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 theological comparison isn't far-fetched. Emerson, Whitman, Dewey, and Rorty all suggested that politics is America's civil religion. This makes the constitution the country's holy text. The division of government into a legislative, executive and judicial branch is an earthly version of a triune deity. As for the presidency, the novelist EL Doctorow described its metaphysical role when he wrote: "With each elected president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into, and get us into, is his characteristic trouble. Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail."

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.

For example, minor ticket touting has been made illegal, but members of the presidential inauguration committee - ie donors who have paid $50,000 or more - are invited to experience the event from exclusive Washington restaurants. Major law firms like Vinson and Elkins are reportedly holding a sumptuous party high above the masses, where the only sardines will be the ones in cliched analogies. Nearby, a lobbying firm will be holding a celebratory event for fellow legislative mercenaries, a chilling reminder of the establishment's intractability. Change you can believe in.

Certainly the more mundane issues of the hajj - no taxis, crashing wireless networks, dirty toilets and bad manners - will also be on prominent display.

And, of course, the parallel wouldn't be complete without the religious police. Enter Pastor Rick Warren, who will give the invocation at the inauguration. He is the man who last summer blatantly administered a religious test upon the presidential candidates at his Saddleback Church, making certain that the world is well aware that in America only someone with Christian credentials should aim for the highest office.

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.

Exactly 150 years ago in Savannah, 400 people were sold in one of the largest slave auctions ever held in the US. On the Inauguration or Bust website the city has so far registered 560 people. They will return as hajis of America's future.

Americans have been indoctrined to live on fantacies. Here almost everything is show-biz. The country has the most expensive democracy. One need to be a millionaire or supported by a bunch of millionaires to take part in its so-called 'democratic' system - which has long become "a system by the rich and for the rich". The cost of Election-2008 was over one billion dollar. Now taxpayers are going to foot ten of millions more to create a Hollywood style event - the cost which could have taken hundreds of homeless off the streets.

The American public is so duped by their Zionist-controlled mass-media to realize that a country which prides on 4,500 billionaires and 300,000 millionaires - more than 46 million of its citizen cannot read or write or over 51 million American cannot afford descent medicare or a woman is raped in the US every 90 seconds or over seven million women are physically abused each year in the US or that the country has the largest jail-birds in the world (2.1% of its population) or the unemployment ranges over 31% among Black youths.....

Rehmat, the real problem in the US is that PR theory has taken over public life. In other words, if the "perception" is that such-and-such is true, then it doesn't matter how far from reality the thing is. And perception is determined by advertising polls and mainstream adherence to advertising "signage." Yeah, it's gross. This new term is already being branded as almost a new Eden and even if it's absolutely no different or worse than the last regime, that is how people need to percieve it because they are given "permission" to indulge in artificial emotions they are starving for, hope of salvation. Not suggesting that hope and salvation are artificial emotions, but when they are created as advertising blurbs with no substance, then, they are artificial.

Thanks for your elegant reminder and putting into perpsective the euphoria surrounding this inauguration Mr. Eteraz.

Mrs.A. Oh Thank God you are alive. I was beginning to think that, er, em. What I mean is that I was beginning to think that you had moved to Washington DC or something. Yep, thats it, moved to Washington DC is what I thought. Phew, what a relief.

>>> 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.

I must admit that it was a very inspiring event. The level of organisation, the excellent delivery of the speech (he is very eloquent), the willing involvement of the public masses .. It was an event that truly reflected the best of American politics. His speech was too vague (and rightly so) to infer anything about policy, but the democractic basis of his leadership is by virtue of his election and by virtue of yesterdays entire process, a tribute to the just possibilities of democracy.

>>> The country has the most expensive democracy. One need to be a millionaire or supported by a bunch of millionaires to take part in its so-called 'democratic' system - which has long become "a system by the rich and for the rich".

Its still more democratic than most of our Muslim countries can ever hope of being (without revolution/politicisation of democracy). And the use of wealth is actually about where you source your funding. And Barak received sizeable amounts of money from ordinary citizens to promote his campaign. That is democratic too.

author >>> The inauguration is a ritual, akin to Muslims touching the walls of the Ka'bah in Mecca.

Doesn't this indicate more and more our Islamic responsibility to politicise our Ummah in a positive way. So that the rituals which speak of fairness and justice and respect, are absorbed into our political and social institutions? That we can be an Ummah of political capacity and not just ritualistic capacity.

>> Posted by MRS.A on January 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah. You're being sorely missed. I hope the inauguration was as cathartic as they say it was.

Rehmat >>> The American public is so duped by their Zionist-controlled mass-media to realize that a country which prides on 4,500 billionaires and 300,000 millionaires - more than 46 million of its citizen cannot read or write or over 51 million American cannot afford descent medicare or a woman is raped in the US every 90 seconds or over seven million women are physically abused each year in the US or that the country has the largest jail-birds in the world (2.1% of its population) or the unemployment ranges over 31% among Black youths.....


These are very very very exaggerated and opportunistic assertions. Rehmat is not very merciful (or fair).

>> more than 46 million of its citizen cannot read or write or over 51 million American cannot afford descent medicare or a woman is raped in the US every 90 seconds or over seven million women are physically abused each year in the US or that the country has the largest jail-birds in the world (2.1% of its population) or the unemployment ranges over 31% among Black youths.....<<

And do you have a better model country to show that the Americans can copy dear Rehmat? Let's have its name???? Its always nice to criticize someone, but if you do not have something better to show them, then you may very well be basically criticizing the best available option on the market. Which can make you look really really stupid. I hope you have an actual country in mind that you would like the Americans to copy ;----) Let's have the name??