“How were your holidays?”
The question permeates across our lunch table the day after break, but it’s quite a loaded question these days.
I usually do my best to pose the question in a politically correct manner, as I am so accustomed to. There is a tendency to ask “did you have a good Christmas?” but I know as well as anyone that not everyone has a Christmas tree. I myself have a menorah perched on the table next to our—albeit, nearly dead—Christmas tree, hung with mini versions of the Qua’ran I’ve collected during summers in the Middle East. My family is untraditional in its practices, to say the least.
So we take turns telling stories of our days off and our celebrations with family. I launch into a thorough description of the oil-dripping latkes smothered in applesauce, which of course I did not seek in moderation, and a friend follows up with a description of her time gathering together with her Mormon church.
And while the rest of us listen attentively, you look confused, skeptical, and dare-I-say disapproving, when we provide descriptions of religious traditions that do not match your own.
I could be surprised by your reaction but we all know it’s not uncommon. And unfortunately, your disapproving look is not one that foreign to any of us. I’ve seen it before.
Back home, you told my friend it was in her best interest not to date that Jewish boy. In Europe, you made hurtful comments toward a Mormon friend preparing for his mission. In Durham, you advocated hatred and bigotry in light of a movement to help Muslims feel more welcome on Duke’s campus. In Nashville, you called Islam “an absolute danger” to our nation.
Religion is personal, a choice to practice and believe and worship and pray as you see fit.
It’s a choice to celebrate Christmas, to light the menorah, to fast during Ramadan, to turn and face Mecca when you kneel down to pray. Just as it is the choice of my friends and I to date whoever we choose, worship as we choose, live as we choose, and our decisions are not made available for your scrutiny.
As I look around our campus on this blistery day, I’m proud of a university that promotes the freedom to make those choices. I see that at our very core, this university represents and commits itself to diversity. My classmates hail from countries you’ve never heard of, practice customs I’m honored to learn more about. We have cultural dances, shows, spectacles and religious centers that have always welcomed anyone, of any background, to sit around a table like ours, sharing a meal. As a university, we have committed ourselves to this diversity, committed ourselves to accepting it, cherishing it and promoting it, which was proven most recently by a movement for the Muslim call to prayer to be held from our own chapel.
So you were surprised, weren’t you?
Because even I—the Christmas celebrating, latke eating, Ramadan fasting in the Middle East, girl—was surprised by the overwhelming words of tolerance and acceptance spread far and wide recently.
When 500 Duke students, with signs affirming “I’ll pray with you” gathered peacefully in front of the chapel—our chapel—to support our Muslim community. When Vanderbilt students protested the hate speech of their own professor.
The Facebook statuses of my Christian friends, reminding their religious communities not to limit another’s religious freedoms. The Pope’s words following the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks—“You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
They are encouraging words and signs of acceptance amidst the bigotry, hatred, and intolerance, sentiments we hear all too often these days.
So how were your holidays? Maybe it’s a loaded question, but I hope one day you’ll realize there aren’t right answers.
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