Issue Position: Community

Issue Position

Sat Sri Akaal. I greet you as a Sikh today because we are all Sikhs today.

On my visits here over the years, I learned a little of the Sikh's history; of the martyrdom of Guru Arjun; of the Ghallooghaaraa; of the massacres of 1984.

To these thousands of Sikh martyrs, we now enroll the names of the fallen at Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

I also learned of the Kirpan. Physically, it is an instrument of non-violence, to be drawn only as a last resort to defend the innocent and defenseless. Spiritually, it is a reminder that truth always defeats untruth; justice always defeats injustice; good always defeats evil.

It did that day, though at horrific cost.

Sikhs have always faced adversity with dignity, charity and goodwill. And each time, they have become stronger. All Americans -- many of whom knew nothing of the Sikhs -- learned a great deal about you as they grieved with you on that day. United in grief, we were all Sikhs.

I remember Rev. Gill, reaching out across a gulf of ignorance and misunderstanding to unite the Sikh community with your fellow Americans. He saw in this country, as you did, a great nation comprised of people from around the world, coming here first and foremost, to live as equals in religious freedom and tolerance. That is why the first pilgrims came to America. That's why the Sikhs came to America.

A year ago, I spoke at the funeral of Gupreet Singh, who responded to Rev. Gill's vision by enlisting in the United States Marine Corps, to serve and defend his adopted country because of the good he saw in her.

He knew the danger; but he laid his life down for the very principles that are fundamental both to the founding of the Sikh religion and to the founding of the American nation. In doing so, he brought Rev. Gill's teachings to life.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Abraham Lincoln said that although many people then in America could trace their families back to the American founding, many more had come since then, and could not. But, he said, "when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are."

I raise this point because of the old saying, that even out of evil some good can come. We must look to the good, and the good is this: your fellow Americans united with you to share your grief and outrage; I hope that you have all seen evidence of that in the days since then.

You came here because you saw in America the same principles taught by the Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Out of this tragedy, many, many of your fellow Americans saw in you those same principles being lived in a moment of unspeakable tragedy and adversity.

That's the karma of it, I think: that this one evil individual wanted more than anything to drive the Sikhs out of America by committing this terrible crime. But instead of dividing us it has made the Sikhs a stronger part of our community and our nation than ever before.

We mourn the dead, but from their sacrifice, we have taken a great leap closer to Rev. Gill's vision of a thriving Sikh community that has become an inseparable, fundamental and organic part of the American nation.

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