A powerful rabbi in the Williamsburg neighborhood of New York didn’t want bike lanes near the Jewish ghetto. The sight of girls with their heads and, at times, even their calves exposed would have been unbearable, even though it’s winter now and girls certainly go around bundled up at this time. In short, the powerful rabbi complained to the Department of Transportation insisting that the runways had to go. And the leads disappeared within a few weeks. As expected, some (Jewish) youths redone the track by painting it by hand, and unleashed the rabbi’s wrath: his group of vigilantes detained the boys until the police arrived. Then he asked that the boys be arrested, and so it was: they presented themselves spontaneously.
Okay, at first sight these are absurd claims if you live in New York. The thing is, Hasidic people shouldn’t see half-naked women, and they’ve also complained in the past about risqué posters (advertising for Sex and the City) on the road from Brooklyn to Queens. But what do they do when they come to Manhattan to work? Do they wear a blindfold until they enter the shops? What’s more, the road that runs alongside the Hasidic ghetto is pretty much the only bike route from Williamsburg to Dumbo or Brooklyn Heights. Therefore, cycle path or not, the flow of sexy cyclists is destined to continue, albeit with greater risks for their safety. Perhaps we could think of a service that offers wings and capes to cyclists crossing the “no skin zone”.
Some say that indecent clothing is just an excuse, while the real problem is to leave the number of car lanes intact within the ghetto and restore the parking spaces that have been devoured by the cycle lane. The need for so many parking spaces is due to the fact that Hasidic people often don’t travel on the subway or on buses, but on board vans or coaches, and small trips (for shopping, etc.) mostly take place with private cars. Children go to school with buses that park where, until recently, there were cycle lanes. This lifestyle requires a lot of parking space. And I suspect that yes, sometimes some cyclists whiz a little too carelessly past the children on their way to school. But bike lanes or not, parking in New York is increasingly rare so, in the end, maybe something will have to change. In Antwerp, the European center for the Hasidic diamond trade, young Hasidic people ride bicycles.
Bicycles are my passion, and one might think that I always defend them, but here I express a more general doubt: to what extent can we allow ethnic and religious groups not to integrate and not to become part of the wider fabric social, especially in large cities? (We’re not talking about rural communities, where people can dress however they want and be as weird as they want.) Multiculturalism, I suppose, means that other cultures and immigrants should not be forced to conform to the culture of the dominant ethnic group: we should respect the integrity of their beliefs and customs. This doesn’t just mean allowing halal and kosher butchers to set up shop, but it implies that we should begin to see things from the other’s point of view, and sometimes give space to his wishes, even if they don’t follow those of the majority. But after 11 September these principles are increasingly under discussion: Europe, historically full of Muslim enclaves and ghettos of various types and of different ethnic groups, questions multiculturalism by adopting more nuanced positions. Sometimes. Other times intolerance rears its ugly head.
Even the cyclists of New York, who are a minority, could be considered like this: they are part of a marginal culture and are accepted and tolerated by the dominant one, as long as they don’t pretend to bend it to their wishes.
In the Netherlands, perhaps the most tolerant country in the world, it is beginning to be accepted that tolerance has to go both ways. In other words, Muslim immigrants – even other Muslims in Amsterdam expect it – are expected to become “Dutch”. In other words, they have to accept that in the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam, there is a long tradition of tolerance, and if someone wants to move to the country he must think about adapting to this mentality. The Muslim community, for example, has to get used to the fact that there is a neighborhood with sex shops and half-naked women in the windows, that same-sex couples can kiss in public, and that coffee shops selling marijuana are everywhere. It goes without saying that living in the Netherlands means accepting these things, however unpleasant they may seem. The Dutch, of course, allow the local Muslim population to keep their customs, as long as they can adapt and don’t have too many demands.
It’s a big change from the context that led to Theo Van Gogh’s murder in 2004. The director had made a short film, Submissiontogether with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an activist and writer of Somali origin (who has since lived under the protection of the US government, and also works for the American enterprise institute, a right-wing American research center). Submission it featured a naked woman wrapped in a transparent chador, with verses from the Koran justifying women’s submission written on the body. Like the Danish cartoons, the images were judged by Muslims to be a crude provocation, an expression of a kind of liberal fascism.
After Van Gogh’s death, the Dutch staged protests, seeing his murder as an attempt to stifle freedom of expression. There were those who maintained that one must be able to say and express anything, as long as one does not instigate violence. Others thought the film was offensive and provocative, and in a sense the authors had brought it on. Freedom of expression for its defenders is an absolute value: everyone should be able to say anything, because in the end they are “just words”.
Ian Buruma, an intellectual of Dutch origin, wrote that freedom of speech should not be considered an absolute value and it is always wrong to reason in watertight compartments. The journalist observes that we constantly censor ourselves – for example with our family and relatives during the holidays – and we do it to get along, to allow society to function, for our happiness and the happiness of others. Not always saying what you think doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a liar. At family celebrations we don’t tease Uncle Harry about his toupee, because we know it would only add to the jitters of the family reunion, and who would benefit from this callous honesty? Stifling freedom of speech just a little, with some subtle self-censorship, makes life more pleasant for everyone.
In 2006 Mamie Manneh, a Staten Island woman, was arrested for importing 360 kilos of monkey meat – baboon and vervet monkey legs, skulls and torsos – in boxes labeled “African Clothes and Smoked Fish”. She said the constitution allows monkey meat to be brought into the United States. Her lawyers argued that she had to eat it during certain religious ceremonies of her syncretic faith, which blends Christian and African traditions.
In my opinion, besides being disgusting, the habit of eating bushmeat is not tied to any tradition. This meat has only entered human consumption in quite recent times, due to hunger and necessity. And yes, there are those who have gone further and consider it a ritual element. I would argue that it’s not even healthy and acceptable food in Africa, and if you emigrate to Staten Island it might be one of the things you have to give up.
On the other hand, however, there is the recent referendum on minarets which was held in Switzerland. Incredible! Zurich has decided to ban the construction of minarets. I predict that other countries will retaliate by banning Christian church spiers. Eye for an eye. The reasoning of the Swiss right, if you can call it reasoning, is that mosques are not Swiss, and when one is in Switzerland one must be Swiss. Not even McDonald’s is Swiss, nor are many other easily recognizable architectural and ornamental forms. Who knows, maybe they have a commission of people in funny alpine clothes who decide whether contemporary buildings are “Swiss” or not. The banks are probably all Swiss, except those with some arabesque.
History is full of endless attempts to erase the culture of immigrants or ethnic groups. The Soviet Union sought to make all groups within its vast borders Russian. Stalin deported entire populations from one part of the continent to another to nip any revolt or future ethnic unity in the bud. I have seen unequivocally Asian-looking Kazakh groups in the part of Russia that borders Finland. In Tajikistan, the Persian alphabet was banned, erasing Tajik literary history, and Islam was outlawed. This intolerance is often partially successful: in many of these former Soviet republics, Islam and national pride have reasserted themselves strongly. Depriving people of their identities has dire consequences. When Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, the country immediately plunged into a bloody civil war.
We always hope that common sense prevails. What’s wrong with building a minaret in a neighborhood? I imagine that someone has their own idea of Swiss purity, and any search for purity should always be reported as a danger. Some Italian towns have banned places that sell kebabs claiming, even here, that they are not Italian. Not even tomatoes, for that matter. To me, this is as absurd as the story of the Brooklyn rabbi who believes that little girls should be discouraged from riding bicycles in his neighborhood.
When we visit shrines, temples, mosques and churches in other lands, we – if we have the slightest sensitivity – respect the local customs. And we can expect the inhabitants of those lands to do the same when they are within our borders.
The New York Times published this letter: “My husband was at Starbucks, reading the paper and enjoying his coffee, when eight people sat down and opened their Bibles to pray together. Then one of them began a loud sermon which my husband found offensive due to its excessive volume and content. I say that the group was exercising its right. My husband claims they used the place inappropriately. Who is right?”. The columnist replied that legally evangelicals were exercising a right, but their lack of social empathy was appalling.
As Rodney King said: Can’t we just get along? Can we tolerate difference, yet not push tolerance to the extreme, expecting everyone to accept insults and provocations? Tolerance does not mean allowing anyone with a different lifestyle from ours to lord it over everyone else. There seems to be no absolute dividing line between the tolerable and the unacceptable. The measure of how much we should tolerate is whether it helps us get along. If it further divides us, then maybe it’s not a good idea: the resentment will stay buried, gangrenous, and somehow flare up again later. And the boundary line can move, it’s not immutable.
It is adaptability and the ability to accommodate that make us human. The absolute categories are for vengeful machines and deities. What we sometimes call common sense – not taking everything literally, the law or the Bible – could be a means to survival. But because it’s an ever-changing medium, it’s hard to pin down. You learn, I imagine, by living together, improvising, innovating, and not by reading a manual.
(Translation by Giuseppina Cavallo)