by Asif Akhtar

Over the past few days I've been having conversations with different people about multiculturalism versus cultural isolationism. My interest in this dichotomy was sparked to a greater extent after encountering the public display of affection v. cultural values debate raging on one of Lahore's posher university campuses.

While some argue that in fact the 'times are a changin' and accommodations must be made to our thresholds to keep xenophobia at bay, others maintain that certain behavior simply isn't endorsed by our set of cultural values, and nothing can justify this breach of conduct in favor of “Western decadence”.

It seems unclear to me what the cultural absolutists are on about, since culture is represented by a flow of ideas and behaviors within societies often influenced by many factors ranging from trade routes to climactic changes and wars. Granted that a city like Lahore is a part of something called 'The Islamic Republic of Pakistan', it should also be noted that Lahore is actually a multi-cultural cosmopolitan by any standard (a fact that gets discounted much). In this city there are people abiding to all sorts of value systems, moralities, cuisines, musical tastes, etc.

So should the city be the face of the culture practiced by the people, or should the city (an inanimate entity when devoid of people) determine how the people chose to live their lives?

As we progress, we will continually come to find ourselves in the globalized social condition. A fact that isn't really negotiable, since there is no on/off switch to globalisation, and one cannot ignore that the world is more interconnected with ideas, and ideals, language and culture alike flowing from all corners of the globe in all different directions. Then shouldn't people be adapting to a world where your neighbour's views might be diametrically opposed to those of your own, rather than be stuck in a false fog of homogeneous cultural nationalism?