Why Should We Embrace Cultural Diversity?

The term ‘Cultural diversity’ refers to the presence of an array of ethnic and cultural group found within a society. It occurred as a result of migration and globalisation, which has made the world to be more interconnected. As a result of this, many would believe that because it brings vibrancy to the world, therefore it unifies people rather than dividing them.

Such mindset is due to the self-contradictory notion that uniqueness is produce when there is diversity. People feel that culture, practices and language difference will allow the majority found within a society, to become more distinctive. This is evident in several multi-cultural societies such as Singapore and Malaysia. Although Singapore is populated with three quarter of Chinese,

This Singaporean culture emerged due to cultural identity, causing strong identity and unity among Singaporeans as a result. This shows that diversity is a unifying force. Nonetheless, Singapore is one of those exceptions that embrace cultural diversity, which is different from the norms on the international level. Such embracement could be due the nature of the country being small and nation building efforts in her years of forming to become a first world country. However when a country is big in its physical size, such as the united states, “too much” diversity, can led to tension and social division in all situation. The reason for this is because people often focus on the differences as compared to the similarities. An example will be when a white guy see a black guy is his country, the first thing he looks at is his skin colour to identify him and not one that who may be sharing the same desires or dream as him. As a result they tend to not inter mix and through lack of understanding, each creates stereotypes, leading to prejudice and subsequently discrimination, which in this case is racism. Thereby,

The problem lies with people exercising cultural identification. This is so in which people, who have different, custom, appearance and beliefs are often viewed as “them” and the similar background are considered as “Us”. Both of this becomes more prominent when there is contact between people of different group. Diversity is free from problem if it does not intermingle, but with globalisation, it is a reality that people have to face that it will bring people of different cultural background together and result the actions of one party to affect the other. Such issue has caused conflict between countries that has different cultural aspect. This is so for both the Western and Islamic world, where both try to interference or intervene causes conflict. Such problem occur as people exercise ethnocentrism where countries judge other countries practices that they are not accustomed with according to their own standard and try to influence it in the process, that causes this division. Such conflict arise as people of different cultures fear that cultural diversity may threaten the survival of their culture since it allow interaction with other, which might change its people causing a culture to die out completely. Thus, cultural diversity led to mistrust and in a bid to prevent their culture to be taken over by another, people try to distinct themselves from