RAGHEAD TENACITY

Before Nikki Haley, a practicing Sikh and second-generation American, won the runoff for governor in South Carolina on June 22, 2010 with 65% margin, State Senator Jake Knotts called her a raghead. “We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion too,” Senator Knotts said. The senator might even call the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh a “raghead” if he is ever invited to the White House to sit down for a State dinner. Raghead is a slang term used for Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, and other groups who traditionally wear headdresses  such as a turban , keffiyeh or headscarf.

Gov. Haley, President Obama, & Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh

While Nikki Haley’s win of the Republican nomination for governor shows that the majority of Americans have begun to accept faith as a personal choice, it also shows how nervous Americans get when confronted with a show of any faith. Americans can learn from Asians that though faith is a personal matter, it is not necessarily a private one.  Showing one’s faith—or as the Christians say, not hiding your light under a bushel—is an important part of a functioning 21^st century democracy. The pride and conviction in one’s belief contributes to one’s courage and tenacity.  An American will proudly wear his country’s military uniform but has been taught to shy away from advertising his religious and cultural background. Is this a good thing in time of global war?

Take a look at the Muslim ragheads of Afghanistan and the North West Frontier of Pakistan–the Taliban. Their tenacity has pinned down the NATO forces for almost a decade now. Whenever it ends, the war in Afghanistan will be America’s longest war, even longer than Vietnam.

Now take a look at the Hindu ragheads of India. In the Second World War, American forces overcame German positions with massive fire power. But when the Germans counterattacked, the American GIs could not hold their position, even with casualties. So the British, who knew the Indians well, had them hold places once a German position was captured. Lo and behold! Indian soldiers fought with tenacity and would not yield.

Lastly, consider the raghead Sikhs from India’s rural areas. In 1897, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, twenty-one Sikh soldiers held up against about ten thousand Pushtoons of Wazirstan region of the then Afghanistan. Fighting to death, to the last man, the Sikhs slaughtered six hundred of the enemy. The Pushtoons were brought the negotiation table and Waziristan became part of British India. The individual determination of each soldier, following the dictates of the Tenth Guru, led to a decisive victory.

Each of these three groups in the area around the Khyber Pass has shown great tenacity at different moments in history. As NATO stalls and President Obama wavers about a pullout date in Afghanistan, Americans should wonder if wearing the regalia of your group – like the Sikhs – inspires young soldiers to perform more bravely with tenacity.