Freedom of dialogue?

For a little over a month now I've been enrolled in a course on freedom of speech and information. Interesting...oh yes. The subject is highly debated in relation to the subject of the other course I'm taking right now, namely that on freedom of religion and conscience. I've been thinking about the symbiosis between these two "rights".

Freedom of speech as a right is probably debated everywhere, no matter if people are allowed to speak up or not. It was only a couple of weeks ago you could hear on the news of youtube being prohibited in Pakistan. And only a few days ago about the Tibet/Chinese protests in Lhasa. One of the cornerstones of a society marked by justice is it not?

So what happens then when it clashes with another [right]? Like it does every so often when it comes to freedom of religion. The Mohammed caricatures have been brought up for discussion more than once in class I might add. But what is it that makes it so difficult for these two rights, or to be quite honest, for us as people to meet and try to communicate cross-culturally about our say so in this.

We experienced a little bit of this difficulty this weekend at the afterschool center in Vårberg where me and some friends work. Vårberg is an area in the south of Stockholm where about 60% of the inhabitants are immigrants. A lot of these, especially from Iraq, live there and are without much help from the seemingly anti-social Swedish society (if I may exaggerate a little bit to make my standpoint very clear) trying to build a new life with their families. On top of that, economic conditions lead to public schools being left without enough resources (my own observation) which in turn leads to destructive behavior and violence among the youth.

With this also comes the clash for the kids between their old culture and the new one. And here is where we experinced the Mohammed caricature conflict on a small scale basis this Saturday. One of the leaders trying to calme a kid down made a comparison between what this kid said about another boy's handicap (and he said some really awful stuff to this boy) to his own dad's. And the kid went wild, coming from a culture where shaming your dad and his handicap like that infront of everyone is worse than we could ever imagine here in Sweden. Of course the leader didn't mean to shame him or his dad in any way.

I pause here and ponder the thought of that maybe this conflict that we're talking about, freedom of speech vs. freedom of religion, isn't really about a strict antagonism between the two but about a lost sense of respect for cultural meanings behind cultural terms. Do we believe in freedom of speech? Yes. Do we believe in freedom of religion? Yes. Do we want to dialogue and learn? ... Do we?