MULTICULTURALISM WORKS WITH SOME CULTURES

 Ok here is a short video clip I received about Khairy Jamaludin and someone else talking about multiculturalism.  I had to clip it because otherwise the file was too big to send. Its very short and you can listen to it quickly.

 

The west is more than just about christians. Christianity is quite dead in western Europe. Christianity is still a part of life in eastern Europe but eastern European christianity can be quite different from western Europe. The Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, the Syriac Church (eastern European) do not see eye to eye with the Vatican or with the many protestant churches in western Europe. 

For example the eastern orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January 7th (versus December 25th in western Europe).

This year the eastern Orthodox churches will celebrate Easter (the resurrection of Christ) on May 5th, 2024. Western Europe and the Vatican just celebrated Easter five days ago on March 31, 2024.  (Do keep this point in mind because we will revisit this shortly).

Is multiculturalism bound to fail?  No and yes. To a very large extent multiculturalism has succeeded wildly in many countries that have officially and legally embraced multiculturalism.  

Officially and legally means their laws and their system of government has embraced multiculturalism. They do not differentiate people by race or religion at all. 

Among the many examples (or an extreme example) is France where they only record a person's name. The French do not record a citizen's race, color or religion in their official documents. In their census they do not count the people by race or color of skin. Once you are a citizen of France you are a citizen. Thats it. Officially the French do not know how many of their citizens are white, black, Asian, Arab etc.

The result? Here is the famous French National Team which won the 1998 FIFA Football World Cup. Only three or four of the team members are "original" white Frenchmen. The rest are all born of immigrants (mostly non-white) including at least two Arabs (Zeinadine Zidane or Zizou is standing extreme left. Seated in front of him is Karambeau who is of French Polynesian origin). 

Below here is another more recent picture from Paris, France. These are Tamil immigrants into France who are celebrating Thaipusam in Paris. There is a Ganesh Temple nearby where once a year people gather for Thaipusam.

 

Again the French welcome diversity in their midst and it has added immensely to French civilisation. The famous French Foreign Legion which the French have used to kill and bully so many poor countries around the world is made up exclusively of foreign soldiers (but always led by French officers).

But there is a major factor which has contributed to the success of French multiculturalism. No one tries to impose their own cultures or traditions on the others. 

The christian churches in France do not sow hatreds between the protestants, the Roman Catholics or the eastern Orthodox.   They used to a long time ago but they have stopped. As I said their civilisation has evolved for the better.

So the Tamils too can celebrate Thaipusam in France. The French do not deny the Tamils their right to celebrate Thaipusam. Neither do the Tamils insist that their culture or the Thaipusam be accorded any special favours or privileges in France. 

French civilisation is accomodative or it has evolved or both.  Their civilisation overrides differences in religion, culture, tradition etc. Hence their multi-culturalism has worked very well - thus far. But there are some dark clouds on the horizon.

Then lets cross over to the United States of America. America is really a huge melting pot of people and cultures from all over the world. It is a society of migrants. 

There are over 24 million people of Asian origins in the USA.

The estimated number of Asians residents in the United States in 2021 was 24 million.

• 5.2 million people of Chinese descent (non Taiwanese)
  
• 4.8 million Indians 
• 4.4 million Filipino 
• 2.3 million Vietnamese 
• 2.0 million Korean 
• and 1.6 million Japanese

But you never hear of a Japanese suicide bomber in the United States. None of the 4.8 million Indians (the large majority of whom are Hindus) demand Hindu rights, Hindu customs, Hindu traditions anywhere in the public sphere. (Like no beef in school cafeterias).

Everyone respects everyone else's cultures, traditions and beliefs and no one imposes their own cultures, traditions or beliefs on the other person. So to a large extent their multiculturalism works.

Their Vice President Kamala Harris is half Tamil. This year there were TWO Indians running for the Republican party's presidential nominations Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Halley. They have Congressmen and Senators of Japanese, Arab Muslim and African Muslim origins.

The net result ? The USA is still the wealthiest and greatest nation on the surface of the earth. And it will likely remain so for a very long time.

Here is an interesting picture from 1951 - 73 years ago. These are immigrants from mainland Communist China migrating into the United States. They are all well dressed and well groomed.

That was the era of the Cold War. They were interrogated for being from Communist China. But after 73 years none of the people in the picture have given birth to terrorists, religious freaks or suicide bombers to create havoc in the United States. Their descendants have most likely become law abiding and productive citizens of the United States.

Their civilisation, culture and traditions did not seek to highlight differences with others or to impose their beliefs and cultures on their new found neighbours in the US. So they were a success.

There are also over 600,000 Iranians who live in the USA. They have been there in numbers since the Ayatollah revolution in 1979. The Iranians have also fit in very well into American society and there are no problems or issues with Iranians living in the USA. The Iranians are mostly Shias and they seem to have a different attitude towards their religion. 

Here is a very interesting video from Teheran, Iran today (in this fasting month beginning March 2024). The guy making the video is an Egyptian Muslim. What he shows and talks about is that in Teheran the people go about their business just like any other day. Restaurants are open and Iranians who do not fast eat publicly during the day. They also serve food on their flights during the day in the fasting month. There are other Iranians who do observe the fast but the government does not "criminalise" those who do not fast. Eating in public during the day in the fasting month is not an offense. 

Click here : 

https://x.com/arash_tehran/status/1775509789549703290?t=QadnWq7gqbWzLVsyI7tQ5w&s=08

So it is not likely that any of the 600,000 Iranians who have migrated to the USA will become suicide bombers to protest anyone not observing the fast in the fasting month. They have a better chance of living successfully in a multi-cultural society like the USA.

Then you also have the more problematic and troublesome groups in other countries.  Here are some visuals from the UK :

 

These are Muslim migrants (mostly Pakistani but also Arab and north African) who are demanding sharia in the UK. 

And this one below here is from France too :

 

 

Obviously this is where multiculturalism stops. 

Multiculturalism has been largely successful in Europe and North America where for a hundred years or more millions of non-Muslim migrants (Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Shia Iranians) have settled down quite well in their adopted societies. It is they who have brought multiculturalism to these otherwise almost 100% "white" countries. And they have all become better from the mixing and the inter mingling of the different peoples - where everyone is equal before the law and the law is a just and universal law useful for all human beings.

So now these "multicultural societies" are pushing back. Rishi Sunak the first Indian Prime Minister of the multi-cultural United Kingdom recently made some policy statements about preserving multiculturalism in the UK. Others are supportive of his statements. Here is Douglas Murray. 

 

Conclusion :

Our country Malaysia is perhaps the most successful multicultural society in the world. Full stop. We invented multi-culturalism. Our food, our traditions, our cultures, our DNAs, our languages, our history has seen such a huge amount of cross pollination, cultural and biological intermingling. 

There is this most interesting phenomenon that you can observe ONLY in Malaysia. This is perhaps the only country in the world where you can find a Hindu temple, a Chinese temple, a Christian church, a Buddhist temple and a Muslim mosque located right next to each other. Or in one street. In one place a Hindu temple and a Muslim mosque share the same wall. And this has existed for decades, perhaps for more than a hundred years.

Obviously such co-existence is possible because the civilisation, culture and traditions of the people in the country did not seek to highlight differences.  Respect and peaceful coexistence has been the landmark in this country for a very long time.

But there are dark clouds forming on the horizon. There are serious threats appearing on the horizon caused by two satanic forces. 

No. 1 are the poorly educated and failed politicians who are bankrupt of any good ideas. They do not read nor are they well informed about anything. So they fail in life. But they want quick money, riches, wealth, cars, women. For themselves. They dont care about you or me. Hate politics is an easy option. The failed education system has produced masses of people just like them who may listen to them.

No. 2 are the 'religious freaks' and 'religious extremists' looking for easy money (yes it is all about making easy money, like that RM90 million stolen 1MDB money).  If you combine both of them together you get the politics of religion. The satan and the devil  rolled into one. These are satanic forces.

If you have done gardening you will know that a garden needs constant care. If you ignore your garden the weeds will take over. The same with a country and a society. It needs constant vigilance and constant monitoring. If you do not remove the weeds you will lose your country, your society and your civilisation. Everything will be destroyed.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT