raising Intercultural Awareness

raising Intercultural Awareness

Nowadays, media increasingly become an important sours of raising people’s awareness of different threats and necessities, which modern societies rely more and more on it to arise and discuss their news and issues. Moreover, one of the important issues a raised by media are those issues related cultural aspects especially subjects linked to culture diversity ‘Multiculturalism’. This will be discussed in depth, as it is the core topic of this paper. This essay will involve in defining ‘Multiculturalism’ and focus on Britain. Furthermore, it will involve in describe the UK’s multiculturalism in the light of chosen case study (David Cameron’s speech in Munich conference). Thereafter, will attempt to make a comparison between the case study and some multiculturalism theoretical concepts. Subsequently, a brief of my experience of multiculturalism as a general and especially in the UK. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn in the light of discussion.

Multiculturalism has been largely discussed on both scientific and public level. In fact, based on current literature, it can be argued that there is no a clear definition of multiculturalism, due to many existing definitions diverge in terms of written time and understanding of what multiculturalism all about, which for example multiculturism in 70s and 80s is completely different than modern multiculturalism in present century, in the 70s for instance, ‘multiculturalism’ used as a policy to preserve myriad cultures, Nash 1996. However, that definition has evolved over years and become more descriptive for instance, Rosado 1997, defines multiculturalism as “a system of beliefs and behaviors that recognizes and respects the presence of all diverse groups in an organization or society, acknowledges and values their socio-cultural differences, and encourages and enables their continued contribution within an inclusive cultural context which empowers all within the organization or society.” This definition can be considered as more expressive of modern multiculturalism. In fact Britain represents such a good multicultural societies, according to BBC (2011), Britain is one of the most ethnically diverse country in Europe, representing verity of different cultures. Which According to cabinet office (2003), 8% of the UK population are Ethnic minorities, that is around 4.6 million people, In other words there are so many variety of nationalities, religions, languages and culture backgrounds. According to Office for National Statistics 2011, it indicates an obvious increase in immigrants to the UK which the number has been raised between 2001 and 2009 for instant, Indian occurred an increase of 3.9%, Chinese 8.6%, Mixed: White and Black African 6.3%...etc. Those immigrants mostly concentrate in the West Midlands, the South-East of England, and. In cities like London, Birmingham or Leicester.

British people split up in terms of welcome multiculturalism and unwelcome it within their societies, which the majority believe that it has improved British society and enriched their culture, others believe it has an effect on their country and culture, as they for example, some parts of Britain have changed radically by different cultures which they believe that the influence of other cultures has affected their identity.

Nowadays, multiculturalism has been attacked from political spectrum as they considered that an issue as a result of immigration and how that being damaged the societies of Great Britain. Which, a security conference in Munich, Germany in 2011, David Cameron has criticized "state multiculturalism" in his first speech as prime minister on radicalization and the causes of terrorism (BBC. 2011). Cameron’s speech focuses on the problems related to multiculturalism and emphasized on Muslims communities in Britain as they failed to integrate well in multicultural societies, also he mentioned that Britain’s unique identity should be kept and most importantly there shouldn’t be tolerant on it. Cameron also criticized the concept of multiculturalism in Britain, which he argued, that has been proven failed, which he associates the failure of managing the multicultural societies has encouraged different cultures to live a separate life away from Britain’s main street, in other words encourage them to maintain their own cultures rather than live like a British and follow British values. Nonetheless, he claims that there was kind of civilization conflict among different cultures, especially Islamic culture, where he states that some young Muslims struggling to understand and maintain their own values and believes they have inherited from their parents in one hand and to integrate into the British society as they find it difficult, which that could lead to extremism in long term, due to the feeling of rootlessness. In addition, he emphasized the failure of not guarantee the individual’s freedom of choice as he gave an example of forced marriages. Overall, Cameron concluded his speech saying that Britain needs a strong and clear national identity and he suggested there is a strong necessity of promoting Western values.

Cameron’s speech seems to be influenced by liberal multiculturalism approaches, which promote and encourage individualism within particular cultures, in other word, multiculturalism should promote more freedom within the society and allow more integration among different cultures. He emphasized that individual’s rights should be guaranteed within the multicultural society, and that seen clearly when he mentioned forced marriages and how the present concept of multiculturalism cannot protect individuals of being victims, which that can be supported by some theories for instance, it can be associated to Shachar (2001) as he argued that multiculturalism protect only group and that lead to some discriminations on individuals. In addition to that also Cameron view can be linked to some liberal theories such as liberal multiculturalism theory by Barry 1999, who defends the values of a western’s liberal society and insisted of not being tolerant of such contradiction to those values

On other hand, there are various theories that contrasted with Cameron’s speech for instance; according to Bauman 1991 said that multiculturalism should be implemented on the light of principal of consistent democracy, in other words all citizens are equal and have the rights despite the differences between them and no values should be consider as dominant, where Cameron strongly suggested to promote Western values over all and maintain them properly as these values should be followed by all cultures. Another theory contradicts with Cameron’s view is proposed by Sen (2006) which he believes that multiculturalism is focusing on promoting diversity as a value on its self rather than drive diversity to a certain way as Cameron suggests.

The word of Multiculturalism sticks into my mind since I first came to the UK. When I was a child I always dream to visit different countries, experience, and different cultures and learn about others. When I grew up that dream is become true as I finally decided to get my degree abroad, and I chose to study in Britain, which I consider Britain as the most unique foreign country I ever visit. I was impressed by the diversity of societies in Britain and how are different cultures respectably live together with freedom of practice. Actually, I have not experienced that kind of multiculturalism before, and that completely changed my perspective of multiculturalism, likewise, that has a positive effect on my believes and my life as a whole, which I have learnt how to respect and accept others as they are, furthermore, I felt that I astonished more when I lived for some times in the city of Leicester and seen the huge diversity of people there from different cultures, believes and religions. Nonetheless, as much as I impressed of that, I believe and agree with what Cameron says about the failure of multiculturalism, which I believe that some cultures are resisting the change to their believe and culture even though if it is necessary whatsoever and they strictly live apart from the main street, and some of them not even speak English and still communicate by their language as for example those Bangladesh community live in some part of London as according to BBC.

To sum up, multiculturalism has several definitions depending on the period and understanding of it, which the definition has evolved over years. However, most of them defend it as the variation of cultures background, believes and religions live together peacefully. Nowadays, multicultural societies have rapidly increased around the world especially in modern societies such as, British society due to huge number of immigrants over the past decades, which that caused uncontrollable behavior in some society, that made bratin rethink of its policies toward multiculturalism which as David Cameron pointed in the conference of the failure of multiculturalism. Having compare Cameron’s view about multiculturalism and its theatricals, different views support Cameron speech in one hand and another views against him, however, it can be argued that those theories can both means a good use of multiculturalism if understood and managed well.

Reference:
Cabinet office. (2003) Ethnic Minorities and The Labour Market.
Final Report, P7.
Department for Work and Pensions. (2010) Ethnic minorities in the Labour Market. (Online) http://www.dwp.gov.uk/emag/what-we-do/background/ethnic-minorities-in-the-labour/ (access on 2/4/2012).
Office for National Statistics. (2011) Population Estimates by Ethnic Group 2002 – 2009.
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Individual rights and collective rights, P34.
Nash, Gary. (1996) Multiculturalism and History: Historical Perspectives and Present Prospects. pp. 183–202.
Rosado, c. (1997) Toward a Definition of Multiculturalism, published Ph.D.
Shachar, A. (2001) Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women's Rights.