Multiculturalism or multi-culture-ism?

 I come from a country where we started each school day by reciting the national pledge, either in front of the flag in the classroom or in a school-wide assembly.

We pledged, "as one united people" to build a "democratic society", "regardless of race, language or religion". Why do we want to do this? "To achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation".

I always thought that it sounded like "The Lord's Prayer". Not my will, but yours be done, O Lord!

After school exams we were often herded into the assembly hall where we learned to sing Mandarin, Tamil, Malay and English folk songs, whatever ethnic/racial groups we belong to. 

https://www.sg101.gov.sg/social-national-identity/multicultural/
Primary school children celebrating "Racial Harmony Day".

Seriously, after nearly 20 years of such practices -- some might call this indoctrination -- multiculturalism has become part of my DNA.

One day a much older classmate at university -- he was a mature student on an army scholarship -- asked whether I felt ill-at-ease being "the only Chinese" in a particularly small class studying "anthropological theory".

I remember this incident well because I remember stopping to think for some time, going over the faces of my four other classmates: two ethnic Indians, an ethnic Malay, and an ethnic "Eurasian" (East Asian variety). And me.

"O! I had not thought of that. Didn't realise I was the only Chinese in the class."

What my older classmate was getting at, I think, was that the Chinese made up the majority in Singapore. There I was, little me, bear of little brain compared to the others, who hailed from what would normally be termed as "minority groups" making up the majority of the class. Ironically, the "only Chinese" was the minority in this group.

Did I feel threatened? No. Did I feel ill-at-ease? Only to the extent that the others had more anthropology training, while I had switched from Sociology to Social Anthropology for that final year as an undergraduate.

In a strange sort of way I had become completely "colour-blind" to skin colour in Singapore. These other four were merely my classmates. I had to stop to think what ethnic groups they belong to.

That is one outcome of multiculturalism that works. We were citizens of the same nation, "regardless of race, language or religion".

So when my PhD supervisor asked in what was clearly a cynical tone many years later, "So you think multiculturalism is a good thing?", I said "yes". 

Only later did I realise that "multiculturalism" in the UK means something quite different from my early socialization growing up multicultural.

Being multicultural for me meant learning about the religions and cultures of the different groups and respecting these for what they are. 

I had Indian neighbours on one side, and Malay Muslim neighbours two doors on the other side, and Eurasian neighbours downstairs.

Come religious festival times these neighbours would always share festive goods with us. I totally enjoyed that. And festive greetings were always exchanged.

My father sold pork in a wet market. We were especially careful about pork products when dealing with our Muslim neighbours, who were always respectful to us as well.

In the UK, I see not the multiculturalism that I had learned and enjoyed, but a "multi-culture-ism" where some ethnic and cultural groups live in such a way that there could possibly not be any interaction at all with fellow citizens outside of that group.

This, I think, is where the UK has gone wrong.

In sociology there is another term for this: ghettoization.