Diversity Identity in School - Essay Example

Diversity Identity Interview of myself: As a Muslim girl coming to the s for better education, I have faced a very little difficulty in adapting to the culture. This is mainly due to the French school I've studied in. Our school has got students from diverse backgrounds, and I learnt a lot from them. The cultures were different; I learnt how to accept them. Today I am so confident that I believe that I can adapt to any conditions. I come into contact with different religions people everyday. As I am used to these diverse cultures, I can get along with them very freely. They are very friendly, helpful. They do not bother about religion and are highly cultured persons. I remember my first contact with different religion person when I lived in turkey and joined a French school. We soon became friends; the encounter was very pleasant as we shared our thoughts on our cultures. I was brought up in a very diverse culture, religion. So when I grew up, I learnt that there is no religion created by god, only man started religions and god is one. It is really foolish to distinguish ourselves by our religions. Religions should be teaching unity, but that is not what happening. However, there are situations in my life that make me conscious of my religion even today. The terrorist attack on America on September 11 2001 is one of the worst nightmares in my life. I can still remember my neighbors were afraid to speak to us. It was a week before when I and my friends were talking about different religions; there were two Hindu friends of mine and a Christian one. The discussion just aroused out of curiosity in knowing other religions by my friend. We talked about Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism. These talks were very interesting as we could know the practices of different religions. As a part of our friendship, we all go to church and temple. Religion has never been a barrier for me to make friendship; I won't consider religion while making friends. So I love to make friends of any religion. I never felt like I was an outsider, as I was brought up in diverse culture, I never this sense of insecurity. Religion may affect me at my workplace, however, as I am experienced in such kind of culture, I am confident that I can tackle the situation and move forward. Interview 1: I was born in a Muslim family, my neighbors were Muslims. My family and friends all belong to the same religion. When I joined elementary school, I encountered a completely diverse group of children. However I didn't care about it at that tender age. This is a nice teaching for me as I still feel that this diverse culture had made me adaptable to any culture. My schooling was also of the same scenario. My co-workers were of different backgrounds as I work for a multinational company. It is my way of life to work with people of other religion as almost everyday I work with persons of different religions. I feel excited to work with them as they are from different cultures and there is a sort of cultural exchange among us. I don't really remember my first contact with a person of other religion. That person could be my elementary school mate. The contact should definitely be pleasant. I learned many things from people of different culture. The main thing I learned from Hindus is their readiness to accept any religion. The Christians have keen interest in studying other religions. Situations or topics like marriage make me conscious about my religion. My family wants me to marry only a Muslim boy. This makes me feel insecure and obviously is a negative experience for me. The topic of religion aroused when I and my friends were discussing on different cultures of the world. The talk was all about Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Islam. I was shocked when my Sikh friend said "it is ultimately your religious friend who will rescue you when the time arrives". There is no regular talk about it; it may arise once in a while. My friend group consists of 3 Muslims, 2 Hindus, 1 Sikh. I would love to add my friends list with different backgrounds. I never felt like an outsider at any place. As I was brought up in diverse culture, I never felt that insecurity. These experiences of mine from different cultures help me a lot in my workplace. As I work for a company where there is a lot of diversification, I can work with them very conveniently. Interview 2: I am a Christian, born in India and studying in states, my neighbors were Hindus. As India is a land of diversity, we were taught the lesson of diversity right from childhood. This made life so easy for us. I come into contact with persons of different religions, every minute as my friends are all from different religions. We rarely bother about our religions. They are very good friends of mine and I really do not care about the regions they belong to. I don't remember my first contact with the person of other religion. The message I get from our group is "we are all one", no matter which religion, race, sex we belong to. But we got to accept their religious sentiments. My Hindu friend is a vegetarian and we cannot force him to take non-vegetarian. Whenever these differences are seen by us in our day to day life, there arises a topic of religion among us. We talked about religion, long time back, my father, mother, sister were present. The talk was on Christianity and Hinduism. We were discussing about the diversity and how politicians utilize these kinds of topics to win the elections in India. My friends group is a mix of Christians, Hindus, and Muslims. I never felt like excluded or insecure with respect to religion as all my friends were great and in a country like India where everybody are treated equal. My knowledge on diverse culture helped me knowing people early, their preferences, their practices etc. My learning on religious tolerance would take me to a long way as I know how to deal with specific persons of different backgrounds. This will help me in working with any group which increases the versatility of that group. Introduction In many issues there exists significant differeces among opinion among individuals. This is irrespective of their knowledge, thir socila level. This is just a diversity of opinion which arises even when they are of the same background, coming from the same culture. The issues can be social, political, economical or religious. Such diversity of opinion, though, is nowhere more evident than in the area of religious thought. On almost every religious issue, honest, knowledgeable people hold significantly diverse, often incompatible beliefs. The differences in opinion could be of one's own experiences or from what one has learnt in his past. Most of the time, if not all, people do not keep their differeces to themselves, but try to follow them and influence others to follow them. This is where religious intolerance comes into place. A multi-cultured society is not a dream but can come true if all the nations work on it. As we see the americans already started working on it and if has been a part of life in india. This can be implemented across the world. Reflections: The interviews taught me a lot on the word diversity. I could learn from them that religion is not a matter for relationship and a well educated person should never bring the topic of religion into consideration. The topics that pleased me are that the interviewed persons are so open to religion. They do not bother about which religion they belong to before entering into a relationship. This will bring in sense of oneness among us. They are free to discuss about religion and share their thoughts about each religion. But still there are people, in fact majority of them sticking to their religion and not coming out of it. They were very comfortable in giving their opinions about their religions as well as different religions. However one of my friends said that she'll be married to only a Muslim, this brings in the situation where even today religious barrier existing. And there was one more person who said that like-religion people only come together at the time when it is really required. This I think is a sense that is developed more from the political parties than an individual himself. In India especially religions play a major role in winning an election. The other lesson I learnt from the interviews was that if a person is exposed to diversity right from the childhood, he would never think about it in the future. Teachers should be trained with respect to this subject. However, religious tolerance is not a theory that can be learned through books, but is a practice by generations. Surely, implementation of religious tolerance will take long time as certain ethnic groups are intolerable towards religious tolerance. The religion comes into picture when people are in groups. When I stay in a group comprising of diverse backgrounds, the group which purely consists of my religion abandons me. This happens to almost all the friends in my group as I see. To be in the group of my religion, I have to restrict myself sticking to the priorities of that group. But, when I stay with a diverse group, I can do things of diverse culture. To know more about different cultures and religions, one has to stay open to accepting all religions. Here I can illustrate the situation with a story by Swamy Vivekananda1 A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time cleaning the water of all worms and bacilli that lived in it. In this way it went on to become sleek and fat. One day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well. "Where are you from" "I am from the sea." "The sea! How big is that Is it as big as my well" and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other. "My friend," said the frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea with your little well" Then the frog took another leap and asked. "Is your sea so big" "What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!" "Well, then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out." That has been the difficulty all the while. I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. So does the Mohammedan. So I would like to get out of the well and find my own group which suits me. Being in one group restricts me to one culture, whereas a diverse group teaches me different cultures, practices, lifestyles etc. this would help me knowing people better. Being a member of dominant group, one would like to dominate people around or other groups. This has got a flip side, as when a dominant group in certain areas may not be dominant in other areas. Dominating by a group just restricts the group to themselves. This hostile nature will create sense of insecurity in the other group, which abandons completely the dominating one. This process leads to cultural indifferences rather than learning different cultures. The group becomes weak as the opponent would try to strengthen his group. My experiences taught me that, a diversified group is always a dominating group. This is mainly because of the strength of the all the cultures present in that group. Unity in Diversity in India: India is a land of diverse culture. From time cannot be dated back, Indian are tolerable to any kind of indifferences that comes into play from caste, religion, sex etc. There are different diversities between states and in states. But still they live together. This is possible just because, they are exposed to this culture from childhood. Indians, by birth are very tolerant on these issues. Apart from minute differences, they all live like one belonging to same religion. This sense of oneness comes from the various practices they follow. As one of my friend from India discussed, a Christian in India visits a Hindu temple with utmost respect. The same is the case with his Hindu friend. A Muslim invites friends comprising of different religions for a festival. These types of exchanges certainly bring in the sense of one nation rather getting divided by the religions. This process should be carried all over the world and will be a learning experience visiting India. Interview process: The interviewing process was carried on by asking questions and relevant discussions on that particular question. Any indifferences or issues of importance are discussed and their importance is noted. The persons were asked about their personal experiences and thoughts on religious tolerances and their practices. However, controversial topics were not discussed upon to maintain discipline and fair talk on the topic. My recommendations: I am proud that I belong to a family where I was taught to accept all religions and universal tolerant. Tolerance and acceptance comes, not from a society or from a nation as a whole, but from the family. Every parent should teach his child, the religions and their universal acceptance. Multi cultured society is what I am dreaming of, where people are not identified by their religion, race, sex but on the capabilities of that person. It should always be like minded people coming as a group, but not on the basis of their religion or any other diversity which is creating havoc in this world. Before we lose more people on the verge of religious dominance, we should take oath of preventing such disputes among ourselves and work for a better world and a better tomorrow. Application: Diversified people coming together can be of significant advantage. Knowing different cultures and accepting differences between them will make this world a consolidated single human culture. American companies have already noticed this importance as they say, by integrating workers from culturally diverse backgrounds into their workforce, companies become much stronger. The following are some of the advantages from a diverse society. 1. Creativity: when people coming from different backgrounds, work together towards a common solution, a best answer can be expected. Other cultures can offer very good alternatives, what a particular culture have not considered. this is a tremendous advantage of diversity in the workplace. 2. Productivity: people from different cultures can bring up an extremely successful productivity of a company. For example: people from china and India benefit with their quantitative skills whereas Swiss, Germans, British etc. will do better in managerial positions. 3. Attitude: when people from different attitudes come together, that will help a lot. For example, Americans believe "time is money", whereas Indians believe "time is to build relationship", when both of them work together, its making business with a good relationship with the customer. 4. Innovation: when people from different cultures come together, there is higher scope for innovation. Diverse backgrounds will help bringing in multiple skills to the environment and lead to innovation. In today's world, one cannot stop doing things in the same way as previously done. Therefore is need for workforce diversity in order to bring in new processes at the workplace and take an advantage of it Conclusion: Identity as in the dictionary means "a fact of being who or what a person or a thing is". A person is a single identity by himself, however from time immemorial, people are distinguished by various diversifications with the face of race, caste, sex, religion etc. the question always emanates about this diversity. War between whites and blacks, Fight between Muslims and Hindus (in India), gender dominance are always been a part of history and seemed to be impeccable in the future. Till the recent past, the multi-cultural approach appeared to be a wrong notion. What people in the world have forgotten is that diversity is just a form of identity. Just, as we name a person, diversity of any kind is naming particular groups, who have similar thoughts, language, understanding etc. It's an identity of one's culture, language and lifestyles. With the identification of a particular culture, various conclusions can be drawn on the characteristics of a person belonging to that culture. To add to the woes, diversification has always been used on a negative note, namely violence. If nations work together on these negative notes and bring in the true sense of religious tolerance. A world of one religion namely "Human Religion" can be established, which is powerful than any other religion. References 1) The complete works of Swamy Vivekananda - by Swamy Vivekananda 2) Cultural diversity - by Advaita Ashrama Read More