ISLAM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

88 NATIVITY: YES OR NO? 12-20 In this pre-Christmas period in some schools souls are warming up on the theme: "Nativity: yes or no?" with the excuse of respect for non-Chri- stians, to "not offend" the new immigrants in Italy. It should be noted that non-Christians have always been present in the schools but the pro- blemonly arose with the arrival of Muslims. Often those who pose the problem are not the Muslims themselves but precisely certain teachers, ei- ther to set trends or because they delude them- selves into favouring integration by penalizing everything that is part of the Christian tradition. In the name of respect for differences and the protection of minorities, they renounce making the Nativity in the classroom on Christmas, they choose no poems or strictly non-religious songs for the Christmas play, and they ask to remove the crucifix from the walls of schools and hospi- tals. Thus, in addition to discriminating against the vast majority of school users, Muslims and those belonging to other faiths are effectively prevented from knowing essential elements of Italian history and civilization that are of a cultural nature even before confessional. These are ab- solutely harmful forms of self-censorship, which feed conflicts rather than govern them and which denote identity problems in those who promote them. The religious factor in Arab countries is an integral part of the identity of peoples. The tem- perament and tradition of the populations living in the southern part of the Mediterranean make them particularly sensitive to religious involve- ment. This attitude, which we can better under- stand if we take into account the fact that society will remerge, is impregnated with religious cha- racteristics. Muslims are not offended at the sight of the crucifix or nativity scene or any form that a Christian religious culture might take. The Ko- ran recognizes that Jesus is conceived by a virgin "chosen over all the women of creation" without the intervention of a man. God, through an an- gel who appeared in the form of a perfect man, announces to Martha "the good news of a Word that comes from Him, whose name will be Christ, Jesus Son of Mary", that is the birth of a "purest child" who will teach "the book and Wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel". In the Arab countries Muslims are working hard to enrol their children in Christian schools where there are, of course, all the signs of the Christian path and no one has ever been offended by these emblems. Inmy opi- nion, only if a basic "hard core" is guaranteed can foreign communities amalgamate, integrate with the founding elements. There is a basic identity that cannot be ignored in order to plan new forms of society: however, it is not something fixed and immutable over time but a reality in the making which, while preserving its constitutive characte- ristics, is capable of integrating elements of other cultures that are compatible with it, of absorbing and amalgamating the new things it encounters on its path and enriching itself with them. Living together must be founded on values and cer- tainties, and if we hide the cornerstones of our culture, what integration can the Italian scho- ol aspire to? It certainly takes a long time for authentic integration to take place, and a clear willingness to accept the rules from those who come from abroad is certainly necessary, but if the host society does not have a clear idea of its own identity it will not be able to integrate, on the contrary, it will be frightened by the new in which it sees a threat to its security. For this reason, the migratory flows and the growth of the Moslem community constitute an authentic, dizzying challenge for the Italian society, which is forced to question itself on the consistency of what constitutes it, to rediscover the ideals and the profound reasons which define it as a community, as a nation, as a human communi- ty. Let's make sure that the feast of the Nativity does not become that of the Panettone!