The Conflict of Culture and Religion

We tend to think of religion being an inseparable part of any culture, almost co-terminous with it. Arabic culture is Muslim, European culture has deep Christian roots, and Indian culture is very Hindu. We take it that the tenets and the traditions of the respective religions are so long connected with the cultures as we know them, the two are fused together for all practical purposes. Malay-Muslim. Buddhist-Thai.

But in any enquiry, we can slice the subject matter in a different way. We can, just as validly, see culture and religion as being two different things locked in conflict. Malay versus Muslim. Buddhist versus Thai.

First though, I should clarify what I mean by "religion" and "culture" in this essay. "Religion" is quite easy, because in normal speech, its usage is not quite as loose. It is a body of beliefs extending from a conception of an almighty, to some prescription of right and wrong here on earth. "Culture" is harder, largely because it is highly varied in meaning, depending on context. For the purposes of this essay, I mean the practices of a society as lived from day to day, year to year. Since a society consists of many individuals, nothing is quite homogenous. People do things differently, but all cultures have certain patterns that distinguish it from other cultures, even as they also have certain pressures imposed on its individuals, pushing them towards certain customs, which are characteristic of that culture, yet not found in other cultures.

You can see the gulf already between religion and culture. At its core, religion is prescriptive, and top-down. It has an orthodoxy. This is how we define God. This is good, that is evil. This is to be sought or cultivated, that is to be avoided or shunned. This is what happens when you achieve what is to be sought, and that is the result of acceding to temptation, or your baser instincts.

Religion is partly modified by customary practices at its margins, e.g. in its methods of worship, and the type of punishments it imposes for transgressions. It is also constantly reinterpreted by scholars and leading practitioners, whose differences of opinion lead invariably to schisms and divergent orthodoxies. But orthodoxies, of a sort, there remain.

Culture is a lot more fluid, and bottom-up. It is the sum total or weighted average of all the habits or preferences of the people of a given society. When we talk about culture, it's a descriptive exercise, and always, we have to specify time and place, because we know full well how changeable it can be. Culture is an expression of our human natures, limited by the constraints of the environment: the foods we eat, the ways we socialise, the family loyalties, the housing styles. There is also the music, the theatre, the humour, and never forget, the many inventive ways we humans have sex.

Just listen to this exchange and get an insight into a cultural thought-pattern:

 

Four of us were in a car, looking for a certain address in Shenzhen. None of us were from there, not even the driver, so we didn't expect to have an easy time of it. But once we entered the city, the Hong Kong guy in the front passenger seat seemed quite able to give directions to the driver. The guy in the back seat remarked, "You appear to be very familiar with this place." The front seat navigator replied, jokingly, "But of course, I have a concubine living here!"

Every day, we read in the papers of conflicts between religion and culture, even though it isn't described as such. Today's example was the banning by the government of the Malaysian state of Kelantan, of the Dikir Barat, a traditional Malay form of solo and choral folk-singing. Wayang Kulit, another traditional shadow puppet theatre, indigenous of Malaysia and Indonesia, had been banned some years ago. These art forms were considered un-Islamic.

Last year, beauty contests and even body-building competitions were at the centre of a furore in Malaysia, because some strict Islamists declared the skimpy costumes to be sinful.

Now, you may dismiss all these examples are merely the machinations of extremists, but to do so is in effect to refuse to recognise the beliefs of these "extremists" as a valid form of religion. Only your moderate interpretation, which may allow singing, puppet theatre and beauty contests, is valid. Surely this is not defensible. However much we may disagree with the "extremists", what they are adhering to is nonetheless religion. What the moderates are defending is on the other hand, not a religion, but the culture of the place and its people. The key is that for the moderates, their interpretation of their religion finds little that is offensive of the cultural practices, and so it is possible for them to defend the culture, while the sterner ones see conflict between these practices, however historical, and their religious doctrines.

Hence my statement above. Not everything is Malay-Muslim. Sometimes being Malay OPPOSES being Muslim.

And not everything is Buddhist-Thai either. The spirit houses, so ubiquitous all over Thailand, so central to the Thai idea of peace and security in home and building, is not Buddhist at all. Its origins are animist, dating from the time when the Thais believed that when a house is constructed the land is disturbed, and thereafter the spirit of the Earth must be appeased regularly. And Thailand is a country where, Buddhist abhorrence of killing notwithstanding, they carry out capital punishments.

There are few more fought-over battlegrounds between religion and culture than homosexuality. Fact: every culture contains some degree of homosexual practice. Not just every culture today. Every culture in history.

We fall in love; we hump around in bed; we go cruising in the bushes; we rush for cheap $200 tickets to Bangkok, and within 90 minutes of touchdown at Don Muang airport, we're walking through the front door of a sauna; we sit amidst cigarette smoke in a gay bar, talking dirty, feeling horny but generally enjoying life. It's what we do. It's our culture.

It's the most natural thing in the world, looking for sex and love. Generations of homosexual people through the centuries have done something similar, such as ogling the other bathers in the public baths of the Ottoman Empire, cruising in the back alleys of Tang Dynasty Chang'an, or chatting up the novice monk in a temple courtyard in Tokugawa Japan.

But for the 10-20% of Singaporeans who are Christian and the 15% who are Muslim, a huge conflict looms over their daily lives. Their religions have explicit injunctions against homosexuality. How can they participate in the gay culture -- and for many, just to be themselves, must necessarily include participating in gay culture, otherwise, there's no life at all -- and still adhere to their religion? Well, some of them just don't give a lot of thought to that and the question is just put aside. But others constantly come back to this question. It's one of the most indulged-in topics in any gay discussion group, almost to the point of vexing the non-Christians.

The almost obsessive question for them is how to reconcile the self with their religion, and "self" here means the ways in which the self is expressed: the ways their emotional and bodily needs are acted upon, the social circles they find themselves drawn to, the prevailing ideas and mores of such social circles. How to reconcile all of these with the demands of their faith?

Perhaps they cannot be reconciled, difficult such an answer may be to them. Culture is not religion. Life is not perfection. Culture is what is, and religion is how things should be. Some people are prepared to forego what is, to become how things should be. No more Dikir Barat, no more Wayang Kulit, celibacy for life.

If you're not prepared to do that, you'll just have to learn to let go of the question, or you'll go mad. Alternatively, follow more liberal interpretations of your religion.

Culture, secular life and your sexuality sometimes conflict with the dictates of religion, and when there's unbridgeable conflict, you may have to take sides.

© Yawning Bread 

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