holidays

I love waking up with the smell of fire in my hair. Considering I have a bad back and don't camp very often, I cherish any wood-burning fire I have the occasion to enjoy. Last evening after an enjoyable, all-day Easter brunch, we ended around a fire in our friends' backyard. It was lovely.

Lovely fire. 

Easter has never been celebrated for me in this way. I can't say Easter stands out in my mind as a major holiday event as we weren't often gathered with a big group of family - as is often the priority on Thanksgiving and Christmas. As a kid, I remember convincing my mother to get a new "Easter dress", usually flowery with a big bow. But beyond that the annual singing of "Morning has Broken" at my Quaker meeting because it was written by a member, not tons stands out. We have memorial lilies to remember loved ones and palms on palm Sunday, sometimes.

While the U.S. is often seen to the outside world as quite Christian - our loud conservative "Christian Right", "God Bless America" at the end of political speeches, and "In God we Trust" on all our money - living in Europe makes me realize how few federal holidays we have associated with religious traditions. I could have said, "how few federal holidays." Full stop. Period. Here in Sweden most places are closed on Good Friday, Easter and Easter Monday and have reduced hours on the Thursday before Good Friday and Saturday before Easter. Kids are out of school during Easter week.

An Australian friend was reflecting about how special it is to have the beginning of spring coincide with Easter here in Sweden. Because the seasons are opposite in the southern hemisphere, Easter is usually in a fall time. All the eggs symbolizing new life, the blooming flowers after a cold winter make it feel differently significant. In Australia Easter time also has holidays associated and numerous days off (Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday). And sometimes you get a lucky 5-day weekend when it coincides with another public holiday on April 25th, Anzac Day - honoring members of the Australian and New Zealand Armed Corps who have died.

In Europe (and Australia) where fewer and fewer people are religious, there are sure a lot of holidays associated with religious tradition. But part of the key for Americans is that our Puritan roots as a country made it so that the early settlers could be fined for celebrating Christmas . And Christmas wasn't a federal holiday until 1870 and it's the only Christian-related (or religious) federal holiday we have.

Påsk (Easter) decorations - colored feathers in trees.

What I find interesting is when religious holidays are celebrated at all. They connect to earlier Pagan holidays important for the seasons or the sun/moon. In Sweden, Midsommar (most daylight of the year) and St Lucia (least light of the year) are the biggest, most important holidays - both connected to early pagan holidays. As for major Christian holidays, Easter is the first Sunday after the new moon after the equinox. Christmas was a convenient time in Rome because Christ's birthday fell close to the Saturnalia, an existing holiday celebrating the end of harvest and the winter solstice.

Traditionally religious holiday times are for fasting or a pilgrimage or a feast, sound familiar, Jews, Christians and Muslims? It should, because at least traditionally we all do it. (Well, Christians cheat - fasting means you still get veggies.)

Seeing all the facebook photos of candies, dresses, presents, this Easter time, makes me understand a bit what the Puritans were so angry about. They didn't like the boozing and merriment, I don't like how commercial all these holidays are. Grumble on.

In the end, the wonderful part of holidays is the gathering with family and friends. I will tolerate the obsessive facebook posting, put away my concerns about the dominating nature of Christian traditions in diverse societies, and just try to enjoy the time off.

U.S., get it together. We should have more public holidays - no matter the origin, because it really is about giving people time to connect and be with loved ones, not going to work all the time.

"Peace" from Easter brunch crowd (members of the Dep't of Peace and Conflict Research). Photo by: David Ermes.

Deciding who is one of "us"

It is a goal of mine to learn more about American Indian groups and history in the U.S. once a month. I planned to dedicate my fourth Thursday of every month to it. Unfortunately, I haven't been consistent with the blog postings on what I've read and learned (although not always on the 4th Thursday.)

This morning I woke up thinking about the Sami people of Sweden and how I want to find out more about their history and current connection to politics and cultural rights. More on that later.

This American Life replayed an episode about a group in California that has been intentionally slimming its membership. You can find it here: "I know I am but what are you"

A classmate of mine this autumn made an interesting argument about the role of reparations many years after violent conflict during our course on "Transitional Justice". The timeline of transitional justice is debated and sometimes drawn out - for instance the Khmer Rouge trials got their start in Cambodia 30 years after the violence. She wrote on cases of the Caribbean states suing former colonizers. This followed on the news of the judgements in the U.K. to pay some of the victims' families of the Mau Mau, who suffered at the hands of British troops.

I have written about reparations on the blog before. In our quest to make up for past wrongs, at times it is a good idea for the U.S. to explore, not only monetary reparations - which this radio clip makes me doubt, but instead more symbolic acts or other types of restitution to acknowledge the U.S.'s violent history in regards to native groups and slavery.

If you listen to the above clip, let me know your thoughts. Having watched "The Wolf of Wall Street" the night before I pondered on the evil in many of us to seek money and manifest such greed on the backs of others. While the Chukchansi council in the clip deny the monetary motivation behind their actions, the increase in the payoffs from the casino to the remaining (non-kicked out tribespeople) suggests otherwise.

Overall, the point of the This American Life piece that I took away is the way groups, probably all groups often spend lots of energy trying to decide who should or should not be a part of them. I see this in small and large ways in my life and group interactions, as well as in my academic study of groups, whether it be nations or communities. Us and them.