MULTICULTURALISM

 

In 2022 clashes broke out between Hindu and Muslim communities in the UK. 2022 Leicester unrest - Wikipedia .What made these clashes unusual is the fact that these communities have lived side by side for generations. They even originated from the same part of India. This has led me to ponder about the nature of multiculturalism.

It's obvious that multiculturalism is not a natural thing since originally humans evolved their traits depending on the environment. Only over the last 500 years have people been migrating in vast numbers to places where other people already live.

Humans have evolved survival instincts that involve them conforming to their "tribe".
1) Religion. Believing in a higher power creates conformity within a tribe. This is why questioning religion was seen as taboo, "heretics" were often banished or executed. A tribe that had a different religion was seen as a threat. Many wars we see in the world today are between people of different religions. Sometimes even within different interpretations of the same religion. (Sunni Vs Shia)
2) Disease. One tribe with immunity to a virus passing it on to another without immunity was nearly always fatal. Fear or hate of those who didn't look or talk like your fellow people was essential to survival.

Our hardwired instincts still operate in the 21st century regardless of if they still make sense or not. The Men's Dictionary: OBSOLETE BIOLOGICAL WIRING (the-mens-dictionary.blogspot.com) From what I can see multiculturalism "works" in todays society only because of modern day artificial constraints.
1) Social conditioning. In the space of one lifetime we have gone from employers having signs saying "no blacks, no Irish" to diversity quotas and training. Why some of this was a good thing it seems that things are going too far in the other direction.
2) Authoritian governments. The people of Armenia and Azerbaijan may hate each other but under the ruthless rule of the Soviet Union couldn't act upon it until the country collapsed. Similarly as bad as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were, their removal triggered fighting between various rival groups. I'd argue overall the world is worse off due to the extra terrorism and refugees created by these new conflicts.
3) Economic good times. When people are doing well in life they tend to care less about the family down the road having a different religion or skin colour. In fact many welcome people from poor countries to do the dirty, dangerous or boring jobs they don't want to do. When the economic hard times arrive this goes hand in hand with hatred of foreigners. History is full of examples of this from the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s to rise of far right groups against immigrants in Europe today triggered by the economic hard times from Covid and the Ukraine war.

As western society's collapse this is going to have serious implications. I only see non multicultural places like Japan dying quietly.