The inauguration as pilgrimage
Ali Eteraz argues in the Guardian that the inauguration is a classic example of America's civic religion, and compares it to a pilgrimage:
Barack Obama's inauguration promises to be one of the most important civic events in American history. Millions will make their way to the National Mall. More than 10,000 buses will be chartered. At a website called Inauguration or Bust, people anywhere in the country can find locals to travel with. At the site, the contingent from Savannah, Georgia, refers to its trip as a "pilgrimage". That word, most often associated with religious fervour, is appropriate here. The inauguration buzz is reminiscent of the excitement I have encountered in Muslim countries in the days preceding the hajj.. . .
The inauguration is a ritual, akin to Muslims touching the walls of the Ka'bah in Mecca. It renders tangible the ethereal. It is a reminder that the government is like an idol, a fact that was well known to those who introduced the modern nation-state - the French even raised a new goddess after the revolution - but which goes entirely forgotten by us.
The comparison is not all exalted, however. Quite like the hajj - where wealthy western and Gulf-based Muslims discover their piety in five-star hotels while everyone else stays in a tent city on the desert plain of Mina - the inauguration also offers an insight into inequality.
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Still, for its various issues, the thing about the hajj, ultimately, is that it erases all previous sins. It is a time for renewal. Reincarnation without death. A hopeful look forward. It is upon that principle that Obama's inauguration, the coronation of the first black president in American history, is to be valued. He is a mea culpa for America's original sin. A trip to this inauguration thus becomes a secular hajj for collective redemption.
Read it all here.
