A World Not Neatly Divided

How “diverse” is the world? The world today is a very diverse place, where many cultures coexist. There are many different religions, cultures, languages, and even customs of each region in the world. Today, these different cultures are integrating in the modern world, but it causes problems. One major example is that geographers, anthropologists, and historians to classify a region of the world based on a single cultural factor, such as religion. This classification system has been marked by debate and critique, as the system does not incorporate other cultural factors. Writers Ishmael Reed, in “America: The Multinational Society” Amartya Sen, in “A World Not Neatly Divided” and Hyuk-Rae Kim and Ingyu Oh, in “Migration and Multicultural Contention

However, regions are often classified based on only one of these cultural factors and not all of them. Each of the articles covers a specific region of the world. In “A World Not Neatly Divided” India is the main focus for Sen’s argument, which criticizes the term “Hindu Civilization,” since India is home to many people who practice different religions. According to Sen, “For example, describing India as a ‘Hindu Civilization’ misses the fact that India has more Muslims than any other country except Indonesia and possibly Pakistan”(Sen 69). He also mentions the different religions that have established in India: “These include Hindus and Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsees, Christians, (who have been in India since at least the fourth century, well before England’s conversion to Christianity), Jews (present since the fall of Jerusalem), and even atheists and agnostics” (Sen 69).

In both quotes, Sen concludes with, “Speaking of India as a Hindu civilization may be comforting to the Hindu fundamentalist, but it is an odd reading of India.” (Sen 69) His argument points out that a person who practices Hinduism may want to call India a ‘Hindu Civilization’ but it does not describe India

In “Migration and Multicultural Contention in East Asia” the main region discussed in the article is East Asia, particularly the countries of Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, which are very diverse countries. In the “Policies of Diversity” section, the article discusses the different cultures of each country. This was explained in the quote, “…Taiwan (Hoklo, Hakka, Waisheng ren and aborigines), Korea (Koreans, Manchurians, Chinese, and Japanese) and Japan (Japanese, Ainu, Koreans, and Chinese) have been multi-ethnic societies for centuries…” (Kim and Oh 1574). The three articles come to the conclusion that despite each article covering a region in a different area of the world, they share a common theme, which is that they are fed up with the negative stereotypes that are caused by the classification which uses one factor such as religion and want to be classified based on a system that includes other