What does it
mean to have a secular state? Does
Slovakia fit the bill? Do you agree
with this author that the standards are not always fairly applied, depending on
how acceptable a particular minority is?
Do the criteria set up for taking down crosses on public land seem fair
to you?
A secular state would mean that the church in our country would not depend on government and won’t be getting any money. That’s how I understand it. But is that possible in our country? Where majority of people is christian, and attending christian’s schools and institutions offering free-time activities, which our state is not able to cover by its self.
ReplyDeleteThe article explains a case of putting crosses in public places into categories, if they are tolerated and should stay or not. But my opinion is, that it doesn’t have to do anything with secular state. It is a case of limiting the development of city. Crosses protected by Mr. Cartoz, are definitely historical heritage we should protect, but honestly I believe they can be put in places, where they aren’t blocking new constructions. The criteria for removing or preserving the crosses seemed very fair to me, because I’m young person looking forward to development of cities. On the other hand, I’m a huge fan of history, who would love to keep historical heritage for my kids to see.
I completely agree with author, that the standards are not always fairly applied, as an example I may mention the removal of old and very precious synagogue, because of development the Bridge SNP, but the christian church St.Martin’s dome, wasn’t even touched… That’s where the standards didn’t meet. Because the majority decided and the minority had to obey.
Public land means everyone who pays taxes kind of have right to decide what should be happening on it, the sad thing is that it’s not like that. There should be a vote about every cross, or in general a building, if it should be removed or not, if people agree with development or not. The local community should be way more informed and hear arguments, before competent people begin to act.
I have to say that I appreciate Sandra`s point of view pretty much. Mainly I sympathize with her opinion on development of the city. It is truly correct to claim, that new things grow up where the old died. It would be essential to mention the city of Berlin. Even though it was in desolate state after Second World War nowadays it is very modern well-functioning city with a perfect infrastructure. One of the reasons why it is so is that people were given a fine place for building the new things. Maybe, the better example would be the waterfront in Bratislava, where there is Eurovea located now. It was one of the worst looking areas in Bratislava and now it belongs to the most beautiful ones. There is the big perspective in reconstruction indeed.
DeleteNevertheless, there may be conflicts of interest considering development against history or religion. Therefore, the idea of voting about somehow important buildings to be removed seems likeable to me and also because I have experienced such a voting, or better sad a petition in my neighborhood. It was successful and quite important. It helped to prevent my district from both having a damaged infrastructure as well as being unaesthetic. However, I have to say that the minorities could be disadvantaged in such a voting, as Jews might be disadvantaged in the case of SNP Bridge. Nonetheless, it is important to say that the synagogue had quite worse place for standing, than St, Martin`s Dome, what is also an important factor to be considered.
Primarily, I have to admit that I find the idea of building a cross wherever the Christians wanted really crazy. In my opinion, when they wanted some symbol that would protect them, they should have built few (2-3) churches and hope it will save them. On the other hand, I am not a believer, therefore I do not know whether it can work like this but I cannot see any reason why it should not. In this case, there would not be such a problem as too many cross constructions. But there are these constructions and the question that remains unanswered in article is: What to do with them?
ReplyDeleteFor the start, I really approve of the idea of dividing these cross constructions into 3 groups, although, I have to admit that I was surprised by the fact that 35 out of 46 crosses fall under the group ‘A’ (tolerated because of a sufficient historical value). From my point of view, they are all the same, they all symbolize the same thing. They just have different sizes and designs. Hence, I do not understand how comes that almost all of them belong to the first group.
Furthermore, according to the article, legality of 40 out of the 46 crosses on the government list has been proved so they cannot be simply destroyed. Plus, demolishing one cross in Byculla caused a whole public rally followed by a funeral procession for the cross so I cannot imagine what would cause demolition of almost 50 crosses. That means destroying any of those crosses is impervious.
So in the end, the only solution is to move them and create a space where the crosses will not be hindering. Sandra has already discussed this solution and I completely agree with her. The future generations may learn many things from the heritage we preserve. Plus, we do not want to teach future generations that the things which are not convenient should be obviated.