Demolishing the Tower of Babel: Dealing with our Ethnocentricity, Part 3 (Final)

By Rev. Fr. Michael Chua

Paving the way outward and forward

Exposing the fundamental myths that underlie our ethnocentricity is only the first stage, albeit a necessary one. In order to move beyond mere recognition and tolerance of differences to a position where diversity is celebrated, more needs to be done. Apart from the tasks that he had suggested earlier, Bennet also writes about the need to learn more about our own culture and to avoid projecting that culture onto other people's experience. This stage is particularly difficult to pass through when one cultural group has vast and unrecognized privileges when compared to other groups. This problem is so invisible that persons in the mainstream are often mystified when representatives of ethnic minorities begin to react to them in a negative way.

In order to begin building relationships with persons of other beliefs and cultures, one must move to the next level of acceptance. This next stage in Bennett's model requires us to be able to shift perspective, while still maintaining our commitments to our own values. He calls this stage “acceptance.” Acceptance does not mean that we have to believe in the same beliefs and values as the other person. What it does mean is accepting the fact that other people are entitled to hold different sets of beliefs and values from us.

Accepting and even respecting the right of others to their belief and values may prove insufficient when a person wishes to begin exploring deeper levels of dialogue and cross cultural communication. Bennet speaks of the next stage of intercultural sensitivity as “adaptation.” This allows the person to function in a bicultural capacity. In this stage, a person is able to take the perspective of another culture and operate successfully within that culture. Church documents often speak of this level as “inculturation” or more accurately “inter-culturation.”

Although, Bennet speaks of a sixth stage of cultural sensitivity which he calls “integration,” this may not be possible or even advisable in the context of religious beliefs. According to Bennet, at this last stage, the person can shift perspectives and frames of reference from one culture to another in a natural way. They become adept at evaluating any situation from multiple frames of reference. He, however admits, that some representatives in cross-cultural collaboration may reach this level, but most probably will not. In the context of religion, such integration often creates a synthesis of two or more religious traditions, thus resulting in a form of religious syncretism. Products of religious syncretism are often treated as new religious movements rather than as an ongoing process of dialogue and interculturation between parties in dialogue.

Dealing with our deep seated prejudices and aptitude to stereotype and vilify others is never easy. Few of us are even aware of every form of prejudice and ethnocentricity that we possess. Perhaps, we would never be rid of them in our lives. It would be a constant struggle of coming to terms with our inner demons, exposing them to the light of faith and reason and allowing God to restore and heal the image that He had intended for us. For some, this life long struggle may appear to be a curse. But for us Christians, it is an opportunity and a challenge to make space and constantly expand it for God and for others. Years of learning, understanding and articulating our faith through Catholic lenses will not be threatened or thrown out by our decision to encounter the ‘other’ as friend rather foe. On the contrary, we would soon discover our encounter with the ‘other’ will lead us to a deeper encounter with God, who as St. Paul reminds us is “the same Lord of all, enriching all who call upon him.” (Rom 10:12)

Demolishing the Tower of Babel: Dealing with our Ethnocentricity, Part 2 (of 3)

By Rev. Fr. Michael Chua


Levels of Cultural Sensitivity/ Insensitivity

The process of identifying our innate ethnocentricity and ability to move beyond it is much aided by the significant work of Milton Bennett, who authored the “Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity”. Bennett describes six stages of development in intercultural sensitivity: denial, defense, minimisation, acceptance, adaptation and integration. The stages provide a good framework for determining how to work with and improve the capacity for intercultural sensitivity, collaboration and dialogue. Based on the stages enumerated by Bennet, Eric Law, in his book “The Bush was Blazing but not consumed: developing a multicultural community,” presented some of the same ideas in the form of 7 myths, false beliefs that underlie our ethnocentricity.

“Difference does not exist.” This is what Bennet refers to as the first stage of denial. It means that people in this stage are very unaware of differences or choose to ignore differences. What would be some of the reasons leading to this myopic world view? One can imagine someone growing up in an environment that is isolated from others. This denial is caused by isolation (either social, economical, physical) in homogenous communities. One may not need to examine the case of a person growing up in a religiously or ethnically homogenous village. Some self-contained exclusive urban neighbourhoods may also create the same effect. A few years ago, the Japanese Prime Minister commented that the Japanese are able to function more effectively than their American neighbours due to the homogeneity of Japanese society to the ire of the native aboriginal people, who often seem invisible to the larger majority. The task of creating cultural sensitivity at this stage is merely to recognise differences – “Differences do exist!”.

“Difference is confined to broad categories.” Most Malaysians, although there are certainly exceptions, may not fall into the first category but may find themselves in this second category of ethnocentricity. This second stage cannot distinguish finer differences among large categories. “All Chinese have straight hair.” “All Indians like to be involved in politics.” These are forms of stereotyping, meaning that they are oversimplifications in which all the members of a group are considered to be definable by an easily distinguishable set of characteristics. Stereotypes often form the basis of prejudice and are usually employed to explain real or imaginary differences due to race, gender, religion, age, ethnicity, socio-economic class, disability, and occupation, among the limitless groups one may be identified with. The task at this stage is to begin to understand each individual on his own merits. To know that a person comes from a certain religious or ethnic background does not tell us where they fit in terms of values or behaviors; rather, it alerts us to possible arenas of miscommunication.

“You are different; therefore you are bad.” Bennet refers to this form of ethnocentricity as “defense.” In a certain way, this is an improvement from saying that difference is bad or minimal. But this negative evaluation of differences leads to defensiveness and judgmental perception of the other. The task at this level of cultural sensitivity is to recognise and to become more tolerant of differences and to see basic similarities among people of different religions or cultures.

“Its okay for you to be different, but I am better.” Racial supremacy emphasises the positive and superior qualities of one’s own cultural and ethnic status while implying that others are inferior. It is often used to justify many political ideologies and systems based on race, e.g. Apartheid in South Africa, Arianism as justification for Facism and Nazism in Germany etc. The task here is to recognise that everyone deserves equal respect. In the context of religion, equality here means reciprocity rather than equality of beliefs.

“I am different; therefore I am bad and you are good.” Sometimes, the opposite of the previous position happens when one begins to denigrate one’s own culture in order to “fit into” the mainstream. This usually happens among small minorities who begin to assume the dominant cultural group’s attitude and sense of superiority by putting down their own cultural values. It is a form of self-assimilation into the main-stream. Many Orang Asli begin to dress and present themselves as Malay as a result of this dynamic, thus rejecting their own cultural roots in order to acquire a culture of the mainstream which is perceived to be superior to theirs. This form of ethnocentricity can also be the product of globalisation. We can see examples of this in the way of contemporary youth culture, hair-dye colour, dressing, speech and lifestyle aping Western culture.

“If you don’t include like I do, you are bad.” On the surface, such a statement appears to be inclusive. However, this belief often causes the person or group to negatively judge others who do not share their same values or think like them. Thus, the surface inclusion becomes a subtle and often unnoticed front for deep-seated exclusivism. While I was in the United States for a short stint last year, I had the opportunity of sharing a Sabbath meal with a group of secular Jews who made no secret of their avowed liberalism. When discussion led to the account of how the son of one of them had recently shown a greater inclination to Republican (obviously perceived as more conservative) views, another guest at the table exclaimed, “Oh poor thing! That must be so difficult for you to accept!” I thought I had missed something in the conversation. It appears that becoming ‘conservative’ was synonymous to contracting some form of terminal disease.

“I know there are differences, but they are not important.” This corresponds with Bennet’s third stage which he calls “minimisation.” At this stage, persons often try to avoid stereotyping and even begin to see value in all systems. Persons at this level view many things as universal, rather than viewing them simply as part of their own ethnocentricity. I would actually rate this as the most subtle and ‘dangerous’ form of ethnocentricity. Although it obviously emphasises the commonalities and downplays the differences among groups, this kind of ethnocentricity is another way of preserving the centrality of their own worldview. ‘If I want to accept only the part of you that is like me, I am ignoring the rest of you that is different and I am not treating you as a whole person.’ In other words, only those values which correspond to mine, and thus regarded as universal, are of value. In my perception, any differences are of little value. “All religions are the same.” “We all basically believe in the same thing. Differences are man made.” “We are all believers in God and for Him there is no difference.” I often shudder at the casual mention of the last statement at interreligious functions, knowing that my Buddhist friends would again be excluded by such a sweeping generalisation.

Demolishing the Tower of Babel: Dealing with our Ethnocentricity, Part 1 (of 3)

By Rev. Fr. Michael Chua

The Tower of Babel
We are all too familiar with the story of the tower of babel in Gen 11:1-9 set on the mythical stage of a world that was united by a single language and speech. As a result of their pride (though depravity is not mentioned at this stage as in earlier stories), men began this project of building this tower that would reach to the heavens. The story ultimately ends with God’s contempt for human pride and punishes them by causing disunity among them through the confusion of their languages and scattering them abroad, so that they will no longer be one people united by a single tongue.

Perhaps, the often unspoken question of any reader of the story would be this: Why did God confuse their language so that they couldn’t understand each other? What did He intend to accomplish? Is diversity, God’s curse for His people?

I personally received new insight to this story last year when I heard a Native American retell the story in the light of his own traditional spiritual understanding. He claims that he can never understand how White People interpret this story as a curse. He was utterly convinced that it was a “blessing” from God, or the Great Spirit. In other words, the Great Spirit felt it was such a shame for people to live under the illusion of same-ness, ignoring or even vilifying that which was different, that He had to intervene to teach man the need to respect and even celebrate diversity.

Thus, the tower of Babel becomes the symbol of our small-mindedness, our store-house of prejudices and inability to see value and goodness in those who are different from us. In our separateness, we build our towers of unspoken assumptions, beliefs and values. As the tower gets taller and taller, we create more distance and separation from others who are different. Up in the imaginary security of our tower, we may presumptuously conclude that our culture is God’s culture – which, in turn, may lead us to believe that we are gods. We then sit in judgment of others according to our standards and values.

How then do we come down from our towers of Babel? The first step may be the hardest. It is confronting the truth about ourselves – the truth that these towers of superiority and separateness do not guard us from harm’s way but in fact are the cause of our destruction.

I’m not a Bigot!
One of the hardest and most stinging indictments that anyone can receive in his or her life is being called a “bigot,” whether in reference to race, religion, sexual orientation or politics. “Am I a bigot?” Thus, the accusation will start a snowballing of angry denials which will ultimately lead to both mental and verbal justifications. “I’m no bigot! Just because I believe that some people don’t deserve to be compensated for their laziness doesn’t mean that I’m bigoted!” “I’m a very open minded person! For your information, I grew up with many friends who are non-Catholics.” “I’m for equal rights, mind you! I believe that everyone is the same and should be treated the same! There are basically no differences between us. Me? A bigot? Certainly not!” “I really have nothing against Hinduism, Islam or Buddhism. I just have problems with some of their believers and how their religion is practised. They should really learn from us Catholics.” The often angry reaction to even a hint of bigotry on our part may actually be indicative of the truth which we refuse to see in ourselves, the shadow of ‘the bigot’, ‘the racist,’ ‘the chauvinist’ hiding in the closets of our hearts.

So, perhaps before we can even begin to discuss bridge-building with peoples of other beliefs, it may be important to move beyond our self-deceptions to take an honest look at some of our fundamental beliefs of “others” in order to determine our level of inter-cultural sensitivity.

It may be useful to understand the dynamics of prejudice and bigotry by examining the anthropological concept of ‘ethnocentricism.’ Ethnocentricism refers to the tendency to evaluate other groups according to the values and standards of one's own specific group, especially with the conviction that one's own group is superior to the other groups. This often leads to an assumption of superiority over others. Anthropologists argue that everyone is not spared from this condition of being ethnocentric from an early age. We all grow up in a specific environment that shapes our values and worldview. When confronted with that which is ‘different,’ or the ‘other’ person or group, we would then begin to make judgments based on our own historical cultural assumptions and biases. We often do not know very much about other worldviews and would often either consider these as invalid or of lesser value and importance than ours. Therefore, we come to the painful conclusion that we are all basically “ethnocentric!”

It is only in understanding and accepting the cause of our ethnocentrism that we can move beyond it. Admission and recognition is the first step. Then we can begin the long journey of acquiring greater sensitivity to differences that we see in others.