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August 5, 2004
The Dilemma's of a Multiculturalist
If you're a committed multiculturalist, stories like this one must drive you crazy:
Oh the horror! Muslims had to watch someone eat pork.A woman is suing her former employer, a telecommunications firm with Muslim workers and clients, claiming she was fired because she ate pork products in the company lunchroom.
Pork is unclean, according to Islamic beliefs, and Rising Star Telecommunications CEO Kujaatele Kweli said his company has a policy against openly eating or preparing the meat.
But the attorney for Lina Morales, an administrative assistant fired in March 2003, said the company admits there is no written policy against pork. And when Morales complained she was being disciplined for a policy of which she was unaware, she was fired for insubordination.
This story brings up a number of issues.
First, and rarely discussed, is the freedom an employer should have in setting workplace rules. As a halfway-libertarian, I'm willing to cut them some slack. I would typically give employers more rights than they currently have. Anathema to extreme civil-rights types, but there it is. However, in this case I think the employer went too far.
The larger question is the quandary of the multiculturalists over these sorts of situations. On the one hand they preach that we must respect all traditions. We must not "offend" anyone with overt displays of religion. As a result, the very word "Christmas" has been banned in the workplace, government and private industry alike.
But what situations where minority groups attempt to impose their beliefs on us? We now have demands that "Kwanza" be equated with Christmas and Hanukkah in "winter holiday" celebrations. On the one hand the multiculturalist must avoid "offending" the minority. On the other there has got to be a point where they say "enough is enough."
The rules in the Florida workplace also illustrate how many Muslims demand that we respect them but they refuse the same to us. You can be sure that if the shoe were on the other foot, and a Christian employer fired a Muslim, the incident would be all over the TV and in the headlines of the major newspapers.
It is my hope that many if not most Muslims in the US are probably as outraged by what the Florida employer did as I am.
Personally, I don't understand how someone could be offended at all by what someone else does. If my neighbor wants to put up a Hahukkah or Ramadan display( if there is any such thing for Ramadan) why should I care? If they want to talk about their holidays at work, what do I care? How does it offend me? I've never understood such things.
Posted by Tom at August 5, 2004 10:05 AM
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