Name: Dipti D Vaghela
(diptivaghela50@gmail.com)
Roll no: 07
Enrolment no: PG14101030
Topic: Define the word ‘Multiculturalism’
Paper no: 08
Name of the Paper: Cultural studies
Dedicated to: English Department M.K.B.
University
~ Preface
There are three
words which are more difficult as under,
-
Literature
-
Discourse
-
Culture
And among these three, culture is difficult one. Because it
different with different faculties. Culture is the word which is also related
with society, people, education, etc. So we can say that it is umbrella term,
various meaning. Let’s understand this word in detail.
~ The word ‘culture’
The word ‘culture’ derived from ‘cultura’ and
‘colere’. It means ‘to cultivate’. It also meant ‘to honour’ and ‘protect’. In
general culture means way of living life or tradition. For example Indian
clothes that we called ‘Sari for woman and Kadiyu for man’. That is our Indian
culture but in British culture it is different. In literature we also apply
cultural studies. We analysis that which culture we can see in text, that is
cultural study in literature. Then we compare their culture with our culture.
In culture we can’t limited its meaning. Culture is the mode of generating
meaning and ideas. Then which meanings are valid and meanings are governed by
power relations.
Culture also
deals with language for example, if we try to speak more English in society so
generally people say that ‘follower of British culture’. In India girls wear
short clothes so people say ‘she is destroying our culture’. So we can say that
the meaning of culture is different in different countries. Our writers wrote
about our culture. And African writers wrote about their culture.
There is also
one other word Popular culture. It is the culture of masses. It is graffiti,
comic books, mass cinema, popular music, the open space of the city, sports,
etc. It is the culture of everyday life of the larger number of people. Now a day
books of Chetan Bhagat is also popular.
If two cultures
combined with each other so it becomes Multiculturalism. But how it attached?
So let’s know it in details.
~Multiculturalism
The demand is ‘to open the canon’ so as to make it
multiculturalism. It means adopting other culture. We use other culture with
ours that is multiculturalism. Now a day we can see that our traditional
clothes are different and we wear western clothes. So it called
multiculturalism. Especially we wear jins with dupata that is the combination
of culture. Generally our foods are multiple like chines, bread, rotala, etc.
Everything becomes multi because of multiculturalism. Our food, clothes, style, language, way of
living life, education are not traditional. We can see many changes in all this
things. Like in India most of the people study Sanskrit language but now they
learn English, Sanskrit language marginalized. We study in buildings not in
forest or beneath the tree so once again it called multiculturalism. In
marriages ‘Dulha’ wearing coat with safa. People like to do business rather
than farming. People more like to live in cities rather live in villages; once
again it is against of our Indian culture. But now a day it is acceptable in
society. People like to follow other culture.
In this picture
we can see that these foreigner girls are playing Holi. And Holi is the
festival of India so we can say that it is multiculturalism.
~ Definition of the
‘Multiculturalism’
‘Multiculturalism
refers to the historical evolution of culture diversity within a jurisdictio,
incarnated by its selection policies and institutionalized by its settlement
policies.’
‘Multiculturalism
is the phenomenon of multiple groups of cultures existing within one society.’
‘Multiculturalism
occurs naturally when a society is willing to accept the culture of
immigrants.’
‘The experience
of living in a society transformed by mass immigration, a society that is less
insular, more vibrant and more cosmopolitan, is positive.’
Now let’s we understand it in different countries.
·
Australia
The Australian government retains multiculturalism in policy
and as a defining aspect of Australia today. The white Australia policy was
quietly dismantled after World War 2 by various changes to immigration policy.
The election of John Howard’s Liberal National Coalition government in 1996 was
a major watershed for Australia multiculturalism. Howard had long been a critic
of multiculturalism, releasing his one Australia policy in the late1980s. Contact
between people of different cultures in Australia has been characterized by
tolerance and engagement, but have also occasionally resulted in conflict and
rifts. Australia’s diverse migrant communities have brought with them food,
lifestyle and cultural practices, which have been absorbed into mainstream
Australian culture.
·
Argentina
The preamble of Argentina’s constitution explicitly promotes
immigration, and recognizes the individual’s multiple citizenship from other
countries. Though 97% of Argentina’s population self-identify as of European
descent to this day a high level of multiculturalism remains a feature of
Argentina’s culture, allowing foreign festivals and holidays, supporting all
kinds of art or cultural expression from ethic groups.
·
Canada
Sikhs is celebrating the Sikh New Year in Toronto, Canada.
Canadian society is very progressive, diverse, and multicultural.
Multiculturalism was adopted as the official policy of the Canadian government
in the 1970s and 1980s. Multiculturalism is reflected in the law through the
Caadian Multiculturalism. Globe and Mail, described Canada as the most
successful pluralist’s society on the face of our globe, citing it as ‘a model
for the world’. It would be of befit to all societies in other parts of the
world.
·
Bulgaria
Bulgaria has hosted many religions, ethic groups and nations.
The capital Sofia is the only one European city that has peacefully functioing,
within walking distance of 300 meters, four place of worship of the major
religions: Eastern Orthodox Judaism. This unique arrangement has been called by
historians ‘multiculturalism cliché’. And that is the triangle of religions. There
is one Turkish minister, Vezhdi Rashidov. Twenty one Roman Political
organizations were founded between 1997 and 2003 in Bulgaria.
·
Germany
In Germany first time multicultural is debatable point.
Muslim immigrants have integrated into German society. The Ahmadiyya Muslim
group to have been granted ‘corporation under public law status’, putting the
Community on par with the major Christian vhurches and Jewish communities of
Germany.
·
Netherlands
In Netherland policy of multiculturalism was adopted in the
early 1980s. Commonwealth made a distinction between tolerance and
multiculturalism. Netherland stands as a tolerant rather than multicultural
society.
·
Indonesia
Pluralism, diversity and multiculturalism is a daily fact of
life in Indonesia. There are over 300 ethics groups in Indonesia. The Javanese
is the largest ethnic group in Indonesia. The Sundanese, Malay and Madurese are
the next largest group in Indonesia. There are also more than 700 living
languages spoken. Predominantly Muslim and yet large Christian and Hindu
populations.
·
Japan
According to Harvard University professor Theodore Bestor
‘Japan look very homogeneous from a distant perspective, but in fact there are
a number of very significant munority groups.
·
Malaysia
Malaysia is a multi ethic country like malays, malaysians of Chinese
descent, malaysians of Indian descent, etc. Chins population had substantial
control over commercial activity in the country.
·
Mauritius
Mauritius society includes people from many ethic and
religious groups Hindu, Muslim and Indo-Mauritians, Mauritius Creoles, Buddhist
and Roman Catholic Sino-Mauritius and Franco-Mauritius.
·
Mexico
Mexico has historically multicultural country, with people of
ethnic group’s inclining those of indigenous background, various European
backgrounds, Africans and small Asian community.
·
Philippines
Philippines has considerable communities of American, Arabic,
Chinese, Indian and Hispanic and other ethics from other country.
·
Singapore
Singapore recognize three other languages besides English
like Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and Malay. So we can say that it is a multilingual
country.
·
South
Korea
The word Multiculturalism is hardly increased in South Korea.
In 2007 professor of cultural Anthropology published article related
multiculturalism. The Korea times suggested in 2009 that South Korea was likely
to become a multicultural society.
·
United
Kingdom
Multicultural policies were adopted by local administration
from 1970s and 1980s onwards.
·
United
States
Multiculturalism is not clearly established but ethnic
diversity is common in rural and urban areas. According to philosophy multiculturalism
began as part of the pragmatism movement at the end of the nineteenth century.
·
India
India is a multicultural country in many faculty culturally,
linguistically, religiously, etc. There are 1652 indigenous language in the
country of India in 1961 census of India.
The culture of
India has been shaped by its history. In India we can see many cultures or
multiculturas as under,
In this picture
we can see that the Indian traditional way of wearing ‘Kafani with safa’ so
that we can say tradition of India. But in other picture we can see the Dulha
wearing ‘safa with coat’. So that is the multiculturalism.
There are many
riligions living together in India and many gods in India like Shiva, Ganpati,
Krishn, Khodal ma, etc. There is a picture related with Indian religions as
under,
In this picture
we can see various symbols related with religions. There are many castes in
India like, patel, koli, Brahmin, vaniya, daraji, etc. In India Hindu is the
major religious. The statistics are Hindu (80.5%), Muslim(13.4%),
Christian(2.3%), Sikh(2.1%). So this is
also an example of multiculturalism. There are many languages in India like Tamil,
tailugu, Guajarati, Hindi, kannad, Malayalam, etc.
The term
multiculturalism is not much used in India. But we can find many things related
with multiculturalism.
·
America
In this country we can find multiculturalism. There are
African American writers, it is widely pursued in American literary criticism.
In Shadow and Act novelist Ralph Ellison argued that any ‘viable theory of
Negro American culture obligates us to fashion a more adequate theory of
American culture as a whole’. It seems today also when American arts, fashion,
music, and so much besides is based upon African American culture. It often
displays a folkloric conception of humankind; a ‘double consciousness’. It is a
great historical irony that black Americans adopted the same metaphor of the
Hebrew people being led into a Promised Land of freedom that was earlier
employed by the first white settlers in Virginia and New England, especially
the Puritans who were fleeing religious intolerance. African American
literature divided into several major periods, comprising Colonial, Antebellum,
Reconstruction, Pre-World War 1, Harlem Renaissance, Naturalism and Modernism,
and Contemporary. There are some Latina writers such as Maria Amparo Ruiz de
Burton, author of the 1885 novel of California, The Squatter and the Don, were
among the early writers like Josephina Niggli’s 1945 novel Mexican Village was
the first literary work by a Mexican American to reach a general American
audience. There are some American Indian literatures ‘American Indian’ is often
preferred by Indians over ‘Native American’. The American Indian Movement (AIM)
or the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures (ASAIL), as
Alan R. Velie notes. The best names to use would be those of the hundreds of
tribes, with an awareness of their differing languages, beliefs, and customs,
confusingly lumped together as ‘Indian’. Two types of Indian literature have
evolved as fields of study. Traditional Indian Literature includes tales,
songs, and oratory that have existed on the North American continent for
centuries, composed in tribal languages and performed for tribal audience.
There is some literature of Asian American writers, it is written by people of
Asian descent in the United States. Asian immigrants were denied citizenship as
late as the 1950s. Asian American writers include Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
Filipino, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Polynesian, and many other peoples of Asia,
the Indian subcontinent, and the Pacific. These cultures present a array of
languages, religions, social structures, and skin colors, and so the category
is even more broad and artificial than Latina or American Indian. Some Asian
American writers are relatively new arrivals in the United States, while others
trace their American forebears for generations. Asian American autobiography
inherited these descriptive strategies, as Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman
Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) illustration. This book at
first caused confusion in the Chinese American literary community: was it a
subtle critique of its narrator, or a unapologetic description of what it feels
like for her to grow up a Chinese American woman? The fact that it was sold as
nonfiction supported the latter notion. Chinese woman make up the largest and
most influential group of Asian American writers.
Thus in America
we can find many examples of multiculturalism. And especially in writing we can
get the examples of multiculturalism. So we can find multiculturalism in
different countries as above.
·
Conclusion
So after understanding these all points we can understand
that what is multiculturalism? Now we can say that multiculturalism is mixing
of many things in one thing. Adopting any new thing from other culture into our
culture that is multiculturalism. For example we can see in the festival of
Navratri that our traditional garaba or ras converted into dance so that we
call multiculturalism. When any teacher of mathematic gives the understanding of
life so it is multi. As same multiculturalism means mixture of two things or
more than two so it is multiculturalism. Or perhaps it is the effect of
Globalization. Because of Globalization we can see more example of
multiculturalism in society and in literature also.
Thus
multiculturalism is a wide term which can understand by this type of examples
easily.
