Ever wondered about the changing dynamics of the world (and please I am not talking about the financial dynamics) … what about the culture and demographics change in the world?
Let me look for London where I have spent more than 4 years. When you are walking on the road, every third person you meet will be a non Britisher. As per official Census figures of 2005, 40% of the London population are non-British. This includes Europeans, Asians (including Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Chinese, etc), Carribbeans, Africans, Latin Americans etc. And this % is increasing every year. The same is true for any major city in the world.
Within India itself, we have started seeing an increase in foreigners coming from all quarters of the world like Japan, China, Korea, UK, Germany, US , and needless to say, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran and the list goes on. And these are not tourists. These are people who have taken up jobs in India for long – term and who knows they might eventually settle down here.
This changing dynamics is not just meeting people of different cultures but a bit more. The different cultures eventually marry each other and the lines start blurring.
A recent and very much in news example of Barack Obama makes it very interesting. He was born to black Kenyan father and a white American mother. His mother was of mainly English, Irish and smaller amounts of German descent. After their divorce, his mother married an Indonesian and lived in Indonesia and Hawaii before moving back to US. A global diversity in just one family…So what do we call Obama – An American, Kenyan, Indonesian?
Inserting some Glamour Quotient into this blog: Voted as the most stylish and sexiest actress by multiple magazines – Jessica Alba. Jessica’s mother is of Danish and French Canadian descent and her father is of Mexican American descent. Back home, the beautiful actress Katrina Kaif was born to an Indian Kashmiri father and a white British mother. There are enough instances like these.
Sometimes I think in another 100 years there might not be people with single nationality, culture, origin, color etc… People would have moved around, married in different cultures and the new offsprings will be a mix of so many cultures that they cant be categorized under one single banner.
So we might have an Indian-American-Iranian-Kenyan person marrying a Nigerian-British-Japanese woman. Don’t you think?
In fact it brings me to another topic that I hope to cover some other time in my blog – How do we define a person’s cultural nationality – By birth, by citizenship, by allegiance, by residence or something else?
1 comment:
Do cultures have boundaries?
As the world grows, people move from one place to another in search of things that excite them. In this process the fine lines start getting blurred.
True - we don't know what would happen after 100 years.
Even when people don't move, media's penetration is so widespread that it acts as a catalyst to the change...! As part of growing up - didn't we see the effects of Western culture on our Indian masses...:)
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