President Barack Hussein Obama’s election marked a new “Morning in America.” Not because he is black, but because he is different, and authentic.
His importance to me — as an irreligious first-generation American girl of Indian Sikh heritage — and to millions like me, minorities in different ways, is incalculable. We no longer believe we are any less American for being first-generation or non-white or non-Christian.
His significance lies in the very reason some Americans insinuate he is not one of us: He’s different. He’s different in his heritage; in that he admits that America, while great, is not perfect; in that he respects foreign cultures; in that he doesn’t hesitate to buck political dogma; and in that he frequently speaks his mind, sometimes colorfully, sometimes too soon, but always without malice.
It bothers many Americans that President Obama forsook neither his Arabic first name, Barack, nor his Kenyan surname, Obama — and not even his Islamic middle name, Hussein. But that is precisely why I admire him. Unlike Americans who adopt Anglican names to circumvent cultural prejudice, he chose to keep his name in its entirety — becoming President without compromising his identity and in spite of claims he was “secretly Muslim,” as if that were a “bad thing.”
The era of white Christian hegemony over American life is over, and we have President Obama to thank for signaling its end. His Presidency has nudged us away from our melting pot syndrome and toward our acceptance of a mosaic of cultures and religions that seek to coexist harmoniously. It has prompted our increasing acceptance of acculturation as an alternative to assimilation: our increasing acceptance of multiculturalism and its notion that minorities may adapt rather than abandon their culture to be full members of society.
To appreciate the perniciousness of a cultural melting pot, we need look no farther than the tortured history of Jews pockmarked by millennia of persecution for little more than wanting to maintain their cultural identity. The haunting Jewish refrain “Do you have a bag packed?” captures the universal angst of persecuted minorities everywhere — of blacks fleeing the Deep South no less than of Jews fleeing Europe.
And nowhere has the plight of Jews been worse than in Christian Europe and the Islamic Middle East. Europe gave us the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust, while the Middle East continues to give us the unending tumult of jihads. But when President Obama reminded us of the Crusades in discussing ISIS, he sparked outrage, purportedly because he was comparing current events with a historical anomaly. As if the Crusades were not followed by centuries of European pogroms, or the inhumanity of white Christian Europe had long receded and Jewish cemeteries were not being desecrated there, as in Hungary and Poland and Germany.
In striking contrast, Jews have been comfortably ensconced in India’s religious and cultural mosaic since around 500 BCE, without ever facing local pressure or incentive to compromise their identity, as in America. That Indian Jews alone immigrated to Israel “not out of persecution or need, but simple desire” has but one explanation: India’s multiculturalism, cradled by the pluralism of Hinduism, India’s predominant religion and culture that predates every other extant religion. In contrast, each of the three major Abrahamic religions is exclusivist: Jesus is the “only way” (John 14:6), Muhammad is the “final prophet” (Quran 33:40) and Jews are the “chosen people” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). This mutual incompatibility of these three religions is what causes many non-Indians to be astonished that a Jewish spiritual leader could be venerated in India not only by Jews, and Hindus, but also by Christians and Muslims. What could speak louder to the virtue of acculturation and multiculturalism, values toward which President Obama has prodded us?
In light of the historical bigotry of white Christian Europe, to which most Americans trace their roots, America’s ever-increasing secularism and multiculturalism can only be welcomed. Whereas our focus since 9/11 has been on the scourge of Islamic terrorism, white and Christian extremism have been pervasive in America since its first European settlers: Witness the recent Charleston church shooting and the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting before that, respectively.
If culture is what makes us human, multiculturalism is what signifies our humanity.
President Obama set himself apart from Hillary Clinton eight odd years ago, and then again from Mitt Romney four years later, by his authenticity: By distancing himself neither from his past, nor from his non-European and non-Christian heritage, as have other American politicians.
We Americans welcome self-reinvention, but we value authenticity. “And that has made all the difference.”
Contact Gitika Nalwa at gitikanalwa ‘at’ gmail.com.