I consider myself to be a fair-minded person who can definitely take an off-color joke without screaming "racist" at the top of my lungs. So, maybe you'll understand how bad something would have to be for me to scream "raaaaaacist" and let my jaw drop in abject disbelief. It's one thing to express your opinions or un-PC humor to a small group of people you know. It's a completely different thing for a politician to openly publicize something so offensive that it makes me blush.
So, here's the big deal: Austrian police are investigating a video game released by the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party that invites players to stop the construction of minarets and mosques. The construction of minarets has been a hot topic in Switzerland, other European countries, and even in cities in the United States (to include cities in the ueber-liberal San Francsico Bay Area). I can understand their concerns, especially if the towering minarets are blocking iconic scenery or are defying building restrictions, but to express those concerns in such a flagrantly controversial manner is irresponsible at best.
In the game called "Bye, Bye Mosque", players must prevent Muslims (seen as little mustached-men wearing a fez) from erecting mosques and minarets by placing "stop" signs over them. If a player fails to stop the construction, then a muezzin issues calls to prayer, all set against an Alpine backdrop.
The Austrian government, as well as several religious leaders (to include leaders in the Catholic church) and the German Chancellor, condemned the game, saying that it will do nothing other than incite an already tense landscape. There have been claims, recently, that Germany is becoming increasingly xenophobic as more Muslims immigrate to Germany. And Germany's not the only European country starting to show signs of discomfort with its immigrant minorities: France, Denmark, Spain, and others are beginning to feel the tension between their own established cultures and foreign cultures.
As the world shrinks, it's inevitable that people will feel like they're losing their sense of identity. The idea of the melting pot isn't to make everyone comfortable with everyone else's differences. It's to blend everyone together so there are no real differences anymore. Cultures have fierce identities, and most fear and dread the idea of a homogenous world culture, even as we crawl in that direction. That fear is manifested in ways both large and small: books, cartoons, bullies in the schoolyard, entertainment media, games, military skirmishes, war, and genocide.
Our challenge, in every nation, is to find a way to maintain a sense of national identity and culture without infringing on the often opposing cultures of others who live in our borders while simultaneously making them feel as if they also belong to the nation. Seems impossible, doesn't it? Probably the closest thing we've come to in that vein is the World Cup (unless you're an American, and then you ask, "What's the World Cup? *sigh*). Mankind is still a work in progress, so maybe, in the future, we'll figure out how to make all of this work, but until then, it's our responsibility to keep trying.
1 comments:
I don't really have a comment on the game. (It sounds boring.) But you are operating under the false assumption that when cultures clash, culture A is always equally as valid as culture B. Germans aren't afraid that some Germans of the future won't be big wiener schnitzel fans. They are afraid of the Islamic youths that like harassing women that aren't wearing a headscarf in public. They are afraid that their Muslim neighbors will, as their last democratic act, impose Sharia law on the whole county once they become a voting majority. They are frightened by the murders of Theo Van Gogh and the death threats against Molly Norris. We haven't seen a lot of this kind of thing in the US yet (with the exception of Ms. Norris) but the Europeans have for years. A soccer game isn't going to fix this---only a reformation of Islam will, and that unfortunately looks to be pretty far off.
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