«The City of Los Angles has a history of opposing various degrees of discrimination and supporting the rights to religious liberty and equal protection and recognizing that when those rights are threatened for some they are weakened for all, and therefore… the City of Los Angeles hereby… OPPOSE Islamophobia and repudiate random acts of violence against Muslim Americans».

 

L.A. City Council, December 15th 2010.

Los Angeles is now the most religiously diverse city in the world. How do they handle that?

While Europe has been busy discussing caricatures of Muhammed and burka bans, Angelenos have chosen a different approach. They simply ask; How do we avoid xenophobia? Because, whilst race has been the dominant American social issue in the past century, religious diversity is emerging as a great challenge of the twenty-first. How Americans of all faiths and beliefs engage with one another to shape a positive pluralism is perhaps one of the most important questions facing American society today. How they handle it may also influence and inspire Europe, which is starting to face some of the similar challenges and possibilities. Sadly also made evident after the horrid events in Norway July 22nd 2011.

When photojournalist Christopher Olssøn and I discovered that the City of Angels now houses the world’s greatest religious diversity, with years of experience in working with inter-religious alliances, we decided to move to LA in 2010. The aim was to see how Angelenos handle diversity in their quest for a new American identity - to uphold their common identity as «the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave» - and to provide new perspectives to the European debate.

We started publishing our LA stories last Fall. First out was «Oppstandelsen».pdf in the monthly review Innsikt in September. In April the Norwegian Business Daily, Dagens Næringsliv, featured a teaser - the brief photo documentary Hellig enighet.pdf, and in June we proudly presented «Closer to God in the City of Angels?».pdf in the Danish magazine SCENARIO, as their cover story. This Autumn we continue in Innsikt with the next chapter "Jakten på fredelig sameksistens.pdf.

With best wishes for the Autumn,

Charlotte