As I have been reading the extensive coverage of the Vaisakhi celebration and admired the beautiful photos of this year’s parade, a question came to my mind.
Vaisakhi is a religious celebration and the most important float carries the Guru Granth Sahib – the Sikh holy scripture. Throughout The Leader newspaper, a variety of politicians, community leaders, and businesses have mentioned cultural diversity and that celebrating such diversity makes our community a better place.
It is wonderful to celebrate different cultures.
And yet, I always wonder what happens when December rolls around. All of a sudden politicians, businesses and community leaders seem to twist themselves into pretzels to avoid two little words: Merry Christmas.
Close to 2.2 billion people around the world celebrate Christmas, and we get Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings. Why can’t we acknowledge the Christmas celebration as well? What happened to celebrating diversity?
For those that don’t celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, you don’t have to. I don’t celebrate Vaisakhi as a religious holiday either but I can still enjoy it. I have not changed Happy Vaisakhi to Happy Holidays.
For the Sikh community, Vaisakhi is an important religious day. So is Christmas for Christians.
Before anyone writes in to tell me about the Santa Claus parade, I would like to suggest that the Sikh community would not appreciate it if we changed the Vaisakhi parade into a Muppet Show.
Doris Darvasi
