Essay About Community Identity

In Singapore’s multiracial society where multiple cultural and ethnic identities are present, how does the Malay community strengthen its community identity? Community identity a being part of a person’s knowledge of themselves that concerns his or her membership in a certain community (Taylor, Peplau & Sears, 2002). One of the places that the Malay community can visit to strengthen their community is the Malay Heritage Centre. The Malay Heritage Centre (MHC) was set up in 2005 by the National Heritage Board to act as a significant cultural and historical landmark in Singapore (Museum Roundtable, 2016). The MHC showcases a vast collection of artefacts that have strong Malay influence. It also conducts programmes, exhibitions, events and activities year round to promote aspects of the Malay identity. The MHC’s programmes, events and exhibitions are indeed able to strengthen the Malay community identity.

The theories mentioned in this essay are the social norms

Most museums in Singapore do not have such an extensive collection of Malay artefacts and culture, The MHC also caters their programmes, events and exhibitions to invigorate the Malay communal identity. Singapore’s culture is slowly but surely booming diluted (Ng, 2014). If we deny the heritage centres the right to preserve and maintain our multifarious community identities, we would lose our social identities and become homogenous. It is imperative for each individual to have a place where they can strengthen and reaffirm their community identity. In order to have a consistent sense of community identity across all communities however, heritage centres and sites should be well publicised. As Haile Selassie so aptly put, “An awareness for our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and identity”. As the MHC does just that, it is inevitably a good avenue for the strengthening of community