.
Time to act and with alacrity and unity.
With Warm Regards
Arvinder Walia
Kolkata
India
Mr. Sanjay's exception is only valid if one regards the United States as a multi-ethnic empire that recruits aliens to fight its wars. Otherwise, such people can be regarded as mercenaries or soldiers of fortune or allies. Our country was founded by certain sorts of peoples with a particular language, culture, and religion. It welcomed an increasingly diverse set of immigrants--Eastern and Southern European Catholics--but on condition that they make an effort to assimilate to our way of life. Since Catholics were here from the beginning--or in the case of Louisiana and the Southwest--even before the beginning, they only presented a problem if they tried to reproduce some of the Catholic institutions of the Old World. Jews had always been part of the European experience and came to be accepted, though not without resistance. That's about it. Hindus and Muslims who wish to become American have to at least go through the motions of pretending to be Christian, though I should hope they would do a better job of it than the President.
I hope that nothing I have said will be interpreted in any way as extenuating, much less justifying the crime. If he were alive, a just society would give him a speedy trial, followed immediately by an execution. He has, fortunately, saved us the expense.
PS Arvinder Walia has made my case far more powerfully than I could ever hope to. "It is high time we proud martial race stood up for our religious rights rather than remain meek and submissive." Considering the history of this martial race, we might well be in for it.
The fact that a utopian and now tyrannical government places aliens within the borders of my "country" does not make them my countrymen.
This says nothing about the alien's inferiority or superiority, or whether he is good or bad. It just means he all too frequently these days does not share my ethnicity, faith, history, culture, or traditions, things that were considered pretty basic in forming a nation of any description at one time. Is it possible that a modern application of Deuteronomy 19:14, "You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark, which the ancestors have set. . .", can be found here? The boundary markers in this case are my history, laws, traditions, and Christian culture expressed (imperfectly!) in the Constitution, and the Declaration that have been and are continuing to be moved by an overweening government, on behalf of many of these aliens and ultimately for the furtherance of that government's power.
While a shared humanity and imago dei demand our compassion and succor, there is nothing in this horrible incident that requires that I embrace them as fellow countrymen.
Point taken, Dr. Fleming.
Actually, while I am very much on your side, I must hedge my agreement.
Admitting that many of us outside US often take a rather warped view of the place, it has been hard for some here to shake off the impression of US being a country that has produced Scientology, Nation of Islam, Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, Seventh Day Adventists, Latter Day Saints, the Christian Science Church, Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidian, the People's Temple of Jim Jones, and the Messianic cult of Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The argument goes, "If they are okay, why not Sikhs or Muslims?"
Again, I am often annoyed by fellow acquaintances who take such warped views of foreign countries by reducing them to their worst stereotypes. I don't approve of it. And the stereotype I describe above is a very unfair one - those groups don't represent all or even most of American society, obviously.
But in this part of Asia, it's particularly common for people to see America as a place where there is no social sanction on anything - whether a person is one of LaVey's Satanists or one of Farrakhan's Brothers, anybody and everybody can be anything and everything. That seems to be the ticket for Asians who settle there - "If I am rubbing shoulders with Scientologists and Mormons, who'll care that I am a Sikh?"
You are right that there are conditions for assimilating into any part of the world, especially the US. But this is completely news in the minds of some subcontinental people who (wrongly) see US as a place where all New Age cults thrive.
I entirely agree with Prateek, both with his view of how America is regarded and with the conclusions he draws from it. Even though this conception is largely the creation of academia and the media, it is in the process of becoming reality. In major cities like Chicago, New York and even Milwaukee, it is the reality in which most of the inhabitants have to live, and within a decade it may well be universal. That is why the poor Sikhs could never understand the argument I have been making. Before too long, if it has not already happened, it is I who will be the unAmerican, not the fetishists, cannibals, and Santerians.
Prateek,
" produced Scientology, Nation of Islam, Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, Seventh Day Adventists, Latter Day Saints, the Christian Science Church, Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidian, the People's Temple of Jim Jones, and the Messianic cult of Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The argument goes, "If they are okay, why not Sikhs or Muslims?"
What else could be the inevitable result of a theology that doesn't ask what is the good but what is good for me? If everybody can make it up as they go along, if every opinion is as good as every other, if the purpose of life is to look forward and forget the past, then why not "let everything crackpotm, cruel and crass, celebrate itself as Mass."
I have two thoughts on this.
One is regarding the comment about alien cultures not assimilating into America. I remember a diversity training I had to take in High School as part of my job as an usher at the Shakespeare Festival. I was the only Asian there, and the talk was almost entirely about black and white issues. The one thing they said that I thought interesting was that the "Melting Pot" analogy was wrong, evil, horrible, and outdated. Instead, the new paradigm was a salad, where a tomato could be a tomato and a cucumber a cucumber and we could all hang out together without losing our unique identities. I guess they never considered the cucumbers might decide to attack the tomatoes or vice versa.
The other thought is applying this to my own South Korean heritage and my Mom and latter-day Korean immigrants. Like many other ladies, my Mom married an American military man stationed in Southeast Asia and came back to the States with him. She became a citizen, learned English (even through some heavy Southern drawls), learned how to cook cornbread and fried okra (while never forgetting how to cook Bulgoki and Bim Bim Bop), and is, I believe, an all around great American citizen (she's always been a devout Catholic, even growing up in Korea). She certainly has a healthy patriotic love for America and considers herself American and not Korean. Skip to some modern day associates of hers, and the opposite is true. Some of them even refuse to teach their children English even though it winds up hurting them in school. They call on my Mom to be their translator when they have to go to the Doctors. They only go to an all Korean parish with a Korean priest. They take pride in Korea first and America second (if at all).
Some closing questions not mean to be offensive. I've noticed that the flag is at half-staff as a result of this temple shooting. Has it always been the case that the flag is half-staffed whenever violence occurs somewhere in America? What are the regulations governing this? I feel like the flag is almost always at half-staff now-a-days. Is that because the regulation has been overtaken by sentimentality, or are things just really much worse? Or both?
"She became a citizen, learned English (even through some heavy Southern drawls), learned how to cook cornbread and fried okra "
Vince,
This is the key. The second thing, after learning how to cook cornbread and fried okra, is to like it and then of course, full citizenship. rr
Robert,
That was a good one. Not often I smile at work (I'm a follower of the School of John Wemmick), but that one got me. Thanks!
All murders are evil whether motivate by racial, religious or for any other reason. As Dr. Fleming suggests, there should be a speedy trial and execution for the culprits. However our media blows these extreme acts of violence totally out of proportion and makes distorted generalizations that are politically motivated. Even 10 acts of violence (movie massacres, etc.) per year represent an infinitesimally small sample size when you consider that the USA comprises over 300 million people.
As far as immigration, the ethnic sample size in proportion to the overall population is also the important determinant in effect up the overall ethnic makeup of the country. The Sikh's are doomed to American cultural assimilation as are many other insignificant immigrant groups in a generation or two. They will repeat the experience of many other immigrant groups who came to this country in much greater numbers than the Sikh's such as the various types of Jews or Asians who do not share the Christian heritage or ethnicity of America's founders. In the case of the Jews, there may be an exception to the rule with their significant impact upon American life in areas cultural, political and financial....but there may be other factors significantly different from the experience of other immigrant groups which probably explain their influence upon the vast majority of Americans. However, when a group exceeds a certain percentage of the population (perhaps 20% and higher) as in the case with the Hispanic immigration (legally and illegally) over the past century then there is more cause for concern upon its cultural and political impact upon the general population. Even in the case of the growing Hispanic population, assimilation occurs quite rapidly given the tremendous pull of our neo-pagan American pop culture but even then, our current governmental policies such as affirmative action and knuckle-headed public education programs consigns many of these folks into cultural and ethnic ghettos longer than necessary where languages such as Spanglish are the norm. Unfortunately, progressive/Marxist politicians and government bureaucrats never look to history and study 'objective' statistical studies......they are too busy trying to create an egalitarian and utopian future with the goal of making caucasian Christians as an insignificant minority.