(Switzerland) Muslim girl made to attend swimming lessons

[antigone382]

61. I understand your point, but there's a little more to the story than that, I think.

It is easy for me to say that I wouldn't move to a country with a very different culture, because as it happens I have decent economic opportunity in my country, and in most of the countries that are similar to mine (Western countries). For most people in the world, that isn't the case, and a lot of that has to do with the West colonizing other countries, a process which destroyed their economies in ways that still matter today, and also one in which a lot of their culture was destroyed and replaced with "superior" Western culture.

I mean, for example, we ourselves are typing at each other on the soil of Native Peoples whose cultures were almost totally destroyed, along with their lives, and replaced with a Western European one. I have a friend who is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who speaks fluent Mayan, as have her ancestors who have been on this continent for twelve thousand years. Between the two of us, should she conform to my culture or should I conform to hers?

Basically, the point I'm making is that a lot of people have to leave the cultures where they are comfortable, whether they want to or not, because they cannot make a living there. A lot of that has to do with centuries of the West forcing economic norms (which are one aspect of cultural norms) on these people and places, to the extent that many of them have no choice but to come here. That being the case, it isn't really fair to act as if they are privileged to come to our countries and ought to show their appreciation by conforming to our cultures. They are here oftentimes because of a history of deprivation in their own countries that is caused by us.

But even if immigrants do have opportunity in their own countries, or even if the lack of opportunity they experience isn't our fault, to another extent people have always moved from place to place, bringing their culture with them, and along with that bringing conflict with the cultures already in the area. Most every religion practiced today has some syncretic elements (meaning it is a combination of a religion that someone else brought to a place, and whatever religion or religions were already practiced there), and the same goes for language, clothing, and almost any other aspect of culture. We all adapt to each other, and based on archaeological evidence we always have.

Anyway, I don't mean this to sound like a lecture at you, you just got me thinking about a lot of things.