I stood along New York City’s Broadway, one of several Americans watching the Sikh Day Parade pass by. What struck me most were the images of East and West, contrasting and coming together. Traditional American “Fife and Drum” music with its simple, brassy rhythm gave way to soft, complex ragas. Many of the marchers, in their brilliant Punjabi costumes, wore Reeboks on their feet perhaps America’s greatest contribution to civilization since democracy! By the time the Statue of Liberty drifted by on her float, I half expected to see a long braid trailing down her back.
In this country, Sikhs are an easily identified minority and to American’s, are exotic looking. But, I wondered, were my own grandparents, Jews who immigrated to New York City from Russian villages at the tum of the century, any less exotic looking in their day to the English, Trish and German Christians that comprised America’s majority?
It was easy to forget, caught up in the music and colors of the parade, the tragic reasons why many Sikhs were forced to leave their homeland, and how similar their leave taking was to my grandparents with persecution at their heels. It’s also easy to forget that many Americans regardless of their origins or the wealth they have amassed have roots in economic hardships and oppression.
The well-known term for this country is a “melting pot,” where people of different cultures blend together. But Mayor David Dinkins the first African American elected to this position in New York City uses a phrase that I prefer, “a beautiful mosaic”. Each distinct culture, with its traditions, dress, food and religion, is a tile in that mosaic, contributing to the whole picture without sacrificing its identity. In an ideal world, the picture would be harmonious. But it isn’t.
The American impressions I’ve heard about Sikhs tend to fall into two camps. People I know in the business world who do trade with ‘Sikhs view them as honest and disciplined if being a tight knit group difficult to penetrate.
The other opinion is less positive that Sikhs are “terrorists”, or, at best, warlike barbarians, who’d just as stab you with that “knife of theirs” as talk to you. Many also believe Sikhism to be a militaristic sect of Islam.
“Be careful”, more than one well educated, well-meaning and totally misinformed friend warm about my friendship with several Sikh families. These people are fierce.”
“Yes, I’ve learned to reply. “They are very fierce, you can tell just by their daily habits. They go to work, come home, play with their children, pray, make chapattis, and often perform the ancient warrior rituals of doing the laundry and watching a video.
This attitude says Baldev Singh of the Sikh Cultural Society towards Sikhs was reflected by the New York City Police Department in 1984, which, on the first Immigrant Day Parade, sent riot squads to protect American bystanders from Sikh participants. As I watched the Sikh’s third annual parade, I wondered what it was the police had wanted to protect the public from in84. The disciplined ranks of men in their magnificent turbans? Perhaps the women marchers pushing babies in their strollers? Or was it the elderly people singing hymns on one of the floats?
In time, the Police Department learned to call off their dogs. The New York City Parks Department had a similar awakening: the Sikh Day Parade according to Mr Jagjit Singh Mangat, President of the Sikh Cultural Society holds the record for getting full refunds on the deposits parade officials must make to cover potential property damages.
Now the float passed by which heralds Punjab as the “Bread Basket of India.” An entire region of rich, productive farmland similar to California is not an association most Americans make with India, bombard as we are by the standard media images of the subcontinent; starving millions with their begging bowls crowded together in decaying cities. Almost as living proof of the Punjab’s bounty, the elderly people following the Bread Basket float seemed particularly healthy and I watched them with awe; straight-backed, moving along right in stride with these years younger.
But for me the best part of the parade was yet to come when it culminated in a large gathering of people at Union Square. I felt like I was in a dream; walking along the route I normally take from work, making a left and winding up in Amritsar. This is one of the great things about living in New York City; I thought you don’t have to plunk down money for a plane ticket to visit another culture.
The crowd at a standstill, now many details came into focus and many questions came to mind that a curious onlooker might ask. Why are there so many shades of orange and blue? Do these colors have religious significance? What do the five flag bearers represent? Guru Nanak appears to have been a gentle farmer, yet Guru Gobind Singh seems to have been more at home on the battlefields than the wheat fields. Why? I scanned the leaflet handed to me by a member of the Sikh Cultural Society and chatted with him for answers.
I learned how the Sikhs picked up the sword against tyranny and invaders from the north hundreds of years ago. Listening to the speeches and to the call for Khalistan, I also learned that Sikhs are now suffering from an invasion by their own country’s government; the violation of human rights. While human rights atrocities in Central America and parts of Asia are known to us, those in Punjab are downplayed by our media. Similarly, while America gloats over the recent liberation of Eastern Europe and the fall of the Communist Party the good news glosses over a frightening by product of this liberation anti-Semitism is free to flourish and once again is on the rise.
With all its flaws, America does Offer, as a tenet of democracy, the Tight to free and peaceable assembly for all its peoples; to make our protests heard without fear of violence done to us, It seemed appropriate for Americans to listen to the Sikhs message in Union Square, where the city’s east side meets its west side.
The Square has played a role in the right to assembly, particularly in the first half of this century, and like London’s Hyde Park, was a world symbol of free speech. Demonstrations held here once drew crowds of 20,000 people or more in a moment’s notice. Speakers included intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders, radicals and physicians dedicated to social causes. But the majority of protestors were working men and women who were registering their outrage at the troubles in the world and demanding justice. The right to an eight hour day as well as unemployment and social security benefits was called for in Union Square. Today these things are taken for granted, but when introduced on the Square’s podium 40 years ago, were considered radical and dangerous.
Perhaps the most famous gathering was in 1913 when striking silk workers from Patterson, New Jersey offered their hungry children for adoption, whom they could no longer afford to care for. All the children on the platform found temporary homes and were eventually restored to their families after the strike,
On the whole, despite noisy enthusiasm demonstrations were orderly and peaceful. There were incidents of violence and arrests -some warranted, others instigated, such as the faked encounters common in Punjab today.
There are indeed times in the country when our right to speak out has been violated: when the police are used to protect the interest of big business rather than protectors of the people, when voices are silenced by the media’s allegiance to its powerful advertisers when the families of outspoken men and women are terrorized by hired thugs. All the more reason that the right to our beliefs is one that must be constantly exercised; to safeguard democracy and keep it vigorous,
Sad to say, Union Square no longer thunders with protest in our city, where “each man for himself has become the norm. Perhaps that is why, as American, it was heartening to hear voices rise, this time from some of the newest citizens.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 11, 1990
