What might be “okay” to you could be embarrassing or annoying to others. This is why it is important to learn about the cultural/religious habits of people in different places in the world, especially if you live in a place where different communities share it together. This will help ease the communication between you and them.
Habits not only mean that let’s say -mainly- an Arab doesn’t kiss or even sometimes shake hands with none-close women when greeting them (which has happened to me quite often), but it also means that it is important to learn how Arabs make jokes, how their body and facial gestures are used when responding to others in a conversation, and how they eat, drink, communicate with others etc..
Knowing how people think and behave will make their relationship stronger and will put it at peace. Direct contact with other communities is the best way to learn about them, as it will truly allow you to understand their okays and no-nos. It is worth saying that books and media might not be a reliable source of knowledge in this case, since they are mostly built on the personal opinion of the author.
Eventually, lack of knowledge about the “other” will always mix things up, so what might be a personal trait or a cultural attribute of somebody would be falsely understood as a religious belief. This will lead me to discuss the way in which cultural differences can sometimes become a source of unjustified torment or fear to certain people, therefore, in stead of understanding and accepting others as they are, they become undesirable to us. Hence, what appears to be a source of threat will become a reality.
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