Globalization seems to be a new world wonder. People from almost all parts of the world can now find it easier to move to locations far from them, thanks to the advancements made by technology in transportation and community. The idea of people of different diversities coming together is welcomed in social discussions for it represents a tolerance for maturity, more so in advanced economies. Globalization as an entity such as immigration is not perceived uniformly by all people. In some cases, people on the receiving end of immigration do oppose the individuals their countries receive by engaging in violent protests and unwelcoming gestures. Such actions bring forward the fact that globalization does not foster cultural unity as it is echoed in liberal politics. This happens because in human nature, people always prefer territorial spaces where they see more individuals similar to them. Globalization brings diverse people together but does not offer the guarantee of culturally unifying them.
People have cultures uniquely inherent to them, and these are not easily changed just because of exposure to a different culture. Cultural practices vary widely across the globe. A cultural context in a given part of the world can have an entirely different meaning if applied to a different global context, and that can include having the gesture of offense or acceptance (Kirsch, 2006). People tend to have their culture within them as they move to different cultures and often there is a reluctance to dispose of one’s culture and have it replaced with the cultural contexts of a place being visited. Taking a custom away from an individual and having it replaced with a new is not a one-time event. Instead, it is a process that can take years and the time between can be met by many social complexities. Anthropologically, people in a new a place often have the mentality of their culture being the best and would want it to be emulated by visitors (Kirsch, 2006). Residents also have the same perception – their culture is what is best for the places they visit. To them, it is better if they spread their cultures far and wide. People often are slow to new cultural adoptions. At the sight of new cultures, especially ones that are considered not pleasurable, cultural rifts are bound to get magnified over bits of unity.
How people value their cultural values and how that can reduce chances of integration with other cultures can be well illustrated by immigration of Muslim Syrian refugees escaping war and famine from their country into Europe, particularly in Greece. The Greek society is predominantly Coptic Orthodox faith. Their religion is accompanied by crosses which are used for worshiping and in rituals such as burials. The year 2016 marked massive human immigration of Syrians into Europe with Greek being the passage. An event shocked Chios, a Greek town close to the country’s border with Turkey – early one morning the town waked up to a vandalized cemetery, the cat mostly targeting the religious symbols. The individuals blamed for the situation were a section of the refugees who perhaps engaged in the act to show their displeasure with the Greek’s Orthodox Christian tradition. The event caused minor uproars among some of the Chios’ residents who took actions such as burning the temporary makeshifts used by the refugees. People inherently value their cultural practices. Typically, disdain for other cultures tends to dominate tolerance. Therefore, with increasing globalization through immigration, cultural rifts are bound to widen rather than reduce.
It also takes time for people to be able to settle into other new cultures. Cultures around the world have different levels of social development. For societies that are predominantly patriarchal and religious conservative, often there is an open practice of misogyny, disdain for gay relationships, and encroachment of practices such as child marriages (Kirsch, 2006). In western European nations, who mostly are the recipients for the people on the move from wars and societal persecutions, the societies are primarily liberal, and individualism prevails more than communal-style living. Engaging in conservative-society-like practices of misogyny and looking down upon same-sex relations is unwelcomed in liberal communities (Kirsch, 2006). For foreigners who move into the countries, due to globalization element of immigration, the presence of same-sex relations and gender equality are things that they can perceive with disbelief. The foreigners may even sub-consciously apply their conservative way of life in their new locations and end up causing seen unseen cultural rifts.
Finland is one of the European countries to have admitted thousands of Syrian refugees in 2015. The country’s immigration officials got worried about the immigrants’ culture and how it largely clashed with Finnish way of life. For refugee men, an important lesson given was that a girl skimpily dressed and asking for a drink did not amount to some sexual discussion mounting. Finnish immigration officials, therefore, embarked on cultural lessons for the refugees it received in efforts to ensure that they align more with the country’s culture. Without having prior cultural education, Germany and Sweden reported increasing rape cases propagated by refugees who seemingly were applying a cultural context unknown to German women while pursuing romantic relationships. The incidents caused huge uproars among German and Swedish citizens, some of whom go to the extent of aggressively attacking immigrants by setting their fire on their premises. People do assume their cultural contexts are what is right and do hold similar belief even when in different territories (Kirsch, 2006). With such mentality, immigration, as championed by globalization politics, is most likely to lead to cultural rifts.
Economic immigrants sometimes are not received favorably out of the fear they take jobs from the locals in the immigrants-receiving areas. Economic woes in many developing nations have caused many young people in the countries to move to developed economies with the hopes of finding better jobs. The movement usually is en masse, a suitable example describing the situation being the Libyan refugee situation. It involves thousands of young sub-Saharan African men and women making dangerous sea fares to reach European countries such as Italy, France and the United Kingdom with hopes of finding economic opportunities better than the ones they leave behind. Many of these immigrants do not have a proper education that can get them sustainable jobs once they are in Europe, a situation that forces some of them into further despair. The citizens of the immigrants receiving nations also find themselves faced with a social problem – their cities being bombarded by people they are less hesitant to welcome. As acts of cultural retaliation, racism against the immigrants gets widespread hence defying the cultural unity that globalization attribute of immigration links to.
In other somewhat economically better-off countries such as South Africa, locals blame immigrants for taking jobs away from them. In retaliation, cases of violence against immigrants in the country have become widespread. In situations where globalization is less controlled, an “us against them” culture tends to predominate as individuals on the receiving end of globalization through immigration see incoming individuals as threats. Because of the urge to protect demographic uniformity and economic interests, people can find it difficult to welcome foreign individuals to their societies (Kirsch, 2006). That context thereby means that with globalization, cultural rift potentially becomes more common than unification.
Making globalization to work in favor of enhancing cultural unity can be possible in certain ways. It is within reason for people to act cautiously towards new cultures they meet. An instant demographic change to a geographic territory that has been homogeneous for a long time likely can cause some backlash against new residents (Kirsch, 2006). For globalization not to get met by undesirable outcomes such as cultural rifts, it should be experimented as a process and not an event. That way people on the receiving end of it do not get bombarded by the demographic changes that accompany globalization (Kirsch, 2006). People who are on the receiving end of a globalization attribute such as immigration must also show the willingness to accommodate the new individuals they expect. That helps in reducing cultural micro-aggressions that often play out in multicultural environments.
People tend to hold onto their cultures strongly. They are often less hesitant to change them when in new cultural environments. Cultural rifts can emerge if the customs of incoming people are met unfavorably by the demographics receiving them. People can also cause cultural fractures if they forcefully try their cultural attributes on people they are new to. Uncontrolled globalization as characterized by intolerably many cases of immigration makes people on the receiving end of the immigration to view the accompanying demographic changes negatively. They may turn to micro-aggressions of racial prejudice with the intent of psychologically driving away many of the people who arrive their locations unwelcomed. Inadequacies of economic opportunities make inhabitants to view immigrants as unfavorable economic competitors hence develop the “us against them” demographics. Globalization can only cause union of cultures if its entity of immigration gets controlled to a level that is tolerable.