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Postmortem On The Election:
A Sikh-American's Perspective -
Janam Da Firangee,
Sikhi Mai Mangee
Part V

FATEHPAL SINGH TARNEY

 

 

 






Sardar Mohan Singh ji of Toronto, in feedback to my last column on Trump, made a highly relevant reference to Bhagat Kabir ji’s verse from Guru Granth Sahib:

The bell of the shameless illusionary queen rings in both worlds.” [GGS:476]

Kabir Sahib describes how certain people pretend to be religious and devout only to exploit unwary people. This insight has relevance in both East and West.

In 1960, America had a young, handsome, intelligent president, John F. Kennedy, and an enlightened and  beautiful first lady, albeit both from rich aristocratic families. Given the grandiosity of the Trump family, JFK's White House may be outdone in terms of bombast and flamboyance, but not in terms of dignity and decorum.

The term "Camelot” came to be used retrospectively for the John F. Kennedy administration of 1960-63, and the personal appeal of him and his family. The term was first by his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy. In a Life magazine article, she revealed his affection for the Broadway musical of the same name.

Camelot was the legendary castle and court of King Arthur in Britain in early medieval times. JFK particularly liked the closing lines of the title song: ‘Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot.’

Trump's surrogates are now promoting this “post-truth” era. What matters now, according to them is not, for example, whether Trump's claim of election fraudulent or not. No, what matters is who believes it.

When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Trump senior spin-doctor Kellyanne Conway about the election-fraud claim - specifically, whether disseminating misinformation was “presidential”, her response was, “He’s the president-elect, so that’s presidential behavior.”

This is reminiscent of Nixon: “When the president does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”

These surrogates’ disdain for facts should not be surprising. The “post-truth era” was established before Trump became president-elect.

PolitiFact, a nonpartisan political watchdog, assessed 340 statements made by Trump during the primaries and the presidential campaign itself. 61 were rated as outright lies. Another 114 of them were clearly false. Another 63 were mostly false. Fact-checking by PolitiFact concluded that 70% of the statements made by Trump were mostly false, completely false, or outrageous lies. Another 51 of those statements were deemed to be partially true.

All told, just 4% of what Trump said was deemed to be totally true. Again, it is no longer important what is true, but how many people believe Trump.

It is most unfortunate that those in power rarely learn the lessons of history. President-elect Trump's key advisers, so hostile to Islam, could learn much from a study of the Mutiny of 1857 in India. One reason for this uprising was the determined efforts of evangelists to convert the subcontinent to Christianity.

Did the British, by themselves, put down this insurrection? No! They needed the cooperation of the local population in terms of intelligence, espionage, and direct military and logistical support. Reliable evidence indicates that about 80% of the so-called “British” forces on Delhi Ridge, known as “The Army of Retribution,” were from the subcontinent: Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Gurkha, and others, attacking the city that had become the center of the mutiny by Hindu and Muslim sepoys plus jihadis.

What is the lesson for the West today? Seek the cooperation and support of Muslims around the world in the fight against terrorism and this is not achieved by disparaging their entire religion. When the religious values and customs of any people are threatened, what does one expect? Certainly not collaboration – what usually occurs is rebellion.

It isn’t clear exactly what Trump, despite his rhetoric, would change about President Obama's approach to counter-terrorism. On the campaign trail, Trump said he had a secret plan that would lead to a quick and effective “total victory.”

“I don’t want the enemy to know what I’m doing,” he said.

Is he not aware that large scale military operations do not remain secret for long once they get beyond the drawing board stage?

As Trump makes his Cabinet picks, a few things are becoming clear: He wants generals and billionaires; he values blind loyalty, and he especially values the loyalty of those who funded his presidential campaign. In a triumphal rally in Cincinnati last week, Trump justified his decision to nominate billionaires to important Cabinet posts by saying, “These guys know how to make money, folks.”

Making personal fortunes does not necessarily translate into good government service.

Garrison Keillor, the great American author and storyteller, has said this about our president-elect: “Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president.”

Keillor added: “Alas for the Trump voters, the disasters he will bring on this country will fall more heavily on them than anyone else. The uneducated white males who elected him are the vulnerable ones, and they will not like what happens next.”

An African-American journalist, Shaun King, in the New York Daily News, wrote this about Trump: “He is dangerous and disgusting. He is an offensive, conniving, self-absorbed, misogynistic bigot. He is a self-obsessed liar. He is a gross and gaudy materialist. He is an arrogant, thin-skinned, egomaniac. He has no moral compass. His life is not guided by any redeemable ethics or values.”

In the American frontier of the 19th century, there were unscrupulous persons known as “snake oil salesmen” who used aggressive, boastful, and dishonest claims to sell their products. They promised that their potions would cure everything from dandruff, cancer and impotence to the common cold and athlete's foot. These hucksters would often travel in colorful wagons with an accomplice who would feign some sort of illness and then drink something purported to be the potion and feign to be suddenly cured. They traveled from town to town and when they managed to deceive local townspeople into buying these potions, they quickly departed. Instead of the miracle cures people expected, upon drinking these potions, people went into convulsions and often died.

I fear that the ‘successful’ politician of this season, Donald Trump, has taken a page out of the snake-oil salesman‘s play book.

But we shall see, won't we?


December 16, 2016
 

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A Sikh-American's Perspective -
Janam Da Firangee,
Sikhi Mai Mangee
Part V"









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