We are the World

Every year, our school hosts, what we call, a ‘National Costume Day’ for which we all come in, dripping with patriotism and national pride or quite plainly, dressed in our respective traditional attire.
Our school is well acknowledged for its immense diversity but not till the Day, did I realize the sheer spectrum of nationalities that reside in our humble Kingdom. There were green top hats with pinned clovers, kilts, turbans, thobes, saris, kimonos, dreadlocks, fez, Bubas, Baju Kurangs and a myriad of other dresses I hadn’t ever seen before.
It was a fantastic day that proved to be an insight into the cultures of different lands and was a testimony to international collaboration.
If we, as a student body comprising of nearly seventy different nationalities, can work and cooperate with each other in harmonious union, why can’t the nations of the world do the same?
It is indeed a tall order and a fantastic dream to envision such a magnificent place – no wars, no constant bickering, just living and working together and progressing.

I can already hear you scoffing at this euphoric, dare I say it, hallucination. But the truth of the matter is that it is that easy. There are wars solely because we desire what is not in our possession. As a collaboration what stops us from acquiring these resources in return for a favour? It would prove far more effective and less gruesome than endlessly prodding each other with guns and weapons of mass destruction.

It reminds me of one of my favourite Calvin and Hobbes comic strips in which they decide to spend their gloriously free afternoon playing ‘war’ out in the garden, armed with suction guns and khaki helmets. After careful maneuvering and intricate planning requiring stealth and agility, they both manage to creep through the bushes and leap out trying to ambush each other. They end up shooting each other with a suction cup on the head. It is an ideal epitome of war, illuminating its pointlessness.

There are people from seventy different countries in my school and it’s fascinating to learn about their cultures, their way of life, their food and clothes and their extravagant, rich ceremonies and festivals. Just by chatting with them, I can learn so much more about the world. How much more would the world benefit if that was practiced on a larger scale?

That’s the great thing about living in Bahrain. You meet different people from countries you have probably never noticed on the map and they teach you about their world and then in return, you tell them about your heritage in what morphs into a friendly intercultural jabber over a cup of steaming Arabic coffee in a neighbourhood café. Your half-Malaysian neighbour might invite you in for some nasi lemak or you may happen to be invited to a Spanish siesta and nibble on paella. You can hear exhausted gardeners ramble away in Bengali and you may even have the opportunity to catch a performance of an Irish dance or karaoke in Tagalog. It’s like a global conglomeration, this Kingdom and it makes you love living here even more.