Is Cultural Diversity Proving to be Compatible with Social Unity?
In this essay, I will be using multiple case studies of countries, as well as areas in the UK, to explain why I believe the British government should embrace and encourage cultural diversity, as I believe cultural diversity is proving to be compatible with social unity and that the presence of systems encouraging cultural diversity is not the reason for a general lack of social unity, which can be attributed to other reasons, such as changes in society and socioeconomic inequalities.
I will begin by looking at two countries that have high levels of artificial social cohesion, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. In North Korea, due to its strong border control, the entire population …show more content…
No-one is allowed to be against the state, so everyone has a common link of patriotism – a supposed love fors North Korea. While it 's likely that many resent the state, this isn 't a threat, as expressing this could lead to a death sentence.
In Saudi Arabia, whilst no law requires citizens to be muslim, Sunni islam is this theocratic monarchy 's official religion; converting from Islam to another religion is illegal. The idea of Freedom of Religion doesn 't exist there, and activity relating to other religions, including the reading and obtaining of their holy texts, is prohibited, except on expatriot compounds. This is regulated by the religious police (mutawa 'een). Therefore, Saudi Arabia isn 't really a multicultural society, as it prohibits many cultures from expressing and practising their views and ways of living.
In Saudi Arabia, social unity is seen as more important than personal liberties, without which there cannot be true multicultularism. Therefore, Saudi Arabia doesn 't have much real multiculturism, but does have relative social …show more content…
However, in 2010, Angela Merkel said that attempts to build a multicultural society had “utterly failed”, saying that “the concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it doesn 't work”. However, there 's a missing assumption here, which is that it 's multiculturism that is to blame for the lack of social unity. We have seen, through the case study of France, that this is not the case, and therefore I believe that Angela Merkel 's argument is invalid. Now, we should look to the UK, and examine this through the case study of our own
In this essay, I will be using multiple case studies of countries, as well as areas in the UK, to explain why I believe the British government should embrace and encourage cultural diversity, as I believe cultural diversity is proving to be compatible with social unity and that the presence of systems encouraging cultural diversity is not the reason for a general lack of social unity, which can be attributed to other reasons, such as changes in society and socioeconomic inequalities.
I will begin by looking at two countries that have high levels of artificial social cohesion, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. In North Korea, due to its strong border control, the entire population …show more content…
No-one is allowed to be against the state, so everyone has a common link of patriotism – a supposed love fors North Korea. While it 's likely that many resent the state, this isn 't a threat, as expressing this could lead to a death sentence.
In Saudi Arabia, whilst no law requires citizens to be muslim, Sunni islam is this theocratic monarchy 's official religion; converting from Islam to another religion is illegal. The idea of Freedom of Religion doesn 't exist there, and activity relating to other religions, including the reading and obtaining of their holy texts, is prohibited, except on expatriot compounds. This is regulated by the religious police (mutawa 'een). Therefore, Saudi Arabia isn 't really a multicultural society, as it prohibits many cultures from expressing and practising their views and ways of living.
In Saudi Arabia, social unity is seen as more important than personal liberties, without which there cannot be true multicultularism. Therefore, Saudi Arabia doesn 't have much real multiculturism, but does have relative social …show more content…
However, in 2010, Angela Merkel said that attempts to build a multicultural society had “utterly failed”, saying that “the concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it doesn 't work”. However, there 's a missing assumption here, which is that it 's multiculturism that is to blame for the lack of social unity. We have seen, through the case study of France, that this is not the case, and therefore I believe that Angela Merkel 's argument is invalid. Now, we should look to the UK, and examine this through the case study of our own