For some time now, the culture of victimization within Neopaganism has been troubling and confusing. As a group, we often seem to seek victim status, and it wasn't until reading The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America, by Shelby Stele that I encountered a plausible explanation for why any group would want to be considered victims. The book has many intriguing ideas, and while the topic is different (race, instead of religion), many of the arguments have counterparts in other arenas.
Being a victim can be powerful. When one can convince others that they are a victim (rightly or not), it becomes possible to control others' behavior, primarily through guilt. This particular type of power can be insidious, too, for attempts to point out this ability to control others behavior can easily be denounced as merely "blaming the victim". I think this is at the heart of why so many Neopagans seem so eager to claim the mantle of victim. To be able to claim that we, as a group of faiths, have been downtrodden or despised means that we can place a burden on others to fix the perceived injustices. It means that we can feel superior, knowing that we are right and have been unjustly treated.
And yet, this is one of the worst, most unhealthy habits within our community -- to dwell on perceived historical injustices or to continually revive and recycle stories of modern injustices. Let me be clear - for those times when a Pagan has a legitimate complaint about illegal treatment, I fully support legal action. Citizens of the United States have rights guaranteed by the Constitution; when those are denied, the courts are the appropriate place to take the complaint. I have faith enough in the court system to believe that the majority of such cases are handled properly. This doesn't mean that I believe that every Pagan who claims to be wronged in the name of religion is correct, or that every Pagan who goes to court will win.
What I'm speaking of here is the "culture of victimization" that we seem to have created for ourselves -- the culture where people frequently speak of how they've been treated badly because of their religion, how others have been wronged because of their religion, and how misunderstood our religions are. This often manifests in groups by dredging up the Crusades, or the "Burning Times", or by asserting (usually without any supporting or relevant information) that "people have lost their jobs and kids for being Pagan!"
While I believe that some people have been illegally treated because of their religion, their treatment does not make our religions full of victims. We have no right to claim the mantle of victim for others, and wars and fights in the distant past do not make us victims; to try to claim their loss as our own is dishonorable. And while there is little hard evidence about modern problems, I've heard enough anecdotal information about Pagan persecution to believe that at least some of it is merely people behaving badly who then hide behind "religious persecution" to explain why others dislike their behavior
If someone flaunts their religion, in any location where that religion is not the norm, they're likely to be considered an oddball and treated as such. This isn't illegal; it's human nature. It is as true of a Pagan in the Bible Belt as it is for an evangelical Christian in a liberal college town. A Pagan who often discusses religion at work may be considered a poor worker and be reprimanded -- that doesn't have anything to do with being Pagan, but rather everything to do with a clear misunderstanding of our society's etiquette and work ethic. Being a Pagan in no way excuses us from following society's rules of social interaction, which means that discussing religion is taboo unless the listener has expressed interest and the setting is an appropriate one.
Pagans often rally behind organizations that "fight for Pagan rights," and yet I think we need to first work on our culture of victimization. We emphasize our victim status so often that newcomers are taught to be victims, by our culture, before they even have a chance to find out for themselves! The community perpetuates the problem with an unfortunate dual message: Newcomers told on one hand to "Be a proud Pagan," without being reminded that being proud of one's new religion does not excuse one from being well-mannered, and simultaneously told, "Don't let anyone know that you're Pagan, or horrible things will happen." Thus, we encourage people to be brash and loud about their religion -- something that is likely to have repercussions, or we place them in a situation where it suddenly seems shameful to be Pagan. Either way, both newcomers to the religion and outsiders are left with a bad impression -- either we appear to flaunt social conventions or we seem to be involved in something so horrible and dark that our involvement needs to be hidden. In essence, we are responsible for much of the mis-education about Paganism, for we have told the public by our actions that we are either obnoxious, or victims. Those who are introduced as victims often find that their treatment is different than others - often for the worse.
We should scrap the idea of organizations that fight for "Pagan rights" (whatever those are -- "Pagan rights" are, after all, the same as everyone elses' rights; we're not entitled to anything special), and instead focus on becoming less afraid of ourselves. Yes, there are those who will not feel comfortable talking about the specifics of their religion to others; that's fine. But for the most part, if all of those who spoke of Pagan rights would merely live their entire lives as a Pagan - neither flaunting, nor hiding, I think many of our public relations problems would become nonexistent.
To me, to live as a Pagan is very little being different than living a life as a normal human being. It means that I wear my Brighid's cross as any other person might, and while I answer questions about it honestly, I discourage in depth discussions with those who are not close to me. It means that while I have a "natural" area on my desk at work, I display no more overtly religious symbols than the rest of my coworkers do, even if those symbols might not be immediately recognizable by many. It means that my parents are aware of my choices, and while I suspect that they find it a little strange, I don't intend to educate them against their will -- if they're curious, they'll ask more. When they seem uncomfortable with it, then because I respect them, I don't force further discussion with them about my religion. It means that I willingly use my real name on my religious writings - where anyone, including prospective employers, can find them, if they care to look.
To date, I've yet to experience anything approaching discrimination. Yes, I've had one or two strangers pester me about my cross - after they were given a short and polite answer and continued to pester, they were told that I didn't care to discuss it with them further. Every one else has been too polite to ask about the symbol, didn't care, accepted the short answer, or was a close friend and had most of their questions answered. Perhaps it's because I never expected anything different - I've always expected, and received, polite treatment about my religion. I wonder, sometimes, how different it might have been if I'd been trained to scrutinize for signs of discrimination. I suspect I'd have been trained to be a much more frightened, timid individual - a victim. And while that might carry with it power to make others feel guilty while feeling morally superior, I'll take avoiding the baggage of being a victim, any day.