What's so funny about peace, love and understanding, imagine all the people living life in peace and in one world. These sentiments that are branded around freely are constantly the subject of satire and cynicism from people, but I truly believe in peace, love and understanding between us all, it could happen, in fact I believe its easier to let it happen than not to, and I hold strong hopes that we as world citizens will join together increasingly in the future. After all, most if not all would like to live without fear of war's and ironically it is in all of our collective hands, whether that can happen or not.
Misunderstandings are so common between people, if we had the ability to see things from other people's perspective, it would indeed be a peaceful world, but of course we are emotional beings and naturally conflicts will happen that don't follow such rationalist lines. However, I believe that it is more a case of better exposure and more organically that can increase the likeliness of understanding conflicts and the reduction of emotional and ignorant hate between us. Stereotypes are commonly built up because we generalise behaviour among certain types of people, ethnicities and cultures that are then used to form an opinion. Nowadays, these stereotypes are fast becoming old, and the younger generation now emerging are getting exposed increasingly to different cultural artefacts. The result I believe is that it is increasingly creating more open minded and aware people. The reason why I believe it is occurring now is because world wide communication through internet is available to more people across the world and is accessible to people from a young age. Travelling is cheaper and people are more inclined to go further away from their home country and their continent to really experience something new and different. It is commonly believed that things you learn when you are younger stick with you more easily easier as you get older, so the exposure to languages, culture and the different ways of every day things around the world, could make you a more tolerant person with the ability to understand different ways of thinking about things, just subconsciously!
As I have stated in previous blogs, learning a language is a great way to identify your own culture's customs and habits and realise more about the way other cultures do things that are different. From my own experiences and culture shocks, I suddenly asked myself the question "what is the right way to do these things, how should I talk to people, what is the best etiquette in formal and informal situations?". I didn't know it was done this way in Country X, maybe that's why there is so much misunderstanding with this ethnic group in my own country? These realisations are hard to articulate in words, but as the saying goes if we listen instead of talk, we might realise and understand more. But it also goes further than just speaking foreign languages, its the exposure to foreign arts and culture that can make us more intelligent and thoughtful towards each other. As an example, English speaking music has been popular in foreign countries for many years, but increasingly foreign pop music is coming to English speaking countries, such as Korean and Chinese Pop music that increasingly opened people's minds to music being expressed through different languages and cultural norms.
(For further understanding of how the arts is contributing towards better understanding between people in the world, I would highly recommend readers to listen to the Chinese pop singer, Wang Lee Hom's, speech that he gave at Oxford University this year.)
The ways of doing business has also been influenced by foreign ways too. Whilst the industrial revolution was a concept that emerged from the west and changed the way of thinking by the east, vice versa, the efficient manufacturing and organisation methods pioneered by the east, the Japanese, has had a great influence on the west and changed the methods used there too. By connecting better with each other we can learn, grow and enjoy life far better than we could living in separation, with suspicious and contempt for each other.
It is interesting to look at the past and consider that at a time when communication between foreign countries was poor and reliance was held on stereotypes and word of mouth, just how many of these cultural misunderstandings caused wars throughout the world, could these devastations have been prevented in today's world with the more advanced technology, communication and education we now have? Ignorance is dangerous and it continues even to this day, where there are still so many wars between countries and the minorities and majorities within. However, it is important to look at the way the world has changed and the facts that undoubtedly we now lived in a more integrated world than ever before.
In the past, there simply wasn't the same ideology towards peace and understanding that I believe is in existence in the world now. I truly believe this better understanding can create more peace and harmony than has ever existed. Thus, the catalyst for greater change is more and better education for all of us.
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