Brave subject this & I am voicing long held suspicions, not deeply held convictions, so do please rebuff/support my observations as you see fit. We often proudly live in multicultural societies with excellent & correct levels of mutual tolerance within them.
So, we see women “dressed as letter boxes” as it was so subtlety put the other day. We can all be tolerant of that & should be, but in my culture it would be a bizarre style of dress, leading to somewhat distrust due to the total coverage & even more so when the “letter box” won’t, for further cultural reasons, accept a handshake. But it’s not my problem, so let’s happily tolerate & embrace our differences.
I grew up in a rough neighbourhood of London where street fights were commonplace amongst headstrong youths, but no one “pulled a knife”. It was an act of cowardice that was often brutally punished soon thereafter by a large number of like minded headstrong youths. One could end up hospitalised by such behaviour. But now in London largely amongst the immigrant population of foreign culture (& others I’m sure) knife carrying has become commonplace amongst headstrong youths. It’s not my problem, so let’s tolerate. We don’t want to search and brutalise all those knife carriers.
All communities have paedophiles, but to have a group of adult men collaborating to groom & then pass around underage girls is certainly not something I ever experienced in my culture (past by heresay, or present from current knowledge) neither is forced marriage, or child brides. Yet these have all become pretty commonplace in UK brought to us by foreign cultures, although illegal. Not being responsible for young girls upbringing this one is just about tolerable, although completely revolting.
My home upbringing was deeply Christian (& I have faith of sorts although many would comment on my lack of Sunday attendance) & people never said it was OK to wage war, or behead, or kill anyone based on their religious beliefs. However religions brought to us by foreign cultures include such doctrines & although thankfully not observed very often, it is way to often to really be tolerated. Culprits are criticised, but not the foreign faith &/or culture itself. That gets tolerated.
We have an unbelievably tolerant society, given a quick look at the above, none of which were cultural norms when I was young & here’s the crunch. With sufficient patience, self control & tolerance all of this can be accepted as the new normal, but deep down it will be hated with total disapproval.
Then comes, distrust, disrespect, unspoken malice, whereby folks of a certain cultural background need to demonstrate they’re “good guys” that don’t participate in all these barbaric practices, before gaining acceptance (racial profiling I believe, as it’s now referred). Barriers form between communities because of perceived injustice & often real injustice coming from this situation.
Multiculturalism is now an everyday fact of life, but it would seem many cultures have practises that are deeply offensive to other cultures. The above is a tiny sample of the reality. If we are to deeply offend each other on a daily basis, with only a veneer of tolerance (hiding true feelings) racial/cultural prejudice (hopefully only moderate) seems to be an inevitable outcome.
If this is true, why are we even attempting it? The benefits of multiculturalism don’t seem to match the price being demanded of everyone involved, of all races.
Given twenty rewrites I could probably have expressed this better, but let’s leave it as is for the purpose of starting discussion. The essential premise is that unless cultures are forced to moderate towards a common accepted mode of operating in a given society, then deep offense is almost inevitable, leading to prejudice based on culture/race.
As soon as a culture is forced to conform to a norm other than it’s own, that itself becomes labelled prejudicial. There is no win in this for anyone.
I look forward to hearing thoughts & observations. I hope I haven’t come across as a screaming racist because I truly believe I’m not, but I definitely have problems with some foreign cultures. That I could never deny.