Define the word ‘Multiculturalism’

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.