Read more, vote less (Opinion Essay)

Because we are born in a particular family, nation and class, we are all different. We all live in some kind of social and cultural circles which attach us to specific values. But we are also living in a world of globalization, coexisting therefore with others. Unfortunately, this coexistence becomes a problem sometimes.

Normally, we tend to form groups based on similarities and then we produce stereotypes about other groups of people. I decided thus to write an opinion essay supporting and defending multiculturalim environments and the importance of connecting ourselves with the world beyond the one we take for granted to grow ourselves.

I think most people would love to travel to far and exotic places like South America or Africa, but when they find families from these countries as their neighbours, or children from these places as their own children's classmates, it becomes a problem. We live in a society which seems to tell us our values and ideas are the right ones, and therefore the best. My mother, for instance, has been a teacher in a Primary School for 30 years. For sometime now, she started to have some Moroccan and Chinese children in class. In my opinion, it is very positive for kids to have children from other cultures as classmates, and also for teachers. It can teach them many things. They can learn, for instance, that one girl who covers herself is not an oppressed girl, that her reasons are spiritual and her choice, personal.

I am convinced that one of the best ways to overcome these cultural ghettos is through reading. When we read, we get involved in the story and empathize with the characters, no matter their race or religion. We like them or we dislike them for their personality, not for their background. Literature, fiction, stories connect us. I will never belong to any political party because, from my point of view, they are very dangerous. They create ideologies that teach us that as humans beings we are different than others and therefore we are better than them.

Because it is not healthy for a person to spend so much time staring at the mirror, it is not healthy likewise to stay for too long inside our cultural circles, our friends, our neighbours, if all the people in our inner circle look like us it means we are surrounded with our own image. If we are going to learn something worthy in life, we are going to learn it from people who are different than as rather than from people who are exactly like us. At the end, the culture of coexistence is the only way that will lead us to a better world, we only need to learn how to build it..