Culture in the Blender

Yesterday, I was reading opinions on the Danish cartoons on BBC, and had some opinions that I wanted to write in my LJ. I sign on today, open BBC – and am greeted by this:

“Embassies burn in cartoon protest

Syrians have set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus to protest at the publication of newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. ”

Say.. WHAT? I just finished writing a comment in shirou’s LJ about the cartoons about whether or not Islam is more violent than other religions… and this really, really isn’t the way to convince people that Islam is a religion they can deal with having next door. 1. No torching of embassies, for any reason, will make you look good. Especially, it will not make you look peaceful. 2. Torching of an embassy which isn’t involved in the row REALLY doesn’t make you look reasonable in any way, shape or form. Hey, look – if you can’t keep straight which country you’re pissed at, why are you expecting us to give your religious icons special treatment? Who knows if we can even be held responsible for telling them apart? Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, old guys in beards – who the hell knows who’s who? Same shit, right? Especially in countries that are so secular.

Which brings me to the point I was thinking of yesterday. I think a root of the cultural miscommunication here is both sides not being able to imagine what living in a country that’s very secular/religious is like. My experiences with the US have shown me that many Americans who are themselves secular have learnt, often by fear, to not offend Christian ideas. They have an uncanny intuition for what’s going to piss them off, an intuition which I lack – because while I was here, my parents provided a buffer and in Europe, things are secular. Secular in a way I don’t think Americans can really imagine, perhaps unless they’ve been expats for 10-20 years. (Or TCKs, of course, but then they’re not American per se either.) If a European prime minister said anything involving “God, “bless”, and the name of their country there would be a media frenzy and probably instant loss of re-election. Just for starters. I think in a similar but more extreme way, also supported by some other interpersonal intercultural encounters. I don’t think that people who grow up in a socially controlling environment, especially where the control is done under the guise of religion, can imagine what living in an environment where that control is lacking, in this case being freedom of press.

However, that does not mean that both sides are equally confused. Au contraire. A large part of the democratic nation-states are (at least limited) universal human rights and freedom of speech, movement, press, etc. This is especially true in Europe. This has the consequence that we have countries in which all kinds of things get criticized all the time, including by children, by women, by ethnic minorities, by all kinds of people. No one is supposed to have a duty to shut up. Every day, major Western newspapers run political satire drawings. Every day, the leaders of the free world get made fun of by their citizens and each other. In the States, people are more reluctant to make fun of religious figures because it is a very religious country, as mentioned before. However, that is not the case in Europe, where the cartoons were published. One of the comments, by Dr Yunes Teinaz, was “We respect the heroes of other religions and we would expect the same from the followers of other religions and ideologies. No Muslim, for example, is allowed to portray a picture of Jesus.” Let me be very clear: Europe cannot be criticizing some religion as compared to its own, because Europe is secular, not religious. I don’t believe in either Jesus or Muhammad. Make fun of either, I don’t care. Teinaz – and probably many others – are assuming that everyone is religious, which is blatantly untrue in the case of Europe. Just like I’ve said before: Muslims have a much better case to argue deliberate and unjust exclusion in the US, where Christianity enjoys such a prevalent, accepted and privileged status, than in Europe, where most people are thoroughly secular.

Sometimes the litte, everyday details make things more clear than the grand scheme. I remember standing around with a group of girls in 4th grade on the schoolyard, gossiping. (The kind of thing I eventually always got excluded from, but anyway.) One of the girls said, “Did you know that (name of boy) believes in God??” with that tone that little Swedish girls use when they are socially outcasting someone. (I know that tone very well.) We laughed at how silly he was to believe in something of which there is no proof. Later, in high school, I always knew who in my circle of acquaintances was Christian. It’s odd, so you remember. They… go to church. They… pray. Like in the middle ages or something. Even so, they never mentioned it in conversations. If they hadn’t admitted to it, (admitted is the word that first comes to mind) I’d never have known. My parents are Christian. I know, because my mother told me once when I was about 14. My parents thought that it was important that I make up my own mind. They asked me to get confirmed so that I would at least know what Christianity was before I rejected it. You will never know that my parents are religious from meeting them. They never say anything to betray it, because to them it is private, to be kept to themselves. I think a large part of it is that they know that if they talk about it, they alienate others – meaning they create conflict, dissonance, problems. They don’t feel a need to talk about it, so why cause the problems?

We had religion instruction in school. In the beginning, it was Christianity specifically. The thought behind it was that because Christianity had historically been part of Europe, it was useful to know some of the key concepts and myths of Christianity. That was exactly what it was. In 4th grade, we started building little paper huts in the archetechtural style used in then Palestine around the time of Jesus’ birth. We were told that Israel used to be called Palestine, which was news to pretty much all of us. I remember thinking, “why would you want to switch names for the same country?” We were told about the Roman empire a little bit. But we spent a lot of time making the huts. It was fun, because I liked arts and crafts. Later in high school, everyone had to take religion class to graduate. Religion class now being knowing the basic tenents of all major world religions. There was no religious religion class offered, ever, and no one ever mentioned the idea. It did not occur to me that religion might be taught as a religion in schools until I came back to the US. Looking back, anyone in the PTA who had brought something like that up would probably looked like a religious fanatic, trying to brainwash children. That’s not wise in Sweden – you will be permanently outcasted for being antisocial for that sort of thing. People will talk, news of your fanaticism will spread.

Hell, you look a bit fanatic for going to church (As in, christian church) regularly, which no one except old ladies who want company does. No one’s going to trust someone who’s so obsessed with religion to be able to set it aside and be secular when they need to. And this is Europe’s historical religion. Muslims may get some more flexibility out of concern that people are not accepting enough of multicultural differences, they may get less because they are Other – I don’t know how it all works out, but I do know that religion is not close to Europe’s heart. It’s not part of people’s lives, their concerns, their social undertakings, their thoughts… I know more about Christianity than most of my Euro friends. Laughing at a religious figure or leader is just like laughing at a secular figure or leader. After all – if there is no God, then all power religious figures and leaders hold is just as secular as that which politicians hold. People being religious and supporting one person (male, of course) or other is just like being an ardent political supporter of someone. Your choice, whatever, blah. Won’t stop anyone from laughing at satire of that person. The cartoons was drawn and published in Denmark, for amusement of the Danish – and the cultural context in which that happened is not intended to offend muslims. Period.

And then conversely, I’m still not used to the very prominent political role that religion plays in the US. I guess fundamentally, I still hold it for so self-evident that for a non-uniform society to work, it must be secular that I expect religious people to adjust their behavior accordingly. They don’t, a significant part of the time. I know I’m not capable of imagining living in an even more religious context, and especially not an extremely sexist and controlling religious context. I have no idea, and for that I am grateful. However, if muslims are anything like American christians, they take offense so incredibly easily on religious matters because the religious is political to them, and hence confusion over what the prime minister of Denmark could do about the row. (To me, clearly, the prime minister cannot and should not do anything to interfere with a newspaper’s right to publish whatever the fuck it wants as long as it’s not committing a crime.) Well, too bad for both the Americans and the Muslims – you do not have an universal human right not to be offended by people who don’t share your religion, or even better, don’t have a religion at all. The international community would only have a case to ask something of Denmark if universal human rights are being violated – and they very simply are not. If you don’t like the cartoon, don’t look at it. If you freak out easily, take some ritalin or something. If you can’t handle being made fun of, justly or unjustly, you simply can’t handle living in this world. You may be hurt, of course, but burning embassies and calling for the death of the cartoonists is just a little too far. And not to mention… Jyllands-Posten apologized for any unintended offense already. Don’t be torching embassies when you got your apology! What else could you possibly, reasonably expect?