Immigration, Diversity, Cultural Clash, and – Hopefully – Cultural Melding? A Review of Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway (2023)

Authors

Raja RamanathanFollow

Abstract

For migrating from 'developing’ countries, to relocate in the ‘advanced West’, a message that came through from the western society is clear: “Integrate.” The Norwegian official in the movie 'Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway" says this unequivocally and with impact: “Be like us if you want to live here or go back to where you came from.” The message of the western world – ever since they started colonizing the ‘native’ lands of Asia, Asia and the Americas – was that the natives had to be saved from themselves. That was “the white man’s burden” – a burden of “civilizing” the natives – as Sir Rudyard Kipling wrote. In this essay, I revisit this issue not just through the film reviewed but also by invoking memories from my own childhood, for a few years, as a brown child growing up in England.

Author Bio

Raja Ramanathan considers himself truly the Itinerant Indian (also the name of the book he contributed to, The Itinerant Indian, Unisun, 2005). Born in Kolkata, India he traveled to Singapore at the age of three months and to England a year later. He grew up till the age of eight in England and then moved back to India. From there to Bahrain in 1984 and since 1992 he has been living in Canada. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Often, he teaches as adjunct faculty at the Sheridan Institute of Advanced Learning and Technology, Canada.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Ramanathan, Raja (2023) "Immigration, Diversity, Cultural Clash, and – Hopefully – Cultural Melding? A Review of Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway (2023)," Markets, Globalization & Development Review: Vol. 8: No. 2, Article 5.
DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2023-08-02-05
Available at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr/vol8/iss2/5