Page 55 - Secondary School BEATS

Celebrating Diversity

By Amaira Sajjan (MYP 1)
Diversity is a factor that makes us different in re- Many cultures are adopted from various
lation to who we are and what beliefs we follow. places. Example - Lohri is known by different
Diversity is not appreciated in today’s society names all across India although the festival
and often changes into discrimination by using that is celebrated is the same.
hate speech. Our culture and tradition make us
different from other people. Examples of social Personal and cultural expression play a very
groups are Muslims, Sikhs, Christians etc. Chris- important role in cultural diversity. It al-
tians pray in the church, while others may read low people in different cultures to express
the namaz. This is the cultural factor of diver- their cultures, beliefs and values on cultures
sity. There are many other factors that make us keeping in mind the language that they are
diverse. Economic diversity is a unique diversity speaking. To conclude, personal and cultural
which depicts the different jobs people do, re- expression act as a building block to explor-
sulting in the wages that they receive being very ing cultural diversity. Although sometimes, it
different. Hence, we can say that diversity comes turns into discrimination that we can have to
in different forms, but the aim is to make us dif- break.
ferent from others.

Cultural diversity plays a very important role in
our lives. It allows us to understand people from
various cultures who follow different and unique
traditions that can be adopted by other people to
make cultural diversity an accepted factor. Many
people disrespect the Hijab. Although, many
prayer places in India have adopted a system to
cover the hair while praying. This derivation is
significantly related to the purpose of the Hijab.
The Hijab is a culture of Saudi Arabia and many
other countries. However, when people see a
lady wearing a Hijab, a sense of discrimination
is formed in people’s minds making them irra-
tional toward the Hijab. The lack of understand-
ing of the cultures of the Hijab leads to discrim-
ination. Many other cultures have faced cultural
discrimination. An evident example would be
Sikhs. People discriminate against the Sikhism
culture by being disrespectful to the Pagadi.

55