Multiculturalism and dialogue.

Written by TR Johns

“It’ll feel like a foreign country!” was my mother’s comment, when I went to visit her from university, in 1979. She was living in the London Borough of Hounslow at the time, with its 80% ethnic minority population. Having been married and lived in India in her early twenties, she loved the cosmopolitan mix of Asian faces, clothes and shops. The smells, bells, colours and conversations of the High Street transported the beholder to the many countries from which fellow citizens had come, through the nearby access point of Heathrow Airport. I was to spend 6 years in this environment, living in its vibrancy, rubbing shoulders with its diverse cultures and growing to love the closeness of its communities.

Expectations and understanding of life are largely formed from the social and cultural norms of our age. They are learned and embedded in the societal patterns which shape us and construct an image of what modern civilisation should be. For example, European nations have been moulded by the values and institutions of Classical and Judaeo-Christian beliefs, Islam, the Renaissance, Enlightenment, Social, Industrial and Technological revolutions, empires and by war.

To understand the implications of pluralism, and multi-faith or multi-cultural societies, there needs to be awareness of the origins behind a cultural mix. This is essential if different ethnic groups and belief structures can preserve their own customs and ideally hold equal power.

The United Kingdom plays host to one of the richest multi-cultural societies in the world. Having profiteered from an expansive empire, it is only right that members of former colonies who have the means or need to come to Britain, should enjoy the protection and opportunities of the mother country, alongside bringing and expressing their own cultural heritages. Humiliations such as the Gurkha Justice Campaign of 2008 and Windrush scandal in 2018 are a blight on the country’s record, but equally the successful integration of second, third and fourth generation immigrants in many parts of the kingdom is praiseworthy. After all, despite Brexit hysteria, Britain has been fuelled by immigrants since pre-Roman times!

The UK and Commonwealth are sometimes referred to as a family of nations, albeit with adolescents who have grown up and left. A family should offer security and a frame of reference to its members, in the same way that a country’s ‘host culture’ plays a vital role in enabling citizens to thrive. Saudi Arabia, with sharia law, clearly sets out its domestic expectations. In Britain, the Christian constitutional foundation, seen explicitly at the coronation of Charles III, creates a context for cultural diversity, assimilation and respect. It sits alongside an inter-faith calendar of remarkable diversity in terms of the Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Japanese, Chinese and pagan elements woven into its tapestry[i].

In terms of understanding origins, C21st minds need to project themselves back into civilisations of local guardian deities which lie at the root of the great monotheistic religions. The origins of Yahweh, Jehovah and Allah are the subject of extensive research, theories and speculation. What is known is that they stem from a time of polytheistic and animistic beliefs and pantheons, from which the worship of a supreme deity emerged.

 The Kaaba in Mecca stood in a courtyard of some 360 deities, statues and idols, which drew worshippers from across Arabia. Allah was one of these, referred to in the poetry of Zuhayr bin Ali Sulma, a renowned Arabic writer, a generation before Mohammed. The name of the prophet’s father represented the god of his Quraish tribe (Abd-Allah – the servant of Allah). It became Mohammed’s task in 610 AD, having received his call and revelation, to drive the other idols away and establish Allah, as the One God, who had no associations.[ii]

Wind the clock back some 2000 years and a different encounter was recorded when another angel appeared to an errant shepherd, named Moses. He found himself standing in the presence of a holy god, of whom he asked, “What is your name?”. The reply received was “I am who I am’, transcribed as Yahweh. This God apparently presided over the top tier of the Canaanite and Egyptian pantheons, which included gods and goddesses of fertility, thunder and rain, the sun, sky and harvest. Whether built on myths, places, qualities or the concerns of nature, hierarchies of gods and spirits were revered through rituals, divination, pilgrimages and sacrifices.

Fast-forward again into the Christian era and the apostle Paul wrote about the Lord of hosts. Not just a single Deity but a whole hierarchy of spiritual beings. He elaborated on Jesus’ teaching that as well as flesh and blood, life was enmeshed with rulers, principalities and powers in the heavenly realms. These had a profound impact on earthly matters, involving concepts of good and evil. Over subsequent centuries the interface between disciplines (eg. faith, science and philosophy) has wrestled with an understanding and interpretation of these dimensions, including refuting them.

In trying to enlarge upon a diverse multi-layered transcendent world there also needs to be a language of ‘taxonomy’. As the plants and animals of the earth are classified into families, genus and species, so a multi-faith context would benefit from classifying deities, by origin, narrative, lineage and covenants. Similarities and distinctives need to be drawn out, if the complexities of inter-faith and inter-disciplinary dialogues are to be grasped ingenuously.

References

[i] https://www.interfaith.org.uk/resources/religious-festivals

[ii] Surah 22: 26