The Concept Of National Culture

The term “national culture” is too expansive to define because it absorbs and crosses many dimensions that cannot be specifically tagged to. In a broad sense, “national culture” may stand for a sense of attachment to things, lands, buildings (architecture) and landscaping that can construct a sense of belonging to a country commonly known as national identity or nationhood. In his article, Zubrzycki (2010) feels that nationalist scholars often referred the term “national culture” to signify language, ethnicity and traditions of a population of a nation. Just as how he puts it, “national culture” is used by political bodies to build nationhood and this term today, is constantly being fiercely cared for and protected by the people to preserve
One of the key issues that Singapore is facing today is low birth rate among its citizens. In 2004, the country recorded its lowest percentage of new births and since, did not increase over the next few years (Population White Paper, 2013). The alarming decline in birth rate only proved to reveal contentious truths about the views of its people towards high costs of living and pricey childbearing expenses that deterred Singaporeans from starting families. Therefore, to cope with the declining statistics, the Singapore government opened up its doors to foreigners by making its citizenship policy more attractive and accessible. This included awarding permanent residency to foreigners and easing up public housing and education laws for these new members of community. While all these satisfied the connotations of a “New Society” in Singapore, implications between the new members and the host started to escalate. Welcoming new members resulted in an upsurge of Singapore’s population. Today, out of the 5.47 million population of Singapore, nearly 40% makes up of foreigners (Tham, 2014). Cultural implications such as growing dissatisfaction in social issues such as tighter job competition (Einhorn, 2013) and increasing international marriages led
In a “New World” society, inclusiveness is often sold as a “marketing strategy” to spread views of assimilation within diverse communities. Conversely, to buy into this strategy could only mean to be at odds with “multiculturalism” since “integration” is the root claim in inclusiveness. Chua (2015) penned that in a country like Singapore, integration with other different ethnic communities “is not only about fitting in” (Chua, 2015) but also to let the host be changed a little by the presence of new members of community. To assimilate cultural differences and to place communal peace in order, Singapore relies on its Sedition Act and the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. To reduce integration conflicts would also mean for the host to hear out views of the immigrants and learn from them. By way of this article, it only goes to show that the concept of a “New World” society may not have existed in Singapore just yet. For such an article to be published in its main national newspaper, it only magnified the real sentiments of the people towards