(How does London's model of multiculturalism interact with issues of religion, gender and sexuality?)
In this paper one of the greatest peculiarities of the London society is described. The capital of Great Britain is considered to be one of the biggest World Cities. Thus it attracts people from all over the world to come here. This essay describes some of the problems that often raise in the multicultural society as well as the ways how London citizens handle with these issues. Among the problems analyzed in the essay there are social conflicts based on religion differences or gender and sexuality discrimination. For better understanding there are some exact situations described in the paper as well as solutions on how to keep the vibrant society being tolerant.
According to Vivienne Westwood: “There's nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere” Saying in other words, because of its culture, history and traditions, London is one of the most special metropolises in the world. Among main reasons that make London one of the most culturally vibrant cities are:
- A great number of museums and galleries, and three of them are in TOP 10 in the world;
- Tower of London, Maritime Greenwich, Westminster Palace which includes Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church as well as Kew’s Royal Botanic Gardens are indicated as UNESCO world heritage sites;
- Thanks to the great number of universities and schools, students from more than 200 different countries are currently studying and live in London;
- 84% of London citizens are sure that the city's cultural scene is necessary to ensure a high quality of life. (GLA/ICM research);
- London visual arts sector accounts for 30% of the global art market;
- Every day in London there are about 200 shows to choose, since the first performance of Shakespeare at The Globe in 1599;
All these events attract people from all over the world and that makes London one of the words biggest multicultural metropolises. On the one hand it helps native citizens to be always on the top wave of global changes, which is extremely important in the modern globalization tendency, but on the other hand that may cause many problems based on national, religious and cultural differences.
In one of his works, Gerd Baumann said: “An African miner is a miner” was a neat phrase that lifted from the work of Max Gluckman, served as a slogan against reducing people’s culture to their tribal or ethnic identity. Yet, in Britain this ethnic reductionism seemed to reign supreme, and greater number even of academic community studies” He lived in Southall, a South Asian part of London, sometimes called "Little India", and thus he always saw how difficult it was for immigrants to assimilate with native Britons, who lived in London. Children, who were born and educated in England, but whose parents were foreigners, were treated as “second generation of immigrants”. Hence, this caused a lot of restrictions for their future.
However, we should always be proud of our origin and be ready to proof that we all are equal in the society. You are who you are. But in many countries it was always a great challenge for small locals of different culture, language, religious or race to assimilate in the big, developed but closed society. Moreover, there were a lot of difficulties for different foreign groups to assimilate and cooperate between each other. All these restrictions and problems could be explained as a way to protect ones native culture and the way of behavior that can be damaged by the stranger. However, in the modern world, full of extremely rapid flow of information as well as fast increasing globalization process, the process of international cooperation became easier and faster. A big effort in this was made by international economic and political organizations.
Education system of the Great Britain was always highly developed and innovative, therefore well educated Britons were against Third world immigrants, who rather often did not get any education. Literacy could affect the main picture of the nation, and that was absolutely unacceptable for proud British citizens. The point is not only in studying in the school or university, or learning culture history and language to communicate. It is more about assimilating one culture with another with no discomfort in personal space to anyone. Therefore, for many years there are a lot of cross culture educational and cultural programs that are called to help students from other countries, especially non developed, to get good knowledge and thus, to get a better chance to realize his or her opportunities.
Every city itself is always a big metropolis where everyone is a stranger, and all these differences make us closer to each other, make us one big London-citizen subculture, as in such a variety of differences no one can tell which differs more. And there is no more the meaning of “not belong here”. If one determines him or herself as a part of this city, he or she does belong here. And nothing, not native language, religion, gender or sex can identify someone better than he or she does it by his or her behavior. That is what this city telling everyone with all challenges one can face once he or she is a first time visitor here.
As Boris Johnson stated: “Great cities are defined by their history” London’s culture is for sure innovative and full of experiments. Artists are always in the avangard of the culture stream and, for sure, they are in love with any risks at this area. Therefore London’s government has to move and develop its law to go in the same line with businessmen and artists, who are engaged in the culture area.
London is so exited of its history that just to preserve it in regular museum somewhere on the shelves is not an option for its citizens. They want to keep the spirit of their époque and to transfer it to the future generation. And it was always like this. That’s why it is so important to be a person, who is always ready to accept all changes and to make a benefit from it
Inspired to achieve high goals all different subcultures can easily join together and cooperate really effectively, and this makes people more relevant to this city than any passport identification. Even different religious, culture and race groups, which are focused on one target, are ready to cooperate with each other.
For many years London is considered to be one of the world centers, world cities. In a globalized world, such big cities are often competing with each other to have the biggest number of the headquarters of multinational firms, or the right to host major international sporting and cultural events. In this case culture can give a distinctive appeal. Nowadays, cultural prowess and economic success are strongly tied. Thus, the country that can be the friendliest for foreign citizens will achieve more profitable position in the world economic market. Culture in all its forms is a key to make a city interesting for educated and talented people and hence to the businesses, where they can be employed. The more educated people are, the higher demands they have in satisfying their requests in cultural events ant entertainments. And in this way a rich and vibrant culture can become a good source of economic benefit.
In one of the resonance speeches the historian Dr David Starkey has stated that there exists a great problem of the raising crime level, caused by the behavior of young people from foreign countries. The Doctor claimed that these “gangsters” are like they are because of their race and culture. As it was summarized by the BBC journalist, “he was not talking about skin color but gang culture”. Thus it is one of the examples of intolerance that can be used to any of the foreigner in the big multicultural city like London. However, this point of view was not accepted by the major of the society that can be an evidence of the high level of tolerance and education.
Being a stranger in the different country makes a person to feel him or herself uncomfortable and unsafe. To avoid being in this situation one can decide to act in the same way, that means to argue and to blame another person, who is different. That can cause a chain reaction with more damage than advantage to both sides. Violence can cause only anger and violence, but never a cooperation nor respect.
Unfortunately, even in a highly developed society there are some occasions of violence based on religious or cultural differences. One of such stories about Shirley Chaplin, who was banned from working on hospital wards after she refused to take off the cross, which she wore on a chain around her neck for many years. And in this way she was being asked to hide her faith. However, the tribunal said that the policy was based on health and safety rather than any problem with the religious symbol. Another story says about the psychosexual therapist, who made said to his employers that because of his Christian beliefs he was not able to give sex therapy advice to homosexuals. And therefore he was claimed his views were homophobic.
As a result of such situation there are many conflicts in the society, especially, when its people are not ready to accept any changes and are not willing to respect religious and culture of someone else. The government should pay more attention to explain that, any religious or cultural peculiarities have to be counted once the person is employed, which means all rules should be agreed beforehand. There are many ways to achieve a compromise once all rules are clear. There are no reasons in democratic society to make a person to do things that are contradictive with his ethical rules if it was not confirmed before.
In recent years, international concern over gender-based violence (GBV) in emergencies has grown exponentially. “Gender-based violence” is a definition for any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will, and that is based on gender differences between men and women.
For some reasons GBV has a greater impact on female. However it is important to note that men and boys may also be victims of GBV. Today there are numbers of local wars, conflicts or nature disasters that harms dozens of people. Hence, authorities could not pay attention or may lack the willingness to protect everyone on the same level. Unfortunately, women and girls suffer more from all those harmful emergencies as they are not so strong and well protected as men are. Moreover, for many centuries women all over the world were taught to play their gender role. This role is brightly represented in closed or non developed cultures. There women and girls cannot be equal in their rights with men, and thus they are considered to be less valuable in the society.
Sometimes those, who should be stronger and more protected, can face unpredictable difficulties or emergency situation and, as a result, they will compensate personal stress by abusing the one who is weaker.
Everyone – a victim as well as an abuser, once experienced the conflict or crime, will always live with its resultant that could cause many socioeconomic impacts, can destabilize communities and potentially establish violence as regular way of solving all problems. Preventing GBV is called to reduce the level of violence, as well as to establish interventions that will help people to increase knowledge of GBV and thus to change attitudes and behavior.
However we have to state that in modern world women in most countries are equal in their rights and opportunities with men. London, as one of the world leader cities shows us that its female citizens could be famous and successful business ladies and celebrities as well as modest and hardworking housewives. As well one can meet a number of men who changed their office and career to taking care of their children and housekeeping. Moreover all of them are highly respected and should not be discriminated. Once the person feels comfortable, he or she has a strong willing to develop his or her skills for the mutual welfare and prosperity.
Once a person realizes the number of different cultures and religious represented in the city of London, he or she can have some fears not to be accepted into this society, not to be an equal and honorable member of such a different and vibrant community. However the feeling of being a stranger with all unfamiliar culture peculiarities surrounding you that is what actually makes everyone so close and similar in the big city. The one common goal – to find personal happiness, has brought all these people to London and therefore, all of them are more relevant than different. Majority of the citizens were not born in London even though they are native Britons, hence all of them belong to this multicultural city on the same way.
Recently representatives of big World Cities were joined to discuss ways of international cooperation and share ideas and experiences on developing. It goes without saying that each city has its specific culture and history that is shaped by the character of its citizens and their temp of life. On this meeting there was made an agreement to develop a World Cities Culture Forum. This Forum is supposed to be held on a permanent basis and recently to become the cultural equivalent of the G20 for world cities. The steps, which are being declared on this Forum will determine the way of the social and cultural development of London.
Among the most important aims of the World Cities meeting were:
•to highlight the critical contribution of culture to the economic and social success of world cities;
• build an evidence base about the many and wide-ranging ways in which culture impacts on a world city and its inhabitants
• enable learning from each other by examining common challenges and dilemmas and comparing approaches to cultural investment and development
• define a future cultural research agenda for world cities
As a conclusion we can state that despite of cultural, religious, race or gender differences that are common for all metropolis cities, London community is well prepared to handle with any problems that can raise because of diversity. Even though there are still some incidents of intolerance, in most cases Londoners are well organized and motivated to achieve similar goals. Taking into account the number of foreigners in the city of London it is difficult to state, who represents the majority. Therefore all, native Britons and ‘strangers’ are joined and called Londoners. Similar targets can make the community closer, and that is one of the reasons why local authorities are strongly oriented on developing and performing a special and unique London culture.
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