Multiculturalism
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Definition/short descriptionMulticulturalism is a political and social ideology that states that different cultures and or ethnic linguistic groups should be able to live together in the same society/country without having to come in conflict with each other. Multiculturalism can also be defined as relating to a social/educational ideology that encourages interest in many cultures within a given society rather than in a mainstream culture. History of MulticulturalismMulticulturalism isn't something of this period, it has happend many times before, this phenomenon is basically as old as the human race itself, because where there is migration or expansion there are always more than one ethnic and cultural group. Prehistory One of the first pre-historical cases of multicultural society was the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2040-1640 bc). After the fall of the Old kingdom, Egypt's first great kingdom split up in smaller states. Later on, it was unified again under the eleventh dynasty and conquered parts of Nubia, Lybia and Palestine and entered into a wealthy and prosperous period. During this economic properity, many foreigners migrated to Egypt to enjoy the good standard of life. In those days foreigners couldn't become naturalized so these foreigners didn't have the same privilliges as the natives Egyptians. As long as they paid their taxes and didn't undermine the authority of the central government they enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. Antiquity The first European empires where multicultural states. The Hellenistic empire under Alexander the great were full of people from Greek, Persian, Egyptian and the Indian cultural background and the emperor didn't put much effort in cultural assimilation but rather he accepted the people the way thy were. The Roman empire was no different in it's attitude of accepting other cultures but was a bit more critical in selecting it only accepted the culture and beliefs of people from so-called worthy civilizations like the Greek and Egyptian. Middle AgesThe role of religion during this period was also important in the creation of multicultural states because it created what we see today as the motto of the EU namely the phrase 'unity in diversity'. Religion was important because it bonded all the different peoples together. For example if you were an inhabitant of the Spanish Empire and you lived in the Netherlands and someone else lived in Madrid you would still be connected because you were both Christians. The downside was that during the middle ages, Multiculturalism was accepted on most of the important points like language, race etc but it wasn't accepted on religion. Jews for instance were prosecuted throughout the entire Europe by the Church. You could say that during the Middle ages Europe was more a multi-ethnic/linguistic society than a multicultural one. But besides from religious there was no ethnic discrimination. Early Modern Age During the middle ages religious prosecution and mass migration of people was quite common. A country that differed in that was the Dutch Republic dutch: republiek der 7 verenigde nederlanden. They were tolorant because at the time Holland was a very rich and powerfull country(Dutch Golden Age) that didn't have much competition from other neighbouring countries in the beginning, at least because of the many religious wars in England and France. The reason they were seen as a very tolerant country was that even though they just had 80 years of war with the Roman Catholic Spanish Empire and their main religion was Protestant-Christianity, they didn't forcibly converted people to protestantism. The Dutch tolerance and economy was a major push factor that caused the arrival of many immigrants from neighbouring states to The Netherlands ecspecially to Amsterdam and Delft. The first group of immigrants were inhabitants of the Spanish Netherlands (the part of Holland still under the control of the Spanish Empire) who mostly were rich bussiness families for example people from Antwerp and Brabant who brought networks, money and knowledge. The second wave of foreigners were Hughenotes from France who wanted to escape religious persecution by the catholic French government. The third group were Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and Eastern Europe who came because of persecution in their home countries, a famous jew from that period was Baruch Spinoza. Modern Age A perfect example of a multiculturalism today is the state of India which is home to many different religious and ethno-linguistic groups it is the world's second most populous country and the most divers in culture. The major religions are Hinduism being followed by 80,4% of the population, Islam followed by 13,4% is second, third we have Christianity with 2,3% of the Indians as it's followers and fourth are the Sikhs with 1,9%. Some important smaller minorities are the Zoroastians, Jews, Buddhists and Jains. Hinduism was the most dominant religion in India till the twelvth and thriteenth century with a interval in 287 bc to 187 bc with the buddhist Mauryan empire. The Hindu culture flourished ecspecially under the Gupta dynasty that ruled India about the same time the Roman Empire ruled Europe the Gupta dynasty fell due to invasions of Huns from central Asia and fragmented into many different states. Buddhism originated in India Siddartha Gautama or Buddha was an Indian prince who spread his message trough northern India and even influenced the later Mauryan rulers to make it the state religion. Islam became the most important religion from the 13th till the early 18th century with the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire as the rulling empires. Under these empires Hindus and Buddhist were supressed and in some cases mass populations were converted by force and publicly practising was also severly punished. The Sikhs emerged in Punjab in the late 1500's and ruled it from the middle 18th century till the conquest by the British in 1848. Under the Islamic Mughal empire they were also heavily prosecuted and their key figures murdered in the most barbarious ways. Christians were also forcively converted, mostly by the Portugese in Goa who saw it as their mission to convert Goans to Catholisism,the British converted but not by force but through the use of protestant missionaries were mostly active during the Victorian period. Linguisticly speaking India is also very diverse with the two main languages being Hindi and English. English became the offical government language during the colonization period and replaced Farsi as the offcial state language. The native Indian languages are divided into two families the Indo-Aryan one and the Dravidian one. The devide is actually quite simple Indo-Aryan languages are spoken mostly in the North examples are Hindi, Punjabi and Kashmiri and Dravidian languages are spoken in the South examples Tamil and Malayam. Arguments on multiculturalismPositive effects of Multiculturalism
Negative effects of Multiculturalism
The relevance of Multiculturalism for Migration and/or Migration PolicyThis topic is very relevant for migration because Multiculturalism is mostly the one of the effects of (mass)migration. The most common reasons for people to mass migrate into a neighboring cultural territory or country are natural disasters, war and economic difficulties. Also something that is common is that when large groups go to another country they look each other up, and try remain as close to members of the same groups as possible. Good examples of that are the various Chinatowns scatterd across the US. This may cause trouble with intergration in the new society because if in the other country/area they speak a different language and the newly arrived migrants don't come in contact with the natives of their new homeland they won't blend in well. Multiculturalism is not only relevant to migration when it comes to people but also to transport of capital. In the US there are many Mexican labourers who send money back to Mexico the money gets spent there and that will boost the economy in Mexico. Examples of good and bad cases of multiculturalism
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