When One Culture's Custom Is Another's Taboo

To get back to the blog discussion though, I found an article having to do with the honor killings, or rather several instances when one culture's custom is another's taboo in general...


In Maine, a refugee from Afghanistan was seen kissing the penis of his baby boy. In Afghanistan, this was a traditional expression of love by this father. To his neighbors and the police, it was child abuse, and his son was taken away! Also, in Seattle, a hospital tried to invent a harmless female circumcision procedure to satisfy conservative Somali parents wanting to keep an African practice alive in their community. The idea got buried in criticism from an outraged public!

"How do democratic, pluralistic societies, like the United States, based on religious and cultural tolerance, respond to customs and rituals that may be repellent to the majority? As new groups of immigrants from Asia and Africa are added to the demographic mix in the United States, Canada and Europe, balancing cultural variety with mainstream values is becoming more and more tricky," says Barbara Crossette.

Now, many Americans will face the debates of whether any branch of government should have the power to intervene in the most intimate details of family life. Anthropologists have researched this debate more in depth and this topic is increasingly engaging scholars across academia, as well as social workers, lawyers and judges who deal with new cultural dimensions in immigration. Some argue for fundamental changes in American laws, if necessary, to accommodate almost any practice accepted as valid in a radically different society if it can be demonstrated to have some social or cultural good.