Cultural clash leads to family unrest amidst Indian origins, abroad
December 23, 2011 11:06
Culture cannot be imposed on someone forcefully it has to be adapted by the person. Another distinct feature in this context is culture gets imbibed only by the society one lives in and not by prophesies.
The surroundings, the environment and a lot of other things go into us to make a personality and that results in our culture. Migrants, and children born in Europe for example of migrant parents or even of migrant grandparents, may be legally Europeans but their citizenship is de facto second class as long as the common assumption is that to be European you have to be white.
However, most of migrant parents are worried about their children’s exposure to the Western culture. They feel that there is a tussle between the morals on which they have been brought up and the lack of values that their children are growing up with. As a result, most of the parents end up having tensed meetings with their wards. Is it the fault of the parents to keep the children away from their origin or is the fault of the children to develop a culture to which they have been exposed to? It is the biggest question on the minds of the migrants.
The tussle is much virulent across the globe, but a report in media has unearthed certain cases prevalent in Italy. The culture clash between parents and their children born in Italy's expanding immigrant community at times results violence.
In one such case an Indian fatherwas arrested in April 2009 at his home in the coastal town of Anzio near the Italian capital where he stabbed his son in chest during heated argument because he deemed the 21-year-old victim disrespectful after coming home after 1.00 am.
In 2010 a Pakistani immigrant was arrested with his son on suspicion of bludgeoning his wife to death near the northern Italian city of Modena after she defended her daughter for refusing an arranged marriage.
In either case this whether reported or not is predominant story across immigrant families, but the extent of violence differs much. Each parent must realize that society exposure plays pivotal role on the culture of an individual and no amount of prophesies can do the impact.