Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

Ultimately, a minority culture, for example the culture of a minority migrant group, can only exist within acceptable parameters allowed by the dominant group. When the dominant group refuses to accept the minority culture, and where the minority culture cannot integrate into the dominant culture, the result is clash and even violence. 

The value system of a community or society is that intangible set of rules that governs behaviour and coexistence. The culture of the dominant group in a society is the force that determines the ultimate trajectory of that society. Culture and religion are often synonymous in certain societies. However, culture is much more ubiquitous than religion. It is also more ambiguous. The flow of culture touches more aspects of life than does religion, especially in Western Society. 

The culture of a country evolves over decades, even centuries. It holds within it the history, religion, tradition, and customs of the country. It decides the system of law and governance. The culture defines social relations.  

A country’s culture decides the dos and don’ts that every resident and citizen lives by. There are sanctions when these rules are broken. And even when cultural rules are ignored through the force of law, they remain entrenched in the hearts and minds of the country’s citizens. A culture is a very difficult thing to change. Cultures can change. But this change takes years of vigorous social and political action.

There is an international or universal culture. The dominant global culture is a matter of state power. Historians like to state that western culture began with Ancient Greece and was spread by the steely force of the Roman Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire after that. Some go even farther back to Ancient Egypt.

A world power is able to project its culture beyond its borders through mainly what is termed as soft power. However, soft power begins with hard power or military power. Before 1945, the British culture was dominant. As the British Empire declined and the USA became overwhelmingly dominant, US culture became the dominant global culture.   

Now, the US possesses a gun culture. And despite frequent massacres of innocent men, women, and children, that gun culture remains overwhelmingly powerful. A minority of men and women opposed to that dominant gun culture will not be able to change a trajectory that started when America was a frontier inhabited by a Native Indian population. Not unless the frequency of US gun massacres becomes totally intolerable. Periodic gun massacres are becoming an ugly part of the US gun culture.

Racial segregation in the USA and Jim Crow were part of the dominant southern white culture for decades after the US Civil War ended. And despite Civil Rights Legislation and new laws that protected minority rights, the US remains a segregated society in terms of race to this day. There has been change. But this change is extremely slow.

Presently, Northern Europe is finding it challenging integrating its Muslim population. The differences in culture between the dominant Anglo Saxon, and Germanic native population, and the culture of the migrant population from the Middle East, has created pockets of despair, poverty, and segregation, that may be driving the radicalisation of young Muslims on the continent.

Philip Johnston writing in the British Newspaper, the Daily Telegraph on July 20, 2015 described how the British Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron made statements pointing to “the separation of young Muslims from the mainstream as the main cause for the upsurge in terrorism in Britain.” Cameron further insisted that, “those who follow minority faiths must subscribe to mainstream progressive views on gay marriage and gender equality.” How this will be accepted by Muslims is to be seen.

Brendan O’Neill, another Daily Telegraph Contributor, writing in the same op Ed section further highlighted Cameron’s assertion that, “people who don’t promote or partake in violence but who simply have ugly beliefs may not advocate violence, but they do promote other parts of the extremist narrative.” Cameron is determined to fight what he has termed an existential threat to Britain that is Radical Islam.

The preceding are extreme examples of evils that cultural incompatibility fosters It is wise accepting the culture of the dominant group in any society if one is in the minority group.

Returning home for example and anyone wishing to migrate and reside in the British Virgin Islands would be wise to meet Local Historian Honourable Elmore Stoutt OBE, and listen to his renditions of folklore and folksongs on Virgin Islands history. Mr Stoutt’s Calypso music and stories hold within them the cultural DNA of these Lesser Antilles. There are a number of cultural icons apart from Honourable Stoutt who possess the ability to convey Virgin Islands culture in narrative and art, such as Mrs Janice Blyden, Miss Janice Stoutt QC, and Honourable Reuben Vanterpool. There are others.

The unwillingness to accept the dominant culture of a community by a minority culture is a pathway to frustration and even ostracism of that minority culture. Ultimately, resentment can build in members of both the dominant culture and the minority culture. This can lead to conflict, even violence.

The cliché is certainly valid that “when in Rome do as the Romans.”

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