Demystifying 'community'

On February 12, 2013 The Hindu carried an interesting article by Sanjay Srivastava on it Op-Ed page, titled "Pathology of the hurt sentiment".  It shed some interesting light and presented some refreshing facts about community and feelings. As I read the article then, something struck me but I couldn't figure out what.  So I preserved that page and it has been rolling on my table (which is often clean of any papers except my planner) since then.  I picked it up again today and it occurred to me that perhaps there is some lesson for me about our Salesian or religious community in this article. So here are the excepts that led me to this insight:

A community is not a monolithic object and not all members of a community enjoy equal rights and privileges.  In fact, very frequently, the idea of not hurting public sentiments only serves to mask the fact that it is the attitudes of the most privileged that are being protected from criticism.  There are, actually, not only communities, but also individuals with different interests, and relationship to power and privilege.  

A note about the past, history... tradition:

When public commentators are urged not to hurt public sentiments, it is an an implicit plea to allow past practices and beliefs to dictate contemporary life. 

Continual glorification of the past is, in fact, a frequent indicator of contemporary cultural nervousness. 

Demands for respecting public sentiments are not only premised on the idea that there is a homogenous public out there, but that sentiments and beliefs are themselves unchanging.  Further, that the slightest questioning of an established way of thinking will lead to civilizational chaos, disharmony and social disarray. 

The idea of 'community' is, in the final analysis, both an objective reality as well as fiction.  For, we might, for instance, pray in a similar manner to many others (and the act forms an actual religious community), but to think that all members of a community must continue to believe in ideas that might have been prevalent a hundred years ago is to present a fairytale version of what community life should be about.  

Some bells about radical life of witness, community life, upholding tradition, preserving our heritage, identity, and the upcoming Salesian Brothers' Congress are ringing in my ears!