DOSSIER
Thomas Menamparampil, SDB
Archbishop of Guwahati, India
1. Definition of Culture
We may dispute what the most revolutionary discovery of our age has been. Was it the Atom, or the Computer, or the Fax, or any other gadget or equipment? An outstanding Anthropologist has said that the most important discovery of our times was the concept of culture (1).
When we hear of culture, we are inclined to think primarily of fine arts, literature and philosophy and other similar areas of human interest. This is an elitist understanding of culture and is in keeping with our classical training. Culture rather is the total manner in which a human society responds to an environment. It includes customs characterizing a social group; social heredity of a particular community; meanings, values, norms, their actions and relationships; belief, laws, traditions and institutions; religion, ritual, language, song, dance, feast, living habits, crafts, equipments.
Culture, therefore, is a complex of factors that make a person what he/she is as an individual and as a member of a community (2). It is acquired after birth and through it a person inserts himself/herself into the human universe. He/she is programmed, educated and "indoctrinated" into one way, and only one way, of being a human person, whether he be a Chinese or a Chakma, a Swede or a Zulu.
2. Communal Tensions
Clash of economic interests, or of cultural perceptions?
We, in India, have always lived in a multicultural situation. We have, through centuries, worked out various formulae of compromise for living and working together. These formulae are far from being infallible. In fact, they are highly fragile, and their fragility becomes evident when major clashes take place, riots occur, hutments are torched, many lives are lost and much property destroyed. Social tensions are generally attributed to economic and political reasons. That they may have been occasioned by psychological distances between communities and aggravated by cultural differences, is rarely given a thought (3).
Even if certain social disturbances may have had their origin in other causes than cultural, the fact that they can be heightened by a clash of cultural perceptions, and that they can be led in new directions from the collective memories of aggrieved communities, and again that every attempt at dialogue can fail when there is no one to bridge the meaning systems of the two concerned ethnic or social groups, is totally ignored (4).
There has not been much reflection along these lines, nor adequate open discussion. For the Rightist or Leftist, the economy and related politics are all that matters. That man has other dimensions in his inner being and in his communal identity, is blissfully forgotten (5).
3. Does Our Social Analysis Take Culture into Consideration?
In Church circles too, the implications of cultural difference or the requirements of transcultural services have not received the attention they deserve. It is too readily taken for granted that social groups think and feel alike, have the same ambitions and aversions, keep to the same pace of life and respond in the same way to services and sanctions. But nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Latin American model of social analysis and conscientization has crowded out all other possible social thinking and creative applications. That has happened, despite Paulo Freire's own affirmation that social philosophies cannot easily be transported across the oceans. What applies in a chiefly Roman Catholic, clergy-dominated, culturally homogenized society, may not find a ready application in a country like ours which is different in so many ways, and in which the Church's historic role and present position show little similarity (6).
In fact, we have lost an opportunity to do some creative thinking in the area of analysing Indian society along cultural lines. Aside from making a few pacifist proclamations during communal troubles, our contribution to reflection on intercultural relationships has been insignificant.
It can easily be noticed that most grievances in our country are of one community against another. All effort to divide the Indian society along lines of classes and income groups has met with limited success. All important perceived injustices and all major clashes are between communities, in the North-East or in the North-West, or in any other part of India. The same is true in our neighbourhood beyond the borders, whether it be in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, on the Western frontier of Pakistan, or on the Tamil Eelam coastline of Sri Lanka (7).
When all of a sudden clashes took place on a big scale at the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, when the Letts, Lithuanians, Estonians and Ukrainians claimed their own separate identities, when Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia and Bosnia went up in flames, when the Azerbaijan tensions with Armenia increased, when the Slovaks parted ways with the Czechs, when inter-ethnic brutalities in Rwanda hit the headlines, when the claims of the Basques, Welsh, Catalans and French Canadians grew louder, the world began to take note of the force of ethnicity and culture. But we have a long way to go before we can give an intelligible explanation to these and similar social phenomena.
A "cultural analysis" of society and a reflection on its findings would be most timely today.
No Race Problem?
Unfortunately, gang attacks on or by young Pakistanis and West Indians are now a regular occurrence in London and elsewhere...
Call it racism, call it persecution of minorities, but in Paris the hatred for Algerian migrant workers is overt... In Germany, meanwhile hatred for the underclass of Turkish immigrants is so rapid, that even the Social Democratic politicians appeal to it...
Ask the Japanese, and mostly they'll tell you they are fortunate not to have a "race problem". But ask the Koreans who live in Japan and they'll tell a different story... I say all this not to whitewash the situation in the U.S....
(Alvin Toffler: Previews and Premises, London, Pan Books, 1984, pp. 146-47).
4. Reflection on Culture and Community a Challenging Task
With our long history of cultural pluralism and inter-community interaction in India, could we initiate some reflection on how communities seek, quite unconsciously, to develop a collective identity, gradually grow conscious of it, try to preserve and enhance their heritage, respond to perceived threats, use and misuse their strenghts, and step by step learn to relate with other communities in a healthy manner, come to accept complementary roles and try to build up a collaborative atmosphere? (8)
Economic globalization is bringing together people of every culture. There is a compromise-culture that prevails at international airports and five-star hotels (we often call it "Modern Culture"). Travellers and businessmen read about each other's countries and cultures and try to accommodate to each other's ways and tastes. They bow profoundly in Tokyo, offer a Namaste in Delhi and shake hands or hug in Rome. They will readily renounce pork in the Arab countries and beef in the Brahmin hotels. But when their contacts get closer and they begin to live and work together, difficulties begin to arise. And fortwith the "compromise-culture" totally fails! (9)
Earlier anthropologists limited their interest solely to the study of isolated tribes and delighted in presenting the rare and the bizarre in their cultures. In spite of such evident limitations, it was found educative to read about other cultures and see how other societies solved their problems. For example, some tribal societies prevented the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, by rewarding with special honours persons who were extraordinarily generous, e.g. the Angami Nagas allowed a man who lavishly fed the entire village to erect a stone monument. The Western society attempted to solve the same problem on a massive scale by the French and Russian revolutions!
One understands one's own culture better by watching alternative expressions in another culture. Some scholars have occasionally taken undue advantage of their research to argue their own pet theories with regard to e.g. premarital sex or priestly exploitation of society. But gradually scholarship is becoming more objective and more mature.
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National characteristics exist not just because of history... They are there as a result of exposure to a particular set of influences: climate, culture, a particular social order, even language... and cuisine...
In some cases, the nation states have deliberately and deviously instilled hatred towards "the foreigner" in the hearts of their citizens...
Some ethnic jokes end up formalised in proverbs and the like. One example is a Russian maxim which says: "Greeks all tell the truth, but only once a year...".
(Richard Hill: We Europeans, Brussels, A Division of Europublic SA/NV, 1992, pp. 16, 19, 31).
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5. Ethnocentrism
Early researchers greatly suffered from Ethnocentrism (= considering their own culture as the absolute standard), taking undue pleasure in pointing out where other cultures fell short or looked strange. But enlightened modern scholarship recognizes every culture as equal, and does not concede superiority to anyone culture even when its material products (e.g. technically produced goods) are more advanced. Thus, the Americans have come to admit that the Blacks are not merely underdeveloped Whites, but have a rich culture of their own. They have begun to concede that social welfare programmes need not aim at making Black Americans like unto their White brethren (10).
In the same way, we in India must begin to understand that tribals are not just backward non-tribals and that Dalits are not diminutive caste-Hindus. So, development personnel need not fret and worry that tribals are not getting enthusiastic about non-tribal ways and are reluctant to plunge headlong into an individualistic world view. Benevolent social workers need not try to Sanskritize (= the process of being introduced to the Hindu caste hierarchy) their Dalit brethren, thinking that their condition will be best when they will be higher up in the caste-ladder. Dalits have a right to develop their own culture.
However, the habit of using one's own culture as a point of reference for judging other cultures is deeply rooted in man. Ethnocentrism continues. From childhood we learn what is good, moral, civilized and normal according to our own culture (11). But others have considered other ways of behaving correct and proper. Habits that are different from ours are not necessarily inferior (12).
There is no cultural superiority in abstaining from dog meat which the Koreans and many tribes in Noth-East India find delicious, or from toasted grasshoppers and raw fish which most Japanese enjoy, or from mice which the Dahomey of West Africa and many ethnic groups in India find appetizing. There is nothing extraordinarily advanced about drinking milk which the Chinese consider fit only for babies, or in eating cheese which many Asians and Africans find smelly and unpleasant (13).
Despite this generally recognized view, we thoughtlessly criticize or ridicule others' habits and hastily evaluate them according to the criteria drawn from our own culture. In an inter-cultural situation, before we can even think of inculturation, we must be aware of the power of Ethnocentrism in ourselves, and grow conscious of our cultural prejudices. We must learn to lift our cultural glasses from time to time, and possibly borrow those of someone else.
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NOTES
(1) When we speak of "Culture" we are not thinking about high-brow music, or good table manners. We understand the term as defined by anthropologists. Paul G. Hiebert defines culture "as the integrated system of learned patterns of
behaviour, ideas and products characteristic of a society". For Eugene Nida, "Culture" is "all non-material traits which are passed on from one generation to another. They are both transmitted by the society, not by the genes" (Eddie Gibbs: I Believe in Church Growth, London, Herder and Stoughton, 1981, p. 88).
(2) Culture is a man-made environment, brought into existence by the ability to symbol. Once established, culture has a life of its own, so to speak; that is, it is a continuum of things and events in a cause and effect relationship; it flows down through time from one generation to another. Since its inception 1,000,000 or more years ago, this culture - with its language, beliefs, tools, codes and so on - has an existence external to each individual born into it...
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the power and influence of culture upon the human animal... Culture is stronger than life and stronger than death (The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 16, 1992, p. 875).
(3) Cultural conflict arises whenever what is considered right by one subculture is considered wrong by another, more powerful subculture - usually the dominant culture (Alex Thio: Sociology, New York, Harper, 1989, p. 175).
(4) Collective memories and inherited prejudices become institutionalized. The experience of the American Blacks (as also of Indian Dalits) is an example. "Even if every single White were no longer prejudiced and discriminating, discrimination would still exist for some time. Over the years it has been built into various American institutions, so that discrimination can occur even when no one is aware of it" (Alex Thio: op. cit., p. 243).
(5) Taslima Nasrin, in her novel Lajja, presents us a certain Sudhamoy who discovered in his later years that Leftist polemics were mere verbiage and all his fellow-debaters ultimately returned to religion. "As his leftist friends grew older, they had begun to turn to religion and Sudhamoy who had never had much time for such things, found himself increasingly friendless" (Taslima Nasrin: Lajja, New Delhi, Penguin, 1993, p. 20).
(6) ... confrontation with our part of the world has taught us that any ideas coming from another part of the world cannot simply be transplanted (Paulo Freire: Cultural Action for Freedom, Cambridge, Mass., Penguin, 1972, p. 17).
(7) Anyone can make a quick survey of various community-related problems in South Asia: violence against the Dalits, the alienation of the Sikhs in Punjab, the clashes between the Nagas and the Kukis in Manipur, the eviction of the Nepalis from South Bhutan, the tribal non-tribal tensions in parts of Eastern India; the dilemma of the Chakmas in choosing between India and Bangladesh, of the Moghs between Bangladesh and Myanmar, "Biharis" between Bangladesh and Pakistan; the Pakhtoon problem; the problems of the Indians in Myanmar, the Bangladeshis in India.
(8) a. To separate the essential from the non-essential is what I call being spiritual (Franz Marc).
b. India remains so little known to Indians. People just don't have the information. History and social inquiry, and the habit of analysis that go with these disciplines, are too far outside the Indian tradition (V.S. Naipaul: India, a wounded civilization, New Delhi, Penguin, 1977, p. 93).
(9) a. The visit to the West has converted my doubts into a certainty, and I have given up my old Westernizing shibboleths. I had not been there for even a week when I realized how impossible it was for either the East or the West to resemble each other in any significant trait. A few isolated individuals might by dint of a tremendous and costly effort and in very favourable circumstances bring about varying degrees of transformation, but for large human groups in either world to attempt to do so would be a suicidal revolt against Nature (Nirad Chaudhuri, A Passage to England, New Delhi, Orient, 1994, pp. 30-31).
b. There are Western expressions which offend the Eastern taste as much as Eastern expressions are apt to offend Western taste. A symphony of Beethoven would be mere noise to an Indian ear, and Indian Sangita seems to us without melody, harmony or rhythm (F. Max Muller).
(10) Many modern authors speak with respect about other cultures. Do you think the following writers are totally free of ethnocentrism?
a. The Bulgarians are also a though people, frugal and even restrained in their festivities. Compared with the tendency of the Greeks, Rumanians and Serbs who dream romantically of past glories, they tend to live prosaically and in the present (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mankind, Vol. 3, New York, 1989, p. 274).
b. The Burmese are remarkably free from feelings of guilt, jealousy, anxiety and overriding ambition. Many writers with an intimate knowledge of them have described them as possibly the happiest people in the world... their religion seems to make all their afflictions easier to bear and more quickly forgotten (The Illustrated..., op. cit., p. 288).
c. The Comanches were individualistic and fiercely competitive, yet they worked unselfishly together, with the minimum of formal hierarchy (The Illustrated..., op. cit., Vol. 4, p. 402).
d. It is to the Eskimo we should look for lessons in how to live together, for no-one has overcome the problems faced by many persons living together in a small space so successfully (The Illustrated..., op. cit., Vol. 5, p. 570).
e. They (the Evenkis of Siberia) may be apathetic as regards material goods, not caring much about family life, and inactive in administrative organisations, but as soon as matters concern hunting they spring to life and burn with enthusiasm (B.E. Petri).
f. Four concepts are vital to an understanding of Filipino behaviour patterns. They are "self-esteem", "embarrassment" or shame, "obligation", and "getting along together" (The Illustrated..., op. cit., Vol. 5, p. 626).
g. The English distrust planning. It is a favourite belief that the best things happen incidentally (the apologists of the Empire said the English acquired it "in a fit of absent-mindedness") and a common English saying is that the English will always "muddle trough"... The English have always been resistant to change. People who boast their "radical tradition" tend to be more deeply wedded to tradition than to radicalism (The Illustrated..., op. cit., Vol. 5, p. 564).
h. The Cossack's zest and independence, together with his fierce pride and sense of personal dignity, produced many explorers and heroes, some of whom have become legendary (The Illustrated..., op. cit., Vol. 4, p. 418).
i. They (Lepchas) make most excellent and trustworthy servants and are quite exceptional people, amongst whom it is a pleasure to live (John Claude White: Sikkim and Bhutan, New Delhi, Cultural Pub. House, 1983, p. 7).
(11) a. High-caste people also have a low regard for the personal character, integrity, intelligence, cleanliness and morality of untouchables (James M. Freeman, Untouchable, Harper Collins, 1993, p. 51).
b. So I have kicked you, but how can you be so audacious as to feel any pain because of that? (D.L. Roy's Song).
(12) a. It is a matter of deep humiliation to confess that we are a house divided against itself, that we... are flying at one another. It is a matter of still deeper humiliation that we... regard millions of our kith and kin as too degraded for our touch (Mahatma Gandhi, as quoted by Louis Fischer).
b. Cultures and ways of people are shaped by both positive and negative experiences of communities: "Untouchables thus reveal a great diversity of responses to oppression... In some circumstances, he works as a faithful and subservient employee; at other times he seeks indirect ways to escape his plight; sometimes he cheats the employer; and sometimes he openly revolts against what he considers unfair and excessive oppression" (James M. Freeman, op. cit., p. 54).
(13) According to Vincent Smith, the caste-system evolved from food taboos as well. "The propagation of ahimsa (= respect for animal life) necessarily produced a sharp conflict of ideas and principles of conduct between adherents of the doctrine and the old-fashioned people who clung to bloody sacrifices, cow-killing, and meat eating. Communities which had renounced the old practices and condemned them as revolting impieties naturally separated themselves from their more easy-going and self-indulgent neighbours, and formed castes bound strictly to maintain the novel code of ethics" (Vincent Smith, The Oxford History of India, New Delhi, 1992, p. 65).