Multi Ethnicity And National Integration

Seminar papers.

This book considers the impact of the Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untuk Parpaduan (RIMUP: Student Integration Plan for Unity), the program developed as a driver towards Malaysian national integration and intended to promote an ideal of ‘unity in diversity’ through enhancing ethnic interaction in primary schools. Based on interview research with government departments, NGOs, and stakeholders at primary schools, this book highlights three main structural challenges to success of the RIMUP: the government’s weak management; the short duration and low frequency of an activity; and low student participation rate. The book also provides concrete suggestions to develop the RIMUP, to improve ethnic relations and to shape the future direction of education policies for the development of national integration, making a significant contribution to Malaysian studies as well as education policy in multi-ethnic countries.

Although asserting one’s ethnic identity is not morally wrong, the manner in which one ethnic group construes or relates to the ethnic other(s) can obliterate the bond of togetherness and create the insecurity of life. Ethiopia, which is home to anthropologically diverse ethno-linguistic groups, exhibits a proclivity to ethnic-based hostilities and conflicts. As a result of such hostilities, Ethiopia had suffered recurrent small- and large-scale deaths, and in the last half decade only millions have been internally displaced and live in dire conditions. In dialogue with perspectives from a wide range of disciplines such as history, law, sociology, philosophy, theology, and political thought, this multi-authored book aims at generating Christian moral resources for peaceful multiethnic togetherness. This interdisciplinary engagement is meant to buttress the task of interpreting ethnic diversity and national unity within both contemporary and historical Ethiopia, and articulating a Christian moral response to the crisis of togetherness ensuing from the malpractices of affirming ethnic identity and enacting national unity.

Scientific Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: B+, course: Anthropology of Development, language: English, abstract: Ethnicity is fundamental issue in human life as 90 percent the world's nations are composed of two or more ethnic groups. The action-reaction relationship existed between dominant group and minority groups often negatively affected many nations' development in different social, political economic perspective. Ethnic background of a certain population determines cooperative or non-cooperative results of communication as it has been evidently seen that majority of world conflicts are a result of, or related to ethnic issues. Factors eliciting conflict such as collective disadvantage, lose of political economy and repressions are aspects of ethnicity.The reasons ethnic difference lead to conflict include: A sense of injustice because of resource distribution Economic or political completion Prejudice Discrimination Hostility Unwillingness to interact Ethno centrism Ethnocide Forced assimilation Cultural colonialism Sharp Intolerance comes from the difference of language, skin color, religious beliefs, customs and gender are among others

Hock Tong Cheu received his Masters and Ph.D degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and had lectured in Anthropology and Sociology in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia from 1976 till mid-1995. From mid-1995 till 2000, he taught in the Malay Studies Department and the Southeast Asian Studies Center, National University of Singapore. He was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore in 1984 and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, from August 1987 to October 1988. He has made several in-depth studies of the Nine Emperor Gods Spirit-Medium Cults as well as the Chinese Locality Saints, the Nadugong, and the Malay Keramat in Southeast Asia. Dr Cheu, who is effectively trilingual in English, Chinese and Malay, wrote prolifically, and had contributed numerous articles in all three languages to professional and academic journals, magazines and newspapers. He had also presented numerous academic papers for discussion in local and international conferences.

This work is a comprehensive look at The Gambia as a country and as a nation. Subjects covered include a general history of the country, its geography - regions and towns - and its people. It's also a profile of the country's demographic composition. The author looks at the different ethnic groups and their cultures and how they have been able to achieve unity in diversity in one of the most peaceful countries on the African continent. The work is also a study in regional integration with a focus on the Senegambia confederation. The author draws parallels between the short-lived Senegambia confederation and the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar shedding some light on some of the problems African countries face in their quest for unity. The collapse of the Senegambia confederation is in sharp contrast with the unity The Gambia has achieved within as nation. One of Gambia's most outstanding features is ethnic and cultural integration in spite of the cultural and historical differences among the country's different ethnic groups. People going to The Gambia for the first time may find this work to be useful. It's not a tourist guide but an introductory work covering a wide range of subjects on Africa's smallest country. Members of the general public who want to learn about The Gambia will also find this work to be helpful. The author has also taken a scholarly approach on a number of subjects using well-documented sources in an analytical context and has provided useful insights into the complexities of the country across the spectrum, addressing a wide range of subjects including ethnicity, cultural fusion, and national integration. He also contends that understanding ethnicity as a phenomenon and as an analytical tool and a conceptual framework is critical to any study of African countries most of which are multi-ethnic societies; and that the spatial theory of ethnicity is not applicable in all contexts including Gambia where the opposite - of what the theory says - is true. The work may therefore be useful to students and scholars who are interested in The Gambia. But it should be seen as a general work on The Gambia in spite of the academic approach the author has taken in his analysis of a number of subjects on this country which is also known as a gateway to West Africa.