[BRIEF NOTE] Secular Rites in the Ex-GDR

I was fascinated to come across Deutsche Welle's brief article on Jugendweihe, an interesting holiday in Germany (literal translation "youth consecration") that aspires to be a secular equivalent to religious confirmation ceremonies for teenagers, marking the transition from childhood to adulthood.

The German Humanist Association advertises for young Jugendweihe recruits with the promise that "there is much to celebrate (and many presents) even without confirmation and communion." There must be some lure in those words for the nation's teenage population, as one in every three youngsters in the states of the former East Germany signs up to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime celebration.

The 150-year-old ritual, which was mainly celebrated in eastern Germany during the past 50 years is not without controversy: While supporters see it as a non-religious way to give teenagers a forum to expand their minds, horizons and understanding of morals, opponents see it as a left-over from communist days that merely give kids an opportunity to ask their relatives for presents.

But not everyone is as ready to accept the ritual as part of Germany's national youth program. Andreas Matthes grew up in western Germany and said he finds the idea of Jugendweihe dishonest.

"Most kids now don't know the meaning of Jugendweihe in communist East Germany, because their parents don't tell them that," he said. "They don't tell them about the difficulties incurred for those who went to confirmation instead, and that is false."

But both Hillig and the president of the Jugendweihe association, Werner Riedel argued that the 21st century event is a far cry from that of the old communist era. In the nine months leading up to their big day, the youngsters can participate in any number of events which are designed to expand their minds, horizons and understanding of morals.

But given that it is all on a voluntary basis, there is plenty of scope for those teenagers who want to make a quick buck with a relatively clean conscience to go ahead and do so. And that is another one of the problems, Matthes said.

"There is no moral basis for the Jugendweihe, because those who take part don't have to do anything either before or after the event," he said. "And that renders it all so meaningless."

Every Easter, me and my sister eagerly searched for the sugary treats and small gifts hidden about the family living room, and how every Christmas we still more energetically unwrapped more and more expensive presents. Oh, and we went to church from time to time. Possibly my family's experience was unique in Canada; possibly West Germans treat holidays of religious origin more seriously than Canadians do. Possibly.

This article at the Goethe-Institut makes it clear that for young East Germans, Jugendweihe is a durable and popular tradition.

Each year some 100,000 East German pupils undergo Jugendweihe, whereas in West Germany that figure is only a couple of hundred. The reason for this lies in the legacy of the German Democratic Republic, even if Jugendweihe was no invention of its ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). The coming-of-age ritual, which has its origins in the second half of the 19th century, is rooted in free-thinking tradition and during the Weimar Republic was appropriated also by the workers' movement. Banned by the Nazis, the SED reintroduced Jugendweihe in 1954 as a public pledge to socialism, also with the intention of repressing the influence of the churches.

Most East Germans are suspicious of the Church as an institution. 'We don't really have many dealings with the Church over here,' says Julia Gräfner diplomatically. The 14-year-old is a student at the Goethe grammar school in Schwerin, the capital of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She is looking forward to her big day, her Jugendweihe. Julia will even have the honour of delivering a thank-you address to the parents on behalf of all 78 Jugendweihe candidates. Only four out of her 27 classmates have decided in favour of the Protestant confirmation ritual, while one has chosen the Catholic ceremony. For Julia, there is not much of a difference. 'Although Jugendweihe is the secular variant of the ritual,' says the young girl, 'it has the same function - it symbolises our passage into the community of adults.'

There has been a sustained lack of interest in organized religion in East Germany since the fall of the Berlin War and reunification. Many observers expected religion to recover markedly, but as Sacred and Secular (reviewed by me here) demonstrates, most central and eastern Europeans are quite happy with being unchurched. It turns out that East Germans have developed and maintained their own communal rites, just as West Germans did theirs. The critical difference is that religion plays a much lower profile in the East. This observation leads to two conclusions, the first specific and the second general:

1. East Germans may define themselves as Germans, but their definitions and norms differ significantly from those of West Germans. As I've written earlier, and as eternityfan has noted recently in her latest post at Aufbau Ost, regardless of the illegitimate foundations of the German Democratic Republic and its totalitarian history, a distinctive East German culture not only developed but survived reunification. Efforts towards eliminating unwanted benign cultural elements are more characteristic of totalitarian states than of liberal democracies.

2. There is a major difference between a secularized society and an atheist society, something comparable to that between agnosticism and atheism. Members of secularized societies seem to maintain tenuous links with major religions, coopting their holidays and their other cultural elements for use when they want an in-group market or a reason for celebration, ignoring inconvenient elements of dogma at their convenience. Members of atheist societies, in contrast, often have only historical relationships with religion, creating and maintaining their own rites, their own acts of collective celebration. Too often, popular commentators seem to miss this critical difference.

UPDATE (8:21 AM) : Crossposted at GNXP.

[BRIEF NOTE] All I'll Say About Terri Schiavo

Via GNXP, Malikthise's "Lies Terri Schiavo's Parents Told Me".

[NON BLOG] Meeting People, or, Life Alongside the Virtual Archipelago

When I got home from work Thursday night, I'd planned to spend a fairly quiet night inside, tackling some critical tasks: blogging, resume work, household duties. I'd plotted a schedule out in some detail, tapering off to inactivity and the sleep of the deserving sometime after midnight. It's a good thing, then, that schillerium phoned me with the happy news that halibut was in town, since otherwise I might have gotten some work done. Fun is rather preferable to work.

I enjoyed meeting roosterbear this September just past--I don't want there to be any confusion about that. I have to say, though, that I'm happy that in meeting halibut rather less eventful. Streetcar east, disembarkment at John, walking south to the Chapters, going to the in-store Starbucks and waiting only briefly before a host of people appeared: schillerium and halibut, and also N. from San Francisco, and green_onion from Toronto. Great fun was had over the entire evening, fajitas at the Armadillo Texas Grill, walking around Toronto (eternal flame of hate, remember), milkshakes at Fran's Restaurant, and a variety of arcane and interesting convesation topics including soc.motss' Bulgarian controversy, the global AIDS epidemic, fiscal federalism in Canada and South Africa, various soc.bi personalities, and the evolution of computer technology and computer networking over time. (50 megabytes never seemed so expensive to me. We split up at a quarter after one outside of Fran's.

I haven't been very active on soc.motss or soc.bi in the past couple of years. This isn't because I don't value these groups, since I do. Quite frankly, if not for the ability to make my first twitchy-minded post on soc.bi back in February of 2002, I'm not altogether sure what would have happened. I'm not altogether sure that I want to know, though given the paucity of any support on PEI and my isolation generally I think that the more positive outcomes can be excluded as a matter of course. USENET has played a critical role in my life; it isn't inaccurate to say that everything that I'm doing now and everyone that I know and consider a friend can be traced, one way or another, back to USENET. Even blogging: My interest in Livejournal was sparked by vcutag's example and roosterbear kind gift of a startup code back in 2003 when those startup codes were needed.

Last September, I linked to a study that claimed people with active online social lives tended to have problems with real-life social interactions. That analysis was flawed, of course, not considering the possibility that online social lives might serve at the very least as a useful substitute for actual social contact for those people who couldn't handle it, more frequently as a way to facilitate real-life social interactions. I actually did have a real-life conversation on this subject James B. (known via soc.history.what-if) one fine afternoon that was interrupted by a (missed) transatlantic phone call from sandor_baci (known via John Kusch's weblog). Without online networks, I certainly wouldn't have had fun Thursday evening with a friend from Cape Town.

So. It was wonderful to meet halibut and the others. Perhaps next time in Cape Town (or San Francisco, or another world city)?

[BRIEF NOTE] More on Schleswig-Holstein

Continuing the subject of my post on the unexpected reawakening of the Schleswig-Holstein question, Doug Merrill over at A Fistful of Euros posts about current events in that German Länd. Gridlock, it seems, is the order of the day.