It was the start of orientation at my junior college and we were playing the usual ice-breaker games, Whacko, Dog&Bone, Twister etc. In the middle of playing dog&bone a couple of guys broke off and started chasing each other around the field. So, my group leader yelled, "Oi! This isn't Bollywood! Come back you morons!", which started the whole group laughing. In Bollywood (the Indian film industry) you see, a fixture of most movies is the hero and heroine coyly dancing around a tree singing love songs, kind of like what the guys were doing, minus the singing part. The really interesting part of this whole exchange however, was that no one in my group was Indian.
The above was just one example of how much cross-cultural exchanges are happening worldwide, whether they be for bad or good. We've come a long way from Christopher Columbus's days, when the Other was a "devil, god, heathen" and with it, I hope,we've gained greater understanding, empathy and knowledge. Like my friends and I, many of us around the world are getting to know and enjoy things that are beyond our normal comfort zones, if the successes of movies like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Bend it like Beckham" are anything to go by. Evidence of this is abundant in so many aspects of our daily lives, from the food we eat, to the entertainment we watch, to the jobs we hold. Hotmail was created by an Indian national, Pokemon was Japanese and the largest handphone company on this planet is Nokia, a Swedish corporation. By and large, with the opening up of borders, the resultants have been worth it, despite the fears of "Americanisation" and cultural identity loss so oft-repeated. Though I do think the McDonalds ten metres away from Tianmen square was a bad idea. Why then are we seeing the upsurgance of the far right?
Why exactly am I so upset about the far right? Firstly,extremists are bad for society whether they be leftist or from the right. Secondly, what is especially unsettling is that they are all riding to power on platforms that advocate cultural isolation and insular behavior which in today's inter-dependant world, is simply self-punishing. Thirdly many of them are even openly racist and xenophobic which only decredits whatever good they may lay claim to. Pauline Hanson, Jorg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen, all of these are politicians who are not just the odd kooks on the sidelines but politicians who have commanded or still command a sizeable percentage of their respective populations. We can't blame poverty or ignorance as they all come from first world countries (Australia, Austria and France respectively) therefore what can we blame?
For me, I believe it's man's "innate evil" as William Golding once said. Perhaps it used to be a survival instinct, the Neanderthal that tried to make friends with that brown,fluffy, tusked elephant thing was less likely to survive than the one that tried to clobber it for dinner. It may have enabled us to survive up to now, but in today's context, distrust of the other because of his other-ness, simply can not be allowed because society runs on civility, communality and acceptance. If we do not learn to accept and adapt to people who are different, our society will only stagnate and go downhill. It is in this vein that I found the pulling off of Muslim women's veils after 9/11 and the Bali blast especially sad, because it was such a singularly malicious act to do, equable to taking the Pope's rosary and crushing it in front of him. It wasn't the women's fault that religious fanatics of their faith decided to bomb the innocent just as it isn't the Pope's fault that militant Irish Catholics have bombed innocents before.
As I write this it is the eve of Diwali, the Hindi festival of lights celebrating Lord Krishna's triumph over evil. As we near the end of the year, people of all faiths and countries will be celebrating from Christmas to Hannukah to Hari Raya Adil Fitri. In this season of festivities and goodwill, let us all take time to look within ourselves and try to find greater understanding and acceptance as we fight our own inner battles of good against evil.
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