How To Stop Segregation In Cities

Mohsen Amerion

M.Phil Student in Computer,

Sweden

Segregation is a form of discrimination that separates people of various nations with different race and culture. We know segregation by race very well, but surprisingly and ridiculously segregation happens even for people of same race if they have different accent or dialect or they are from a particular tribe. They are separated and in some senses isolated from others because of their ancient traditions such as the way they dress, get married, dance and live. But how should fight discrimination and remove such a woeful habit from society. It is to clarify that treating such complication is a lengthy procedure as it’s a psychological problem of society which deals with minds and not bodies. So, it may take decades or even centuries to get cured.

Sometimes segregation is integrated with the culture of the society. Here when we speak about culture we consider three main aspects of it which are tradition, religion and language, mentioned in their respective level of importance from highest to the lowest. In such societies even speaking about the dark points of the culture is a taboo as they either are the holy commands of divine that must be obeyed or non written rules of tradition that should be followed.  For example in India according to the traditional believes people are divided in four casts due to which the religious leaders and clerics are ranked the highest level, second position is given to military families, merchants hold the second last level and the lowest rank is donated to  labors and servants. The latest ones have no right to get education. They are gods and goddesses creatures just for serving higher classes of society. The children of higher casts are not allowed to get married or make friendship with children from lower casts and vise versa. Shamefully this system still works and is followed in India. Same casting system used to be followed in ancient Persia, but what Persians did and how long it took for them to forget about those wrong behaviors? It is a tricky question and the answer is that they actually did nothing. It was time that has been passed and the problem got solved during few centuries. In practice they forget about their tradition, but nobody taught them how to take aside their idea and pick a new one.

 People are in relation with each other and due to the time they get familiar with each other beliefs. When a behavior or belief is rational, it is compatible with human’s nature, so it is grasped by others' hearts. Hence, it brain washes new generations and substitutes a new civilized behavior within society which was not in fact preplanned.

Parliamentary rules of government in most countries implements segregation implicitly. For example in Sweden as far as employment is concerned the rule is that the job seeker has to have at least three years of resident permit. In case that the job seeker is a student who wants to work in order to earn money to cover some parts of living expenses and also to gain some experience related to his/her area of study, but immigration office issues resident permit in yearly patterns and not for the whole period of the study at once. So even if she or he stays in Sweden for 10 years for study purposes there wouldn’t be chance of getting job. Therefore, it is obvious that international students find themselves isolated from Sweden’s job market. Here, disapproving such rules does work to avoid segregation.

Housing for immigrants also is another issue. These are again thoughts of host society that segregates foreigners. When new arrival from different society applies for purchasing or renting house or flat in some particular area of the city, she/he would be ignored and there is no way but getting settled in a region that just foreigners are living. Approving anti discrimination rules and strictly running of those rules would help in this regard.

Establishing private schools for a particular ethnical group is another factor in cities that prevents new generations from getting mingled with the society that they are living in. there should not be such permissions to establish educational institutes that serves just a small group of people.

Self segregation also is another issue. Sometimes immigrants are segregated not because they have to, but they are segregated because they want to be. The ideology of the society that they are living in does not comply with their opinion, so they prefer to live in ghettos. Here also there is nothing to do from authorities side.

Removing segregation from society is a lengthy procedure and it takes time to be implemented. The important thing is that we as members of society should not think about race and culture. We should learn how to respect the opinion of others, so that we would not segregate others or there won’t be segregation for us. This way is more influential than the parliament rules against segregation.

Baloch Academy Of Humanities: www.balochacademy.org