by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
I am appalled with your choice for Face of the Day. I realize that the words you used to accompany the picture were not designed to whip up anti-Sikhism in the same way the picture was, but the picture, with its violent, retributive elements, is stronger than the text.
Last night, I watched CNN as Don Lemon interviewed the president of an American Sikh organization. I also saw an interview with the nephew of the Wisconsin's temple's president. The nephew's uncle was seriously injured and the nephew had spoken directly with eyewitnesses. Both men impressed me with their kindness, their calmness, and their clear commitment to retaining the values of their religion as they spoke. They also were clearly not anti-American. They reminded me most of those Amish who were magnanimous after a madman killed many of their children.
Are Sikhs saints? No more than members of any other religion. I am aware that Sikh extremists murdered Indira Gandhi and almost certainly were responsible for bringing down Air India Flight 182, out of Vancouver. But on the day after American Sikhs were murdered for no good reason, and quite possibly because someone saw them in exactly the threatening terms that you chose to accentuate by using that image, why focus on that image?
At the very least, it's a kind of hitting people when they are down; at worst, it's a gross distortion of what American Sikhs are like, especially those who were so cruelly attacked while celebrating the birth of a child. If some overly Protestant nutjob had walked into an American Catholic church and killed people, would you have put up an image of gun-wielding Irish (Irish as in: living in Ireland, not Irish as in: 100 years ago your family came here to escape the famine) Catholic extremists? The crime happened here, it was the fault of at least one American, and it happened to people in America. It didn't happen in India and it didn't happen because of weapon-wielding anti-American Sikhs in India.
I was, by the way, uncharacteristically impressed with CNN's coverage, largely because of the interviews Lemon conducted with the president of the Sikh organization. Too much post-trauma coverage indulges in mindless speculation and repetition. Lemon sought to use this tragedy as opportunity to educate his viewers – to talk about the differences between the Sikhs and Muslims and even to explain the issues about their turbans. Although I have visited India (Karnataka, not Punjab) twice and work with many Indians, including some Sikhs, Lemon brought out aspects of the religion of which I was unaware – e.g., that they have long favored equality for women and that their religion urges them to remember the what is joyful even in the face of a tragedy.
Also worth watching: Ebert highlights a clip from Dastaar: Defending Sikh Identity, a documentary that "presents the struggle of the Sikh American community against discrimination and violence caused by ignorance of an essential symbol of the Sikh faith — the dastaar , or turban." Update from a reader:
While Wikipedia is an excellent source of information it is, in this case it is way off the mark, when describing the Khanda. The Khanda is the symbol of the Sikhs, as the
Cross is to Christians or the Star of David is to Jews. It reflects some of the fundamental concepts of Sikhism. The symbol derives its name from the double-edged sword (also called a Khanda) which appears at the center of the logo. This double-edged sword is a metaphor of Divine Knowledge, its sharp edges cleaving Truth from Falsehood. The circle around the Khanda is the Chakar. The Chakar being a circle without a beginning or end symbolizes the perfection of God who is eternal. The Chakar is surrounded by two curved swords called Kirpans. These two swords symbolize the twin concepts of Meeri and Peeri – Temporal and Spiritual authority introduced by Guru Hargobind. They emphasize the equal emphasis that a Sikh must place on spiritual aspirations as well as obligations to society.
As a small religion, which has lacked a sovereign home of its own since before the Raj, and one which in which its diaspora is widely but thinly dispersed, it is often misrepresented by other more vocal communities from the subcontinent. It would be a shame that, in this tragedy, the opportunity to educate the wider population, about a religion with more adherents than Judaism and one that suffered a state-sanctioned genocide in 1984, was missed.
The Dish 