History has shown that it can be very difficult to effectively govern countries within a region of such tremendous cultural diversity.

Cultural diversity has been a controversial problem capturing a tremendous amount of public attention so far. It is obvious that it will be challenging to effectually rule nations within a culturally diverse region. This statement will be clarified according to the three main points mentioned below. The first point that is worth considering is how ethnic diversity causes the issue. There are many ethnic mixes in Southeast Asia, including “Chinese, Malay, Khmer, Burmese, and Vietnamese, as well as Thai, Hmong, Indian, Madurese, Javanese, Sundanese, Lao Loum, Lao Theung, and many other peoples”. Each one has its own beliefs and thoughts; therefore, that is extremely easy to lead to conflict among them. For example, some ethnic groups prefer the idea of respecting men more than women, but the others have a preference for gender equality; hence, they will become hostile towards each other. The second one is taking how language diversity affects the region into consideration. Southeast Asia has five families of aboriginal languages, consisting of “Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, Austronesian and Hmong-Mien”. People belong to their own language family, so they tend to find it hard to communicate with the others speaking other families of languages. For instance, the leaders of Southeast Asian countries are negotiating important political issues; however, they speak various kinds of languages, probably contributing to a messy situation. The last one is paying attention to the barrier caused by religious diversity. “Buddhism, Christianity and Islam” are the three most popular religions in Southeast Asia. Apart from them, animism has also become common in recent years. Individuals will have their own personal perspectives, and they will act in ways that their supreme being allows them to do, depending on the religion they believe in. As a consequence, that can result in disagreements. For example, animists are more likely to worship ancestors, especially those in rural areas. On the contrary, well-trained people in metropolitan areas have a tendency to view this belief system as superstitious. As a result, those people in the two different areas will oppose each other. The three principal points stated above help to clearly explain the idea that it will be tricky to successfully control countries within a culturally diverse area. It is highly recommended that Southeast Asia’s leaders find optimal solutions to mitigate difficult matters related to cultural diversity so that the region can be developed comprehensively.