Lately in the news there have been many negative stories about different cultures colliding. For example, the American beauty pageant winner who was accused of not being American enough because of her Indian heritage. Or the story of suicide bombers targeting Christians in Pakistan. Or the attack on a shopping centre in Kenya, which is the latest in a series of tit-for-tat attacks between Kenya and Somalia.
These are all definitely important events to be recorded in the news. But I feel that if this is all we hear about, it will create even more divisions. People may forget that good things can come from cultures collaborating.
One simple example is food. Growing up in a country town, the food was great, but not necessarily diverse. Now that I’ve been exposed to so many different cultures, I can’t imagine not having stir-fries, curries, sushi, tacos etc as part of my food lifestyle (just to name a few). But these would never have made it to Australian shores if somewhere, sometime, people decided not to share recipes, information, spices etc across cultures.
Of course there are much more profound examples too (maybe I’m just hungry as I write this). When the SARS, Swine Flu and Bird Flu outbreaks occurred a few years ago, countries shared life saving information to stop the spread, work on vaccines/cures together and contain the damage as much as possible. This led to the development of important strategic plans by the World Health Organisation in case of a future breakout. Collaboration was not only vital, but productive and beneficial for all involved.
Like I mention before, I’m not against reporting the bad things that happen…I’d just like to encourage people to share more of the good things too 🙂
What do you think?