Rasismia vai ei?

Am I exaggerating? Maybe little but not totally. I really have seen this kinds of behavior at school environments. Why this kind of things happen?

I think that students are taught more these themes "everyone must be given equal", "everyones opinion must be respected", "we have to defend our rights to believe", "we have freedom of speech" and so on. These all seem like good advices, but these general advices lack the real practical means how to accomplish these generic advices. They do not have enough education to understand, how and why some everyday problems have been solved like they are. Most usually they are attacking wrong directions or wrong persons.

Now let's compare this "utilitarian school kitchen" to a "idealistic multicultural school kitchen". Kitchen personnel has to be, lets say, doubled to prepare every different possible meal. Of course these cooks also need education, so we also need to add resources for their education because of wide variety of different diets. These schools might also be funded from public tax money. A lot more experts are needed to solve same everyday problem, that how ordinary students can be fed healthy with wide variety of diets.

Well, who pays for all this extra work and effort? In more socialistic societies this is funded by tax payers, means every working man and woman. Basically it is little extra work for everyone. In more capitalistic model all schooling is paid directly by parents, and parents also pay directly for the food their children eat. Actually final result here does not depend too much of economical model in use. The more people demand variety from some common services, the more it will finally cost to them.

There really isn't any magical economic trick how people could serve more needs with less work, that also has common names robbery and fraud. There is no "heavenly" well being in socialistic world, and there is no "heavenly" well being in capitalistic world. Only fact here is that, if you want something then someone or something has to do the work. Basically money is tool for trading "working hours".

These kinds of seemingly small grass root demands, like different diets for students, might have huge impact on the total efficiency of a society. Here for efficiency I mean the total work needed to fulfill some need. Ultimately, in all societies and religions someone has to do the work.

Now as in utilitarian means, improving our lives could mean developing new technology so less human work is needed for necessary daily tasks. And as the humanistic means, improving our lives could mean more choices how to express ourselves. Actually these are not against each other, rather they complement each others. They both are needed and one cannot succeed without another. We cannot directly compare humanistic good and utilitarian good.

Now how all these wondering thoughts come back to equality and school kitchens? Also equality has two sides, humanistic and utilitarian. So here, as I see it, religions are more on the humanistic side of the problem. And kitchen personnel at school are more of the utilitarian side.

So now, when someone is asking or demanding more, from current society, he should consider that how much he personally would work, if he had to do it by himself? Will kids at schools ever prepare their own meals? No. Who pays for their food? Ultimately their parents, or someone else who works some extra hours to feed these children.

Now what equality really is? Personally I am falling more on the utilitarian and practical side. So for me equality also has some simple practical means.

- demanding less necessary services and goods
- developing more efficient and safer ways to accomplish necessary tasks for daily life
- being wiling to work more extra hours to receive additional goods
- accepting that less freedom of choice in some cases, may mean more freedom in other cases
- accepting that more work now, can mean less work for my children
- demanding same set of rules for other people too

I would like to know, how you think your religion guides towards better equality? I know Quran has good statements about modesty and chastity. But in practice these aren't trivial things.

Now when some country has developed rather efficient ways for daily living, there are usually rather monotheistic culture what comes to daily necessities. Now when people from other culture start living there, they might add some extra humanistic necessities there.

Now I want to ask your opinion, and you understanding about how Quran and Islam handles these kind of questions?

- Should those, who bring new "humanistic necessities" to a society be willing to pay more for them?
- Should those, who want to "import" these new cultures, be willing to pay more for these extra necessities?
- Should those, who think these are not necessities for successful living, be willing to pay because of these some others demand those?

Well I think that if one wants more services, he should be willing to pay for that. Demanding others to pay for that is wrong.

I live in a rather socialistic and christian country, all necessary public services are funded by tax funds. People have been doing all sorts of haram things for centuries, like eating pork and things like that. We're quite liberal in one sense, but most are satisfied with rather similar culture.

Now, when muslim students in a christian society start demanding things, like their food may not contain any pork. This of course adds more costs to a working society. This society has been eating pork for generations and is living all the time better. They are not easy to convince that eating some pork would be bad, in fact that is impossible. It already has been disproved.

Now is that equality that in a public funded school everyone eats same foods, what ever they are. If those have been discovered as safe? Or is it equality that all need to work more, because some minority group just don't want to eat especially pork? Is it racists if some school does not provide halal-diet for muslims? If I would go to a majority muslim school, how my demands for pork would be accepted?

What happens if kids are now allowed to go some school because of this kind of issues? There is a real danger of uneducated children who are kept outside of the surrounding society, because of their parents own demands.

What is more important than providing children good education? Is relevant question here, if one eats pork?

This is reality, these are big problems that everyone meet in a multicultural society. Too many strict and different opinions about common things makes our lives harder. It separates people and might cause unexpected and unwanted side effects. These side effects could be even such that both opposing sides do not want.

How do you solve these questions in your everyday life?

Siteeraan tässä tunnettua ajattelijaa, Juha Kankkusta: "Pojat puhuu..." ja Kjell Wästötä: "Sådant e livet".