Qatar Foundation is a perfect representation of the multicultural society that exists here in Doha. According to the QF website, the QF community is made-up of 90 different nationalities. Being exposed to so many different people allows you to interact with, and learn about these cultures that can be found in one oasis. Whether you are a student, staff or faculty member in Education City, your chances of experiencing a taste of culture from all around the world prove to be unique and worthwhile. Here’s an example…
A few weeks ago, I was invited to Rezwan and Samira’s engagement party, friends of mine who were both students in Education City. Rezwan and Samira are both Bangladeshi. They share the same culture, languages, and understanding of the material and non-material culture that they grew up to become accustomed to. Culture has a social context. And my friends to be married, have both undergone a process of socialization in which they have learned and acquired a certain way of life, and a sense of self in the society they live in, in Doha as well as in the social environment of their homeland in Bangladesh. The process through which the Bengali way of life or identity that both Rezwan and Samira have learned, accepted, and taken as his or her own is called internalization. According to the book by Ferrante, through this process of internalization, the norms, values, beliefs and languages are passed on to them by their socializers.
The Bangladeshi people all belong to a group in which they share a distinct identity, interact with each other, and feel a sense of nationality, pride, belonging, and membership. There are different types of groups that act as agents of socialization. And the people who are probably the most influential in terms of passing on the Bangladeshi cultural identity to Rezwan and Samira are family members, especially parents, and elders – people who belong to the primary group, a social group in which members have strong emotional ties.
A Bengali wedding ceremony or any other party prior to a wedding such as an engagement celebration differs greatly from one that my family would host. It was a very interesting and enjoyable experience sitting there amongst his family, and friends (who were not entirely Bengali) watching what went on in this beautiful gathering. A wealth of sociological terms and concepts can be applied to all the elements I observed in the three-hour period I spent at the party. Everywhere I turned, I wanted to shout out one of the theories from class. But I saved it all for the blog, and stuck to “congratulations”.
As soon as I stepped into the party hall upstairs in the Indian restaurant called "Aalishaan", I was surrounded by symbols, material culture and non-material culture. The material culture consists of all the natural or man-made objects with attached meanings, for example the food, the traditional clothing, the festive decorations and gifts. The non-material culture includes the Bengali language, the values (the respect for the elderly, and the behavior towards them), beliefs (pertaining to the Muslim faith) and gestures (greetings, and ways of interaction among the guests and hosts, and celebration activities).
According to Ferrante, socialization involves both nature and nurture. Rezwan and Samira’s genetic make-up, “physical appearance” or biological inheritance, are related to nature. They “look” Bangladeshi, and similarly their Bengali friends, and family, look Bengali too. On the other hand, the social environment I witnessed including their primary group of relatives, close friends and family, and the interactions between them, are all considered the nurture part of socialization, through which Rezwan and Samira live their lives, have social experiences and human interactions. Although their appearances might suggest they are Bangladeshi, there is a reason why some of their relatives for example, do not speak English. Their relatives have not acquired the same education, experiences, and social contact as Samira and Rezwan did. Hence, nature and nurture are both critical to analyzing the process of socialization and either one cannot be ignored.
The ceremony started off with a Qur’an recitation, when all guests remained seated and quiet, followed by a short speech. A significant symbol was used to signify to people that they are expected to be still and quite for the recitation of the Holy Qur’an. That symbol, also used frequently prior to proceeding with a significant act or movement, is the phrase of two words in Arabic “bismullah” meaning, “in the name of God”. As soon as the speaker said those words, everyone sat down, and stopped their conversations, waiting attentively, knowing what to expect afterwards. Another example when this symbol was spoken is before the slicing of the cake.
The cake segment, was one of the one most intriguing and amusing of all the events in the party to me. In Bangladeshi culture, feeding sweets to the bride by all elders, relatives and those involved, is a key part of the ceremony. The glowing bride Samira, had to watch the big mouthfuls being fed to her, piece by piece…and I could see how the poor thing tried so hard to nibble off smaller manageable bits. Everyone wanted to take part in the feeding process, even the bride’s younger brother. Cake was flying at her at a constant speed. Luckily her husband-to-be finally took over, and he and Samira both started feeding their closest relatives in return.
This may be seen as a symbolic gesture between people of group in which the act of feeding cake to each other conveys a meaning of love, blessing, gratitude, respect, good will, and value from one person to another. Other examples of symbols and gestures include the gestures for expression between the mother-in laws to their son and daughter-in-law and the gesture in which Rezwan and Samira’s mothers placed their hands on the bride and grooms heads and hands as to bless them, also saying at times, short versus from the Qur’aan.
Another important part of non-material culture, that is also symbolic in nature, includes presenting the gifts to both the bride and groom from the mother-in-laws. Rezwan’s mother presents Samira with a gold bracelet and ring placing them on her arm and finger. And Samira’s mother presents Rezwan with a new watch, and also places it on his arm. This exchange of gifts is considered part of the engagement process, where both sides present gifts as meaningful tributes. The act of giving the gifts is the non-material culture, and the gifts themselves, can be considered tangible material culture.
Other tangible material culture includes all the different aspects of the bride and groom’s wardrobe: clothing, accessories, veils, bracelets, necklace, rings, jewellery, and henna.
The food that was served, was Indian cuisine not Bengali. And although there are a lot of similarities between the two in terms of spices and key foods, serving Indian food at a Bengali ceremony could be considered a form of cultural diffusion, in which other cultural items are borrowed from a source outside the Bengali culture.
Finally, all of these shared experiences, gestures, symbols, that are recalled, reproduced, and repeated in this ritual (engagement ceremony) or event are passed on from generation to the next in order to be sustained and preserved. Socialization is impossible without memory. Therefore, the only way through which this preservation and passing on of experiences is possible is through collective memory. Without collective memory, Rezwan and Samira’s families wouldn’t have passed on experiences that shaped the “Bangladeshi” engagement party I attended, groups with particular identities would seize to exist and I wouldn’t have been able to remember any of the things I just wrote about in this blog post!
