IDEAL FUTURE FOR ALL WORLD COUNTRIES:
MULTICULTURALISM
The idea
of multiculturalism and living together which are two topics that is a
depression in most of the countries, offers us a peaceful future.
Multiculturalism, which consists of individuals and groups who come from
different language, religion, race, history and geography origins, emerges in
societies who share same political unit and borders of a country (Kongar, 2012).
Briefly multiculturalism is a way of life for cultural diverse communities. This
paper will discuss multiculturalism to create a peaceful future, multicultural
community examples and how to reach a successful multicultural community.
The numbers of multicultural communities
increase with the increasing number of developed countries and the migration of
people to these countries to find a better environment for their needs. As the
French sociologist Emile Durkheim pointed out, societies become larger and more
complex by time (Mehdi, 2012, p.9). Nowadays
many countries have a multicultural community, even though most of them are
discussing the applicability of the concept of multiculturalism. Obviously,
this feature affects their current system, and thereby their life style. On
this point, Turkey, Germany and Canada will be the countries that will help us
to understand our objectives.
The Republic of Turkey has a diverse culture.
Country hosts many different communities from different races. Turks, Kurds,
Laz, Circassian, Balkanites are only some of the ethnical communities in
Republic of Turkey. All these different culture groups come together under
Turkish Republic Citizenship (Wikipedia). When we compare to other
multicultural nations, we can conclude that Turkish Republic still has a way to
go to create a peaceful community but somehow they succeed to constitute a
livable environment. Their common history and ancestor people’s effort to establish
the country are main reasons that connect these all different communities.
Being an emigration country is also important because it prevents new issues
that can occur in multicultural societies. Currently Turkish society has issues
to keep peace in their diverse country. Main reasons under these issues are limited
personal freedom and a long and unsuccessful industrialization process. As a
result of these some ethnic groups did not want to accept Turkish national identity
any longer (Ozkan).
Germany,
the largest economy in Europe and the biggest contributor to the EU budget, also
has a multicultural community (The World Factbook). German society includes many
people from other European countries besides Turks, Asians and other minority
groups from other foreign countries (Nathans, 2004). Having a powerful economy
in EU and being an immigration country are the main two reasons of this
diversity. Also during 1961-1971 periods, labor need for the industry and
admission of guest workers affected the structure of German demographics (Kilicli,
2003). Despite having a strong economy, Germany still has issues with
adjustment of minorities to German culture and daily life. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel also accepts this failure and she said: “The concept that we are
now living side by side and are happy about it does not work.” (Wikipedia). Currently, Turks are the largest minority
group in the country. The adjustment issues that German society deals nowadays
are arose by Turkish and German governments’ negligence. They did not choose to
work together to facilitate the process of adjustment. As a result of these
issues, German society had an unsuccessful experience of most Turkish people’s
integrating and stereotypes arose in German society. Eventually because of that
both German society and Turkish community face with negative effects during
their daily life.
One
multicultural example of relatively successful integration is Canada. The country
has an ethnic harmony and its current system provides a peaceful environment
for Canadian society to live in. There are more than 10 ethnic origins still
are represented their culture in Canada. The system has some issues about
discrimination but when we look to the 37 years of past with multicultural
policy, in general the Canadian government was successful compared to other
European countries and Australia which tried to adopt multiculturalism policy
(Peritz and Friesen, 2010). When we look at the Canadian system we can easily
observe the high level of personal freedom. This is the core of their policy.
This diversity also helps Canadian government in global areas such as economy,
education and diplomacy (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2012).
When we look through all three countries, we
can conclude that to have a peaceful multicultural community requires serial of
attentive planning. These plans will help communities in society during their
adjustment period and accelerate the process of transition. It will help them
to interact with each other (Pedersen, 2004). To build successful connections
between different cultures, a powerful and independent economy is strongly
needed. We can observe that most of the issues that arise in multicultural
societies are a result of economic inequality between community members. It is
also directly associated with the greater education level which can create the
peaceful environment and conditions in society like mutual respect, open-mindedness,
transparency tolerance and the sense of empathy (Guibernau and Rex, 1997). If
we summarize it, the industrialization is a positive contributor on creating
multicultural community. Systems which could not complete their
industrialization and still interiorize agricultural traditions are most likely
to fail on their multicultural policy. Multiculturalism requires unlimited
innovation and dynamics, on this point Brazil is another new example for this
ideal. Since 2001, they started to change their policy to promote racial
equality. First they made a critical analysis of the society structure. Then
they made educational, economic, social, judicial and health related changes on
their policy. We can learn that the main institutions of society have a major
effect on creating healthy multicultural community (Paixão, 2008). A successful
multicultural effectiveness can make difference on world system. If we can create
that tolerant environment between each member of a community, happiness will be
the award for our future generation. (Gamst, Liang, Der-Karabetian, 2011).
References
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Solutions
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