Society & Politics

Growing Up In a Multicultural Society

Multicultural societies can never work

Said the guy or girl who most likely does not live in a multicultural society.

Multicultural society, quick let's define it!

relating to or containing several cultural or ethnic groups within a society

So, I was born in 2002, in a small city, moved houses when I was a baby, let's skip all the details and get straight to the point. I've grown up in a multicultural society. For as long as I can remember I have seen and made friends with people of various ethnicities and people who hold different religious and non-religious beliefs and honestly, as a kid you don't think: "Yipee! I'm in a multicultural society lucky me!" To be honest it didn't even cross my mind, because it was just normal for me, and everyone else in my classes. If a new kid came, we didn't care, if they were black, white, brown, yellow, blue, or green, we just simply wanted to be their friend because they were the new kid. It's like we didn't even see colour.

That was primary school life.

Then in September 2014, bam we've all split, left primary school, lucky for me though, a lot of primary school kids were heading to the same secondary school as me. I mean, for more or less the first year of secondary school we were still in that 'primary school la la land' kind of mindset. Me especially, because adjusting to the new school was hard, I was a silly little kid who cut my PE uniform because I didn't like the school at the time, because it was a new school and I wanted my old school back but that's a story for another day.

By the second year of secondary school, we were all becoming teenagers and becoming a little more mature. I began to become more aware of people from a different background to me, and our differences, I remember I met this girl who was also a Muslim and she was from Somalia. She was such a nice girl, and even though English wasn't her first language, even though she sometimes couldn't understand what was going on in class because of that language barrier, she was trying her absolute best so I thought I should help her with her work when I could and I did and we became really good friends.

Plus, I have always been kind of a computer nerd but none of my friends could really relate to me on that, but I remember her taking interest in computer science, she even took the class with me that year and she asked me to help her with it so I did. But she left around about last year and went to another school. I had her on Facebook but she took down her account I don't know why so I haven't heard from her in ages and it's sad because I'd like to catch up with her and see how and what she's doing now. She was such a nice girl and a good friend.

My school life has consisted of Irish people, English people, Pakistani people, Indian people, Bangladeshi people, Kenyan people, Somali people, Nigerian people, Kurdish people, Iraqi people, Egyptian people, Hungarian people, Lithuanian people, Spanish people, East Asian people, Atheists, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Agnostics, one girl of Jewish descent and people who are apart of the LGBTQ+ community. and those are just what I can think of off the top of my head.

And bear in mind I haven't ever left the country, and I rarely leave my city. Really I've only ever left my city to go see family members in a neighbouring city, hospital appointments, school trips, and the occasional shopping trip. I haven't even been to the South of England. Yet I've managed to meet all these different kinds of people just at school.

It wasn't until last year I realised how lucky I was to live in such a diverse society. Last year this new girl came to our school from a small town near the seaside. That new girl is now my best friend. She is British Hungarian. She moved to our city with her mum and sistercity because of some family issues.

One day last year, we were walking home from school and we were just chatting about the city I was basically telling her how I've been here my whole life so I don't really know anything else. She said to me: "I like it so much better here than I did in my old town." I asked her why and she told me that her old town was just a little boring there wasn't this mixture of people which we have in our city, it was just mainly one type of person, from one race, one religion and that's about it. She told me here, was so much more interesting, because of all the different people, and the fact she gets to learn about various different cultures.

That's when I realised how lucky I was to just have grown up here.

My city doesn't have the best reputation, I won't deny it, my city does have a high crime rate but that has nothing to do with race because in my city are also racially segregated areas, not on purpose that's just how it turned out. And poor white areas crime is high, and in poor ethnic areas crime is also high. It's not a race issue, it's a class issue. Because whether a who commits crime kid is white, brown, black, yellow, blue, green, or orange the common denominator they'll most likely have is they're from a poor working-class or even a borderline middle-class background. So why do poor kids commit crime here? Because they see no hope. Our schools are going to rubbish, and when they look at the fact that if they go to uni they could be saddled with debt for the majority of their life they lose motivation and see crime as an easier option. I'm not condoning it but I can see from their perspective because I'm from a similar background to them, but I would never go into crime because I know it isn't easy as it seems when you have to deal with the consquences.

But when you grow up here, you know how to keep away from the crime, it's really simple. Don't associate with the people in it, don't go to the dodgy areas, and if you have to be extra careful don't make eye contact with anybody and if anyone approaches you- ignore them.

So, having avoided the sketchy stuff, I've had a nice time growing up here.

Living in this multicultural society has given me the privilege to meet different kinds of people, learn about their culture, their religion, maybe a couple of words from their mother tongue language, try their food, listen to their music, hear about when they went with their parents to the country of their heritage, I could go on and on. And it's also given me a chance to tell people, about my religion, my culture, have people try my foods, see clothes from my culture, teach people a few words from my mother tongue language and so on.

During Ramadan I might as well be a walking talking Wikipedia ;P

And my best friend, if she has a question about my religion or culture she'll usually thank me for telling her. We even taught her about henna and she loves it! Turns out she's so much better than me at it, I actually get her to do mine because she's really good at art anyway, and I'm one of those people with a shaky hand so she can do it so much better than me.

And I've learned from her too! She's a vegan, and usually, vegans get stereotyped as 'if you dare even suggest eating meat they'll go off on one' but that really is not the case. She's a vegan and she says one of the main reasons she loves vegan food is because everyone can be included. I can be included because I'm a Muslim and I know whatever she's eating will be halal, Hindus and Sikhs can be included anyone can! And I've told her about halaling and animal and she didn't start screaming and crying she actually said to me "thank you for telling me that because I didn't know".

Last Saturday was just so cool. A British Pakistani girl, and a British Hungarian girl went shopping we ended up buying stationary and then went to a Halal Chinese takeaway to eat. Next Tuesday we're gonna go to the same place after we see Spider-Man because their food is good!

Conclusion

So I've lived and am currently living in a multi-cultural society. Chances are I'll meet even more people next year, because I'm heading to college and again, that place is really diverse.

I'm not dead. I haven't gotten into wars with people over, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. And I don't think any I know has either because if they did I'd be the first person to be like: "Hold my tea- thank you, now what the hell are you doing?"

Now there has been the odd racist kid, every now and then very rare though. Like one time back in 2015 I remember one kid made fun of a Sikh kid's turban, but a load of people stood up for the Sikh kid and that kid who was making fun of the turban learned his lesson.

A multicultural society can work. If you are mature enough to see beyond your differences and see everyone for human beings before you see their colour, race, religion, or sexuality. People are people everywhere you go. If they're different to you, chances are they don't have any intent to kill you or take over the world, they're probably getting on with their lives, just like you want to. And if they're different to you, embrace that, because they're different they're giving you something to learn.

I haven't experienced any racism myself from anyone at school. In fact, the most racism I've experienced is on this website by people who claim a multicultural society can never work.

I said it once and I'll say it again, a multicultural society can work. The first step to making a multicultural society work is we need to stop fearing each other, and view each other as human beings before anything else.

Multicultural Society! <3 :)
Multicultural Society! <3 :)
Growing Up In a Multicultural Society
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