Multicultural Society In Malaysia

Malaysia is a plural and multicultural society. The pluralism society exist hundred of years because of migration of people within the Asian region. Plural society according to J.S. Furnival ‘s model known as a mixture of society with various ethnic or race. However, he highlighted that plural society have more inter-reaction but not intermingle. Each of the group practice their own religion, tradition,culture,language, ideology and social living separately. Collectively, in pluralism’s social economy have division of job based on race or ethnic. We can see such model presented during the “Colonial” time (British). For example, the Malay permanently become farmer and fisherman for living. The Chinese actively involved in commerce and mining:

However, Milton Gordon’s let us understand that “Ethnic group is a social group distinguished by race, religion or national origin. Ethnicity refers to a state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. Constructively, Maciver (1981) emphasized the inclination of divergence in a social group through criticism or aversion. The social group would specify outside of their ethnic group as “they” and “we” as their own ethnic group. The concepts in ethnic such as ethnicity, ethnocentrism and discrimination can detrimental to the integration of patriotism toward Malaysia. The stages of ethnic relation in Malaysia has transformed from segregation to amalgamation. At the beginning stage, the relationship among race or ethnic during the “Colonial”time has the effect of separation especially in education system,career and communication. Then in a process where each noticed their own value of their own social norms to upkeep their strong belief of their own cultural and living. This stage of the process known as accommodation. Another stage of transformation is acceptance of cultural elements among individual or social group from other culture.The social group accept other culture of certain ethnic especially in terms of food,clothing and other norms. For example, during Chinese New Year young children of all race given a red pocket for the blessing of healthy from the Chinese.Another form of transformation of ethnic relationship is assimilation where the process of mixture and unification of two different cultural background to co-exist one culture identity. Normally the minority ethnic accept the greater ethnic ‘s culture