Cultural Experiences on TV

So I had a bit of time to myself in the early evening the other day so I turned on the TV. Right in the middle of the program all of a sudden it broke away from the program and there was a picture of a mosque, the words 'call to prayer' and the call to prayer coming out in the audio! It went through some pan shots of inside and outside of a mosque and then when it was done, it went back to the program. I was watching the Bahrain channel, so it makes sense that this happened. Though still a bit odd, certainly something that you would not get in Canada. It was just another reminder that this is a Islamic country and that the religion and the State and very closely tied together. Though it also reminded me of how 'post-christian' North America is. If you turn your TV to anything that is not a televangelist or a Christian station (which very view of us get, or at least watch) there is not exactly much that reflects a Christian mindset on the TV. There is much opposing it... but thats a whole different matter all together. Its so interesting being in a country where there really is not much in the way of State\Religion separation. There is a whole new way of seeing how things are done. You hear about how the government works and what it does and does not allow and these are done because of Islam (for some of it anyways... other parts because its a monarchy). It brings a whole new way of thinking about how you go about your daily business and what you do in the public environment. In fact, it also impacts what you do in your private life - some internet sites are banned - certain apologetic sites and other Christian ones you just can't get to. In Saudi they clamp much harder on things - you cannot even get onto youtube because of the things that they do not want you to see there. This all is certainly something to get used to - we always say that we are thankful for the freedoms that we have - I'm experiencing - to a quite small degree to be fair to Bahrain - what it is like to not have some of those freedoms.