Multicultural Manners : Soccer Promo Kicks Up a Fury

Anticipation of interest in this summer’s World Cup soccer championship games inspires many businesses to create promotional tie-ins. One fast-food chain produces a bag for take-out food that shows flags of the 24 competing nations. However, government representatives from one of these countries object when they discover their country’s flag on the bag. Their ambassador contacts corporate headquarters and demands that the flag be removed.

What went wrong?

The offended country was Saudi Arabia, whose green flag with a sword contains words in Arabic taken from their sacred book, the Koran. The inscription reads, “There is no God but God. Mohammed is the messenger of God.”

To the Saudis, the idea that the food bags containing these holy words would end up crumbled then thrown into the trash was sacreligious. To jettison sacred words in such a casual way would insult not only the Saudis, but Muslims everywhere.

According to Saudi officials, the only acceptable way to dispose of anything containing quotations from the Koran is to recycle or shred them. Holy words must never be thrown away.

A comparable code applies to the disposal of Hebrew sacred words. Worn-out holy books, phylacteries, prayer shawls and mezuzot (small containers holding prayer portions) must be handled with respect. All these remnants contain God’s name and cannot be merely discarded. Instead, they are treated almost as human beings and buried in a Jewish cemetery in a ceremony called shemot , which means “names.”

Rule: Casual treatment of words to one person may be blasphemy to another.