From the moment British PM David Cameron made the remark that multiculturalism had failed in UK, this issue has spread like wildfire across the globe. I guess this is the most sensitive write up that I had ever posted in my blog. This issue and debate had spread to Australia as the opposition shadow minister Scott Morrison was accused of making some remark regarding Muslims immigration.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/liberals-defy-call-to-sack-scott-morrison/story-fn59niix-1226007839008
What is multiculturalism actually?
As a Malaysian, I was told since young that I grow up in a multi-racial society. Our country people are living in harmony although we are of difference races. Indeed, in Malaysia aspect, our multiculturalism are mainly formed through 3 main races, Malay, Chinese and Indian. I grew up eating curry, roti canai, beef rendang, nasi lemak and char kuey teow. My grandma never went to any formal school to learn Malay language, but she likes to watch P-Ramlee movie (P-Ramlee was a famous Malay singer,composer,actor in 1960s). Although I am known as a Chinese in Malaysia, I find that I cannot fit into similarity with the friends from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. I can speak Malay, English, Chinese and Cantonese well. They are only limited to their own mother tongue. I love to eat nasi lemak, curry, Ipoh Hor fun and roti canai. They do not. Although there are still a lot of struggle as the race issue been politicalised by politicians these last few years, I feel myself more Malaysian than a Chinese. Since then, my idea of multiculturalism is of similar concept as what I think of Malaysia "version" - all culture blended into one. In food or cooking aspect, we called it "fusion". Yes, multiculturalism mean the "fusion" of all cultures.
When I arrived in Melb, I make a lot of friends from different countries. I am truly confident that due to my strong adaptability and multi racial background, I can mix and make friends with different races of people. However, when I meet Indian, they regard Malaysia Indians as descendants of Tamil Naidu. They speak Hindi, Gujarat, Punjab instead of Tamil. When I meet HKies, they all speak Cantonese. They regard themselves as "chong kuo yan" which mean "people of China". Due to the language barrier, people from China mainland hardly blend in together with HKie although they are "chong kuo yan" as well. I meet people from Vietnam, Greece, Malta, Mauritius, Croatia and so on. I hardly can find any so called "fusion" here. But we all still live in harmony. Each individual race are actually free to practice their own culture and customs here as well. But this multiculturalism is different from the Malaysia version, the "fusion" version. However, I guess is quite difficult to get to form a "fusion" since Aus has so much more different races compared to Malaysia which just consist of 3 main races.
Now the world is getting more and more globalised. We are actually living in a global village. Not only Australia, Canada and Singapore also has a recent spike of immigration intakes to draw skill talent to contribute into the countries' economy. People tends to move, relocate, and migrate for better life, better job prospect, or may be escape from unstable political condition. It is more frequent, more often and more aggressive now. With Internet and just one click of mouse button, we know what is the immigration requirements, job vacancy advertisements, which university offer scholarships, what kind of business opportunities available in US, Australia, UK, NZ and whichever countries.
However, how ready are we in facing such a challenge? We will have to face the challenge of living, working and socialising with different of people who speak different languages, having different backgrounds, different working culture mentality, different concept of living and working culture, different idea of life values.
As a new migrant, have we decided to leave behind whatever background and ready to integrate and assimilate into new environment, and a totally different values?
This is another article that writes about the challenge and struggle of Australia in facing the challenge of multiculturalism recently.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/multiculturalism-has-a-long-way-to-go/story-fn59niix-1226007830004
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