I can’t really blame you; the pain is yet growing,
With so many horrible losses
But somehow it seems that your privilege is showing—
You seem to have mis-placed your crosses.
One of the reasonably local papers around Cuttletown had a political cartoon today that irked me a bit. Here’s a link–I won’t show it here because, well, I’m cheap. Basically, the cartoon morphs the cross from the flag of Norway into the crosses at the graves of the victims.
It’s a clever concept, but it reinforces the position of privilege held by Christians (despite claims of persecution) in the US. The crosses represent the victims (reminiscent of Justice Scalia’s view that crosses are “the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead”), which is all well and good, except that
According to Inglehart et al. (2004), 31 percent of Norwegians do not believe in God. According to Bondeson (2003), 54 percent of Norwegians said that they did not believe in a “personal God.” According to Greeley (2003), 41 percent of Norwegians do not believe in God, although only 10 percent self-identify as “atheist.” According to Gustafsson and Pettersson (2000), 72 percent of Norwegians do not believe in a “personal God.” According to Froese (2001), 45 percent of Norwegians are either atheist or agnostic.
(source: Phil Zuckerman’s chapter, “Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns”, in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism.)
Ah, but we do know with certainty that there was at least one Christian involved. The shooter. Yes, it appears his extremist political views, not his religion, was his motivation. I’m sure American cartoonists would make the same distinction for Muslim terrorists as well.
Anecdotal argument from a country which, although culturally rather similar, is not Norway: crosses like these aren't seen as anything having to do with Christianity anymore – the association with death has completely taken over, to the point that some people don't use them not because they are not Christian, but because it's seen as overly morbid.Over here, the cross as a symbol of death is as much post-Christian as angels and the like. (Or are angels seen as Christian in the US as well? I seem to read only atheist bloggers, so my perspective might be rather skewed.)
re: "…crosses like these aren't seen as anything having to do with Christianity anymore"Interesting. Similar to how Christmas is more of a secular holiday now than it is a sectarian holy day. Or like "kleenex", the cross is a brand that has become generic. Well, maybe at least in Scandanavia. Not so much in the good ol' U.S. of A. Here, there are so many Christians that they assume every one else is too. And if confronted with the fact that there are people of other faiths (or none) they fall back on the tired, old, falacious argument "this country was founded as a Christian nation, if you don't like it, get out." Those of us who are the butt of these sentiments are apt to be a bit sensitive about overt Christian displays.
Those of us who are the butt of these sentiments are apt to be a bit sensitive about overt Christian displays.That's understandable. (I translated it, in my head, to misogyny, and now I totally see where you're coming from.)What do mourning announcements look like in the US? We have the name, the date of birth preceded by a *, and the date of death preceded by a small cross, if they don't use the full "geboren – gestorven". They used it for my former landlady, and she was practising Jewish. Now that I think about it, that is rather odd :)