Social Values and Structures in Multicultural Community and the Challenge of Globalization

Living in a multicultural community has drawn countless people into a more aware “world of identity" than ever before he immersed into. People become more observant and willingly adapt to new ways of thinking and deeds. A person, who is trying to distance himself from his homeland and communicates with people of different cultures, realizes the importance of values and social structures that form a person in a multicultural community.  There is an urgent need to reflect the significance of one’s values and social structures.  It is true and necessary because what he/she encountered is an interpersonal relationship, dealing with people of different cultures. Some common questions that usually crept in someone’s mind:  Why do we think or do things differently? Why do we react or respond differently to the everyday issues of our life?     
       

In every society, there are structures, starting from family as a basic structure to the highly institutionalized and independent structures such as schools and government system which include political and economic systems. Values operate as guiding principles or standards by which as Sitaram (1976:163) theorized, decide peoples' relationship to himself, the other man with whom he interacts, a machine that produces the commodities he needs, nature around him, and God who is supposed to help him attain salvation. Values in this manner permeate in each and every member of society, affect their decisions and determine how they think, desire, the way they do things, and how they communicate to others of different values and cultures.

These value systems are varied in every culture. Every culture also has a gradation of values which are prevalent on them. Gradations of values become the basis to understand why one value considers the highest value to one culture but not to others. For example, here in Indonesia, the value of family is the highest value, but not in Europe, which sees individual freedom as the highest value. Moreover, our values do change too. They are not static.  For example, before, the practice of giving the seat to the elders in the public transportations is really observed but nowadays very few people are doing it. Likewise, social structure can change too. For example, from the feudal system to a modern democratic system of government or those who belong to the lower class in the capitalist society can become a successful middle class by their own effort. These examples indicate that values are in fact constantly changing.

Nowadays, intercultural communication is so intense and more or more people are living on the move. We are people on the move! Our present time is a highly mobilized era, where the concept of space and geographic territory are blurred.  Our understanding of the value system and social structure must also be expanded to the current wave of globalization which brings us to one world. This is not to undermine the importance of our social values and cultures. What I intend to do here is to contrast our horizon to this present context. In fact, Globalization has brought a lot of fundamental questions about cultural identity and even the nation-state. Whose culture is prevalent? What does culture promote? Who decides the world welfare, economic, etc.? How do other nations or cultures involve? What are the impacts of such domination?

It is an inevitable fact that globalization brings uncertainties and doubts to most people and began to question their own culture and thus their value systems? The domination of western culture in the face of capitalism has nowadays become very significant and it seems to perpetuate the project of enlightenment of ‘universalizing’ world cultures. Capitalism becomes a new empire that strikes back with new patterns. Slowly but surely the impacts are prevalent in the way people thinking and acting.  Permissive attitudes are a clear example of the bad impacts on our life. Permissive attitudes are when people allow actions that are morally wrong to happen, such as cohabitation, promiscuity, abortion, pornographic, etc. When these attitudes are widespread in the local social values will at risk because people began to undermine them. Worst, consider them as obsolete things that need to be neglected. This problem originates from a misinterpretation of freedom that Western culture upholds strongly and considers it to be one of the fundamental human rights.  

As Indonesians, our task is not merely to counteract the impacts of globalization. It is to preserve the national commitment ‘unity in diversity’ (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika). Instead of rejecting the products of globalization what is urgent for us is to strengthen our own identity, renew our commitment to Pancasila as a symbol of unity, national identity and way of life. If we believe Pancasila and motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika as the main unifying factors, we actually believe also that our local values have been crystallized in Pancasila.  To preserve Pancasila means to maintain local values that form our own identity.

Note: This short article was first published in Xavier Fenestra (The School Bulletin of St. Francis Xavier of Ruteng, 2^ND Edition (January-December 2016)