Lealyan Thawmte
‘We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are’ – Anais Nin‘
'You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist’ – Indira Gandhi.
Coming as a foreigner to live in a new land with different culture, custom and tradition can initially be daunting for many. Adjusting bearings to a new system and a social way of life can even be frustrating at times. Especially important and often, the most difficult beginning would probably be overcoming the language barrier, harder for the educationally challenged. For residents living in community centers provided by the Danish Red Cross, while awaiting the outcome of their case, it is more of an uphill climb.
Instead of direct exposure to the society they aspire to live in, they are thrust amidst a mosaic of cultures, often in an uncomfortably close proximity for an unspecified length of time. The experiences thereof can bring out the best or worst in a person. Balancing behavioural attitudes according to a constantly changing atmosphere is not an easy task to accomplish. One day you have a devil may care African neighbour, the next day you have a deeply devout Arabic. Another Asian makes an entry the next week with an array of cultural paraphernalia.
On the other hand, you have the opportunity to observe, learn and utilise the experience as an education in itself.
However, in the face of all these intermingling and interactions while residing at close quarters, it can also sometimes be hard maintaining your composure. Where it is perfectly alright for you to eat or drink whatever you desire - wallet permitting, of course - to another person, the same may be considered unhealthy or even sacrilege. Interactions you deem normal maybe intrusion of privacy for the other. Sinful, perhaps. I'd heard about a certain family being shifted from a center owing to extreme differences with other fellow residents. The head of this particular family apparently insisted that no adult male should be present in the common kitchen, if and when his wife does the cooking.
The fact that other residents are as much hungry, and have the same rights as him to use the common kitchen as and when they so desire, blissfully escaped him. Whereas it maybe rare or uncommon in some cultures for a man to be in the kitchen, it is considered absolutely normal in many others that the man, let alone be present, also does the cooking. Polite exchange of greetings or conversation between strangers maybe nothing abnormal, but there are cultures that forbid open interaction with the opposite sex.
The dogged self-opinion of superiority over others or the tendency to regard other faith or race as inferior maybe the cause and root of many fights and misunderstandings. Failure to see reason and acknowledge sense and the unwillingness to compromise. Take time to think, just for a moment with a clear objective mind, that what seems or is unusual to you maybe pretty natural to the other person, or what you dislike or abhor maybe a habit or a delicacy to others.
Respecting the other person’s dissimilarities with yours, allows you the benefit of comprehending his or her actions and does not necessarily dilute your own views, interpretations or beliefs.As long as one views compromise as a defeat or even humiliation, instead of a solution, problems of even tiny bearing gets disproportionately blown up. The readiness to absorb, accomodate and understand people and cultures, and the determination to strive towards mutual existence inspite of differences is as important, more so when viewed in the context of egality and integration.
When politicians shouted themselves hoarse over certain section of the society’s failure at integration, it is not difficult to come up with another phrase. Refusal to compromise.
You don’t have to give up your faith or your beliefs and principles to compromise. You don’t have to abandon your culture or tradition to fit into a new society or to be a part of it. All you need is a certain amount of flexibility. Leave, at least, a little room for manouevre somewhere among the folds of your traditional or cultural rope that binds you.
Possessing liberal awareness and the ability to tolerate and understand, to cultivate a wider perspective of life, people and cultures, customs and traditions, and to conform and adjust in appropriate measures is as much a compromise as it is a requisite ingredient towards meaningful assimilation.
(This is an old article I wrote post 9/11, at the behest of the Editor of New Times, a Danish Red Cross publication as the right-wing onslaught on foreigners/refugees/immigrants continued unabated in the media)
www.zogam.com
‘We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are’ – Anais Nin‘
'You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist’ – Indira Gandhi.
Coming as a foreigner to live in a new land with different culture, custom and tradition can initially be daunting for many. Adjusting bearings to a new system and a social way of life can even be frustrating at times. Especially important and often, the most difficult beginning would probably be overcoming the language barrier, harder for the educationally challenged. For residents living in community centers provided by the Danish Red Cross, while awaiting the outcome of their case, it is more of an uphill climb.
Instead of direct exposure to the society they aspire to live in, they are thrust amidst a mosaic of cultures, often in an uncomfortably close proximity for an unspecified length of time. The experiences thereof can bring out the best or worst in a person. Balancing behavioural attitudes according to a constantly changing atmosphere is not an easy task to accomplish. One day you have a devil may care African neighbour, the next day you have a deeply devout Arabic. Another Asian makes an entry the next week with an array of cultural paraphernalia.
On the other hand, you have the opportunity to observe, learn and utilise the experience as an education in itself.
However, in the face of all these intermingling and interactions while residing at close quarters, it can also sometimes be hard maintaining your composure. Where it is perfectly alright for you to eat or drink whatever you desire - wallet permitting, of course - to another person, the same may be considered unhealthy or even sacrilege. Interactions you deem normal maybe intrusion of privacy for the other. Sinful, perhaps. I'd heard about a certain family being shifted from a center owing to extreme differences with other fellow residents. The head of this particular family apparently insisted that no adult male should be present in the common kitchen, if and when his wife does the cooking.
The fact that other residents are as much hungry, and have the same rights as him to use the common kitchen as and when they so desire, blissfully escaped him. Whereas it maybe rare or uncommon in some cultures for a man to be in the kitchen, it is considered absolutely normal in many others that the man, let alone be present, also does the cooking. Polite exchange of greetings or conversation between strangers maybe nothing abnormal, but there are cultures that forbid open interaction with the opposite sex.
The dogged self-opinion of superiority over others or the tendency to regard other faith or race as inferior maybe the cause and root of many fights and misunderstandings. Failure to see reason and acknowledge sense and the unwillingness to compromise. Take time to think, just for a moment with a clear objective mind, that what seems or is unusual to you maybe pretty natural to the other person, or what you dislike or abhor maybe a habit or a delicacy to others.
Respecting the other person’s dissimilarities with yours, allows you the benefit of comprehending his or her actions and does not necessarily dilute your own views, interpretations or beliefs.As long as one views compromise as a defeat or even humiliation, instead of a solution, problems of even tiny bearing gets disproportionately blown up. The readiness to absorb, accomodate and understand people and cultures, and the determination to strive towards mutual existence inspite of differences is as important, more so when viewed in the context of egality and integration.
When politicians shouted themselves hoarse over certain section of the society’s failure at integration, it is not difficult to come up with another phrase. Refusal to compromise.
You don’t have to give up your faith or your beliefs and principles to compromise. You don’t have to abandon your culture or tradition to fit into a new society or to be a part of it. All you need is a certain amount of flexibility. Leave, at least, a little room for manouevre somewhere among the folds of your traditional or cultural rope that binds you.
Possessing liberal awareness and the ability to tolerate and understand, to cultivate a wider perspective of life, people and cultures, customs and traditions, and to conform and adjust in appropriate measures is as much a compromise as it is a requisite ingredient towards meaningful assimilation.
(This is an old article I wrote post 9/11, at the behest of the Editor of New Times, a Danish Red Cross publication as the right-wing onslaught on foreigners/refugees/immigrants continued unabated in the media)
www.zogam.com
No comments:
Post a Comment