When I recieved my usual mail from my energy company wishing me “Frohe Weihnachten” – Merry christmas, a friend remarked to me that christmas wishes like those would provoke an outrage in the US or the UK. It has obviously become political consent that in order not to exclude those who don’t celebrate christmas, these days have to be called “Holidays”. At least this was a hotly debated topic in the US some years ago.
Now while I usually subscribe to the view that sensibilities of different groups should be taken seriously, I do prefer tolerance over sensibility here. Straigthjacketing peoples language is essentially a sign you don’t trust their intentions, and it sacrifices parts of a culture we grew up in for a benefit that seems to elude me. I do wish my turkish friends here a Happy Ramadan if I recognize that it is coming up (and am happy to be lecured that you don’t wish Happy Ramadan but say something different instead. Teach me). If I travel to Mexico, I would expect people to wish me “Feliz Navidad” – or, if they would want to be polite, “Frohe Weihnachten”, just as I would try to be polite and come up with something in spanish. What I object to in this case is not as much the idea to accomodate everyone, but the loss of variety that results if you melt all into one.
After all, it would be ludicrous to object someones greetings in his native tongue, and this is pretty much replacing politeness with moral compulsion. The same way it has become very fashionable to refer to towns in their native name instead of the existing name in ones language – People say Milano instead of using the german Mailand, or they use Warzawa instead of Warschau. I do understand that for a good part of the last sixty years the Polish were pretty suspicious of german intentions towards their former provinces, and had good reason to do so, since the germans took until 1990 to accept they wouldn’t get East Prussia back. But nowhere does anyone assume the US plan on incooperating Bavaria as a 51st state if they call it that instead of “Bayern” and they board planes to Munich instead of “München”. And frankly, neither do I want another five new deindustrialized states with ancient industries that would suck up my tax money as subsidies, not am I particularily in favour of resurrecting the old Hohenstaufen Empire and its habit of letting its armies getting slaughtered at the gates of Mailand in its eternal quest to rebuild a Roman Empire.
I am, however, very much in favour of tolerance meaning to let people call things as they want to, and trust them that not every deviation from the path of the wise results in an insult or a discrimination. Sure, there are very fine and subtle ways of debasing someone, but for all what its worth we won’t be able to eliminate all mechanisms of distinction from this society, and frankly, I doubt we would really want that. And there is ample room to call all the racists, antisemitists, sexists and dickheads of this world by their name in any language.
P.S.: I am, per definition, part of the majority, thus my thoughts on those questions have to be taken with a grain of salt – I have rarely experienced discrimination, and therefor can’t properly speak for those who have and might have more right to stand up and demand changes. If I should ever meet someone that claims to be offended by the use of “Stettin” or “Frohe Weihnachten”, I will sit down with him or her and listen, and, maybe, change my mind.