Multiculturalism the ugly step child
I thought this article about how South Korea is integrating different cultures into their society was a really interesting and well written piece.
Mutliculturalism is a bit of an ugly step child at the minute, it gets blamed for all sorts of things. I don‘t care for many *-isms, but I do know that integrating different cultures is really difficult, but I also know that it‘s important, because we need diversity. And the thing is, I think that the thing people hate about multiculturalism, isn‘t really about people from different backgrounds and cultures, that‘s just where the problem surfaces, where it gets exposed and put into the light.
The real problem is more fundamental, and probably exists even in places that don‘t have a lot of foreigners, because the real issues are more to do with human nature, and power and wealth. Those sorts of things.
And I'm not saying that countries should just have a complete open door policy, of course not, it‘s a balance, and that‘s one of the very difficult things to get right. It‘s a tremendously complicated massively distributed game of balancing the very fabric we are living on. That‘s no easy feat. But when we get it right, or even sort of right, it can be very wonderful for everyone.
Anyway, I find it very interesting to learn about how asian countries are handling these sorts of challenges. I don‘t think any of us have it all figured out. Some of the things we do work well, other things not so much. And each place is a bit different so things that work in one place don‘t necessarily work in another.
But I also think the better we get at integrating different cultures, the better we will be able to live with ourselves too. And that‘s why I really liked how the piece ends, because the whole way through there was something that felt a bit off, something missing about the full picture, and I think to a large extent the author nails it. #