Singapore: How Culture Affects Racial & Religious Harmony

Discusses what is culture and how it can affect racial and religious harmony in a multi-racial country such as Singapore.

Introduction
"Culture", a word that encompasses the way of life passed from one generation to another, is generally defined as the integrated pattern of human customs, taboos, beliefs, ideas, and other related components. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1989) It is one of the fundamental ingredients that can weave a country together towards racial and religious harmony. There are three forces that impact an individual's sense of culture. (http://www.hoboes.com/html/NetLife/Children/Culture_Shock.html)

• 1. Education by cultural standard-bearers who wish to mold the individual into a proper member of society.
• 2. Environmental forces, such as climate, economic opportunity, and population density.
• 3. Exposure to external models of behavior.

Culture enables a country to absorb talented individuals from different backgrounds and fit them into the community. If a country cannot accommodate the tensions, then the diversity as well as racial and religious harmony could be disrupted.

Singapore Culture
Singapore, like many other countries, has its own cultural "flavor": from the various ethnic groups which populate the island, which consists of a mixture of mainly Chinese, Malays, Indians, and other races... Read more>>