RE: Is "Tribalism" Good, Bad or Indifferent? Is "Us vs. Them Our Strength or Our Downfall?
Ok I understand what you meant about making the new home country the same as their homeland. Thanks for sharing the pork example in school menu. I am not aware of the details of the case but here are my initial thoughts.
The schools should offer non-pork options for those who don't want to eat pork. It is not just Islam that forbids pork but also Judaism and I am sure there are Jewish kids in schools who are not immigrants. I am a vegetarian and if I go to another country I still would like to be able to retain my dietary preference. However, just as I would like to retain my own dietary preference I need to respect your choice too! So, if there was a non-pork option available and a group still tried to enforce its own preference (no pork in schools) on others, then that's just unacceptable.
Tolerance has to be both ways. I don't think if I come to Denmark I should have to eat pork ("When in our house, we play by our rules; when in your house, we play by your rules") and when you come to Malta (where I live) you should have to be vegetarian.
I hope that pork wasn't removed from the menu (it's a strange thing for a vegetarian to say :) ) simply because one group didn't want to eat it but I do hope that schools are catering for those who didn't want to eat pork as well. So it is more about adding instead of subtracting and restricting anyone's personal choice.
Ah, I understand what you're saying @lucygarrod, so I didn't complete the picture entirely.
In our example of the schools, there WERE multiple other options on the menus. The point was that pork should be removed because "it was offensive" to even HAVE it in a place where people eat. In other words, here the immigrant movement (representing 7% of the students) wanted NOBODY to have pork (meaning 100% of the students).
As much as anything, it's about respect and tolerance of those who are not like us. Unfortunately, there seems to be an "energy" in the world these days that we can't each have "our own" way, we can only have MY way, to the exclusion of YOU way. And I think that's just WRONG.
I am with you completely :)
I absolutely dislike those who try to impose their own ideas of what is right on others. One group can never make such a request without assuming that "they" are somehow superior to the other group and know what is good for others. If muslims in Denmark would like everyone to stop eating pork because it offends the muslim community, I think vegetarians of Denmark should ask them to stop eating meat all together because it offends vegetarians to see people eating meat ;)
I do agree with you that there is an energy around the world where "our way" is better than others and this is a truly worrying situation. Our world seems to be going backwards and we are fast losing all the liberal ideas that we fought so hard to spread. I think it is very important to have an open discussion about these topics (like they used to have in ancient Greece) and find rational answers to these challenging situations.
Thank you so much for keeping an open mind whilst sharing a different perspective with me :)