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Multiculturalism

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Multiculturalism is a public policy approach for managing cultural diversity in a multiethnic society, officially stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country's borders.

As a policy, multiculturalism emphasizes the unique characteristics of different cultures, especially as they relate to one another in receiving nations. The word was first used in 1957 to describe Switzerland, but came into common currency in Canada in the late 1960s. It quickly spread to other English-speaking countries.

Contents

Overview

Multiculturalism...is a theory (albeit vague) about the foundations of a culture rather than a practice which subsumes cultural ideas. (Harrison, 1984)

Looked at broadly, the term is often used to describe societies (especially nations) which have many distinct cultural groups, usually as a result of immigration. This can lead to anxiety about the stability of national identity, yet can also lead to cultural exchanges that benefit the cultural groups. Such exchanges range from major accomplishments in literature, art and philosophy to relatively token appreciation of variations in music, dress and new foods. However, there is more to culture than physical products or traits. For example, supporters promote the idea that improving interethnic relations will ultimately require new modes of perception, characterized by fluid, flexible, and cooperative modes of relating to one another as unique individuals and as members of cultural subgroups and as constituents of a common humanity.

On a smaller scale, the term can also be used to refer to specific districts in cities where people of different cultures co-exist. The actions of city planners can result in some areas remaining monocultural, often due to pressure groups active in the local political arena, or indeed the direct actions of these pressure groups or societies general prejudices such as racism. Monocultural districts can often be referred to, positively or negatively, as ghettos.

Official multiculturalism

Multiculturalism can also be a prescriptive term which describes government policy.

In dealing with immigrant and mainstream groups and their cultures, there are essentially four approaches:

No country falls completely into one, or another, of these categories. For example, France has made efforts to adapt French culture to new immigrant groups, while Canada still has many policies that work to encourage assimilation.

Some, such as Diane Ravitch, use the term multiculturalism differently, describing both the melting pot, and Canada's cultural mosaic as being multicultural and distinguish them as pluralistic and particularist multiculturalism. Pluralistic multiculturalism views each culture or subculture in a society as contributing unique and valuable cultural aspects to the whole culture. Particularist multiculturalism is more concerned with preserving the distinctions between cultures.

Origins in Canada

Multiculturalism became incorporated into official policies in several nations in the 1970s for reasons that varied from country to country.

In Canada, it was adopted in 1971 following the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, a government body set up in response to the grievances of Canada's French-speaking minority (concentrated in the Province of Quebec). The report of the Commission advocated that the Canadian government should recognize Canada as a bilingual and bicultural society and adopt policies to preserve this character. Biculturalism was attacked from many directions.

Progressive Conservative Party leader John Diefenbaker saw multiculturalism as an attack on his vision of unhyphenated Canadianism. It did not satisfy the growing number of young francophones who gravitated towards Quebec nationalism. While many Canadians of British descent disliked the new policies of biculturalism and official bilingualism, the strongest opposition came from Canadians of neither English nor French descent, the so-called "Third Force" Canadians. Biculturalism did not accord with local realities in the western provinces, where the French population was tiny compared to other groups such as the Ukrainian Canadians, the group that was arguably most important in modifying the policy of biculturalism. To accommodate these groups, the formula was changed from "bilingualism and biculturalism" to "bilingualism and multiculturalism."

The Liberal Party government of Pierre Trudeau promulgated the "Announcement of Implementation of Policy of Multiculturalism within Bilingual Framework" in the House of Commons on 8 October 1971, the precursor of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act which received Royal Assent on 21 July 1988. Symbolically, this legislation affirmed that Canada was a multicultural nation. On a more practical level, federal funds began to be distributed to ethnic groups to help them preserve their cultures. Projects typically funded included folk dancing competitions and the construction of community centres. This led to criticisms that the policy was actually motivated by electoral considerations. After its election in 1984, the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney did not reverse these policies, although they had earlier been criticized by Tories as inconsistent with "unhyphenated Canadianism." This policy has been supported by every subsequent government and was added to Canada's 1982 constitution, in section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Implementation

Around the world, important government multicultural policies can include: While multiculturalist policies are sometimes seen as opposing cultural assimilation, the policies of countries such as Canada do support structural assimilation. Immigrant groups are encouraged to participate in the larger society, learn the majority languages, and enter the labour force.

Official multiculturalism around the world

The other country to have most fully adopted Canada's view of multiculturalism is Australia where many of these policies related to multiculturalism are pursued, for example the formation of the Special Broadcasting Service.

In the United States multiculturalism is not an official policy at the federal level. At the state level, it is sometimes associated with English-Spanish bilingualism. However, the government, in recent years, moved to support many multiculturalist policies. In some ways, the United States has gone even further than Canada and Australia with such policies. For instance, California drivers can take their exams in a number of languages and voting districts are shaped to facilitate proportional minority representation in government.

In the United Kingdom multiculturalism has been the subject of extensive debate in recent years. Under the Conservatives (1979-1997), multiculturalist rhetoric and policies were confined to left-leaning councils. Since the election of the Labour government in 1997, multiculturalism has influenced government policies and statements.

In Romania, Slovakia, and other countries of eastern and central Europe various forms of multicultural politics can be found, mainly in the forms of ethnically-identified political parties and minority language education for large ethnic minorities.

Multiculturalism, along with other identity politics, has, partly, been successful because it is a useful tool for politicians to win the votes of minority groups. Government money for cultural celebrations or ethnic-specific newspapers can encourage new immigrants to support the governing party.

Criticisms

There have been many criticisms of official multiculturalism from both the left and right. Criticisms come from a variety of perspectives, including the democratic, feminist, capitalist, nationalist, chauvinist, separatist, racialist and xenophobic.

Criticisms of multiculturalism in general

Critics charge that one of the dangers of pursuing multicultural social policies is that social integration and cultural assimilation can be held back. This can potentially encourage economic disparities and an exclusion of minority groups from mainstream politics. The fragmentation of society in several linguistic factions might ultimately lead to loss of public debate and democratic unity. This fragmentation makes many doubt the viability of a democratic European Union.

One of the most forceful critics of multiculturalism was Ayn Rand, who feared the world-wide ethnic revival of the late 1960s would lead to an ethnic Balkanization destructive to modern industrial societies. Her philosophy considered multiculturalism and monoculturalism to be culturally determinist collectivism (i.e., that individual human beings have no free choice in how they act and are conditioned irreversibly by society). Philosophically, Rand rejected this form of collectivism on the grounds that: 1) it undermines the concept of free will, and 2) the human mind (according to her philosophy) is a tabula rasa at birth.

In her 1999 essay, later expanded into an anthology, "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" the feminist and political theorist Susan M. Okin argues that a concern for the preservation of cultural diversity should not overshadow the discriminatory nature of gender roles in many traditional minority cultures, that, at the very least, "culture" should not be used as an excuse for rolling back the women's rights movement. Literature by prominent minority women authors such as Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston can be both critiques of the traditional majority and minority cultures, as well as articulate exponents of a multicultural vision.

One of the most articulate and careful recent critics of multiculturalism is the political theorist Brian Barry, who argues from the liberal left in his 2002 book "Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism" that some forms of multiculturalism can divide people when they need to unite in order to fight for social justice.

Another more recent and conservative criticism, based largely upon the Nordic and Canadian experience, is presented by the administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson, who views multiculturalism as a utopian ideology with a simplistic and overly optimistic view of human nature, the same weakness he attributes to communism, anarchism, and many strains of liberalism. According to Njalsson, multiculturalism is particular to a western urban environment and cannot survive as an ideology outside it. Some variants of multiculturalism, he believes, may equip non-egalitarian cultural groups with power and influence. This, in turn, may alter the value system of the larger society. This realist criticism of multiculturalism maintains that in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US, multiculturalism may aggravate a situation where old-stock families are not permitted by the countries of their forebearers to consider themselves English, French, Scandinavian, etc., while newer arrivals can claim two or more national identities.

Yet another criticism comes from the psychological and spiritual thinker Ken Wilber, who points out the problem with multiculturalism's validation of all cultural movements as equal: it cannot explain why reprehensible groups such as the Ku Klux Klan deserve no respect. This problem, he argues, has its roots in multiculturalists' rejection of all types of hierarchies; to arrive at such a wordly perspective, extensive psychological development is required. To then extend the hand of equality to those who not only have not developed to such a high psychological level is to ask them to "wipe their shoes all over...your nice universal pluralistic stance" (A Brief History of Everything, p. 189).

Multiculturalism as cooptation into structures of white power

Anti-racists of a marxist theoretical perspective view white supremacy as a system that stems from an internalized form of imperialism—that is, exploitation of other races for the accumulation of capital in the homeland. When racism is thus analyzed as a problem of political economy, the logical response is to tear down its structural foundations—that is, imperialism.

Multiculturalism stands in the way of such agenda, because it implies that the grounds for racism in society are not economic, but cultural or ideological. Ironically, a contradictory view asserts that the pursuit of particularist multiculturalism is somehow apartheid by another name.

Country-specific criticisms

Australia

The response to multiculturalism in Australia has been extremely varied, with a recent wave of criticism against it in the past decade. While Paul Keating's Labor Government was an advocate of multiculturalism in the early 1990s the current Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard himself is a critic of multiculturalism, preferring instead a "shared national identity". An anti-immigration party, the One Nation Party, was formed by Pauline Hanson in the late 1990s. It enjoyed significant electoral success for a while but is now electorally marginalised.

Canada

In Canada, the most noted critics of multiculturalism are Kenneth McRoberts, Neil Bissoondath, Daniel Stoffman, and Reginald Bibby.

As a young man, McRoberts worked for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and his career as a political scientist has roughly coincided with the policy of multiculturalism. While some argue that the shift in official discourse from biculturalism to multiculturalism has had a neutral effect on relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada, McRoberts believes that it was disastrous for Canadian nationalism, as it offended Québécois and their dualistic vision of Canada as a bilingual and bicultural society.

To many French Canadians, multiculturalism threatened to reduce them to just another ethnic group. Of all Canadian provinces, Quebec has been the least supportive of multiculturalism, due in part to a widespread view that multiculturalism was implemented at the federal level to dilute the "two founding peoples" philosophy which had preceded it, thereby diminishing the place of the province's French majority within Canada, and due in part to Quebec's policy internally of welcoming people of all origins but insisting that they assimilate into Quebec's French-speaking society. Recently, however, the more assimilationist aspects of this policy have been tempered with a recognition that Quebec is a de facto pluralist society and understanding of pluralism as a feature of modern Quebec society or any other society that welcomes immigrants. The Quebec government has therefore adopted a form of multiculturalism termed an "interculturalism policy."

This policy seeks to integrate immigrants into the mainstream French-speaking society of Quebec on the basis of French, the language of the majority, as the common public language of all Québécois; all citizens are in this way held to be invited to participate in a common civic culture. Interculturalism is in this way consistent with the Quebec government's view of itself as the "national" government for all Québécois, because interculturalism is viewed as less threatening than multiculturalism to an understanding of Quebec's population as constituting a single and distinct nation. Whether as a first, second, or third language, French becomes the instrument which allows the socialization of Québécois of all origins and forces interaction between them. Interculturalism is thus viewed by its proponents as a policy that aims at fighting racism and misunderstanding of others by inducing the solidarization of a multiethnic collection of human as a national collectivity.

In his Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada, the Trinidad and Tobago born Bissoondath argues that official multiculturalism limits the freedom of minority members by confining them to cultural and geographic ghettos. He also argues that cultures are very complex and must be transmitted through close family and kin relations. To him, the government view of cultures as being about festivals and cuisine is a crude oversimplification that leads to easy stereotyping.

Bibby, in his Mosaic Madness: Pluralism Without a Cause, argues that official multiculturalism is a divisive force that is reducing national solidarity and unity.

Daniel Stoffman's book "Who Gets In" raises serious questions about the policy of Canadian multiculturalism. Stoffman points out that many cultural practices, such as allowing dog meat to be served in restaurants and street cockfighting, are simply incompatible with Canadian and western culture. He also raises concern about the number of recent immigrants who are not being linguistically integrated into Canada (i.e., not learning either English or French). He stresses that multiculturalism works better in theory than in practice.

Approximately 20% of today's Canadian citizens were born outside Canada due to the highest immigration rate of any G8 country. Recent immigrants are largely concentrated in the cities of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, which are beginning to feel the strain of this large population growth due to this localized immigration.

The Netherlands

Multiculturalism was a dominant ideology in the Netherlands during the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties of the previous century. It was embraced by virtually all political parties ranging from the leftist Green Party to the right wing Liberals.

Multiculturalism aimed at reshaping the largely monocultural society of the Netherlands into a cluster of different communities with different values and languages. Migrants were urged to "integrate with preservation of their own language and culture" (Dutch: "Integratie met behoud van eigen taal en cultuur."), and it was common for local governments to address Turkish and Arabic speaking minorities in their own languages rather than in Dutch [link].

Since multiculturalism favored the settlement of new cultural communities, immigration was perceived as something intrinsically non-problematic or beneficial. In theory, there would therefore be no real limits to the number of newcomers. During the prevalence of multiculturalism, Dutch society absorbed three million non-Western immigrants [link]. In 2006, one fifth of the population was of non-Dutch ethnicity, about half of which were of non-western origin [link]. In the Amsterdam the proportion of originally non-western school children alone has risen to 52% in 2005 [link]. This figure is more or less exemplary of the situation in other major cities.

In the nineties, criticism of multiculturalism could be juridically dangerous; Hans Janmaat, leader of a marginal anti-immigration party, was given a suspended sentence of two months emprisonment and a 7500 guilder fine for stating that he would abolish multiculturalism if his party would come into power [link].

In 2000, the Labour Party member Paul Scheffer published what now is generally considered as a break through article on the problems of mass immigration and the negative effects of multicultural policies. In 'The Multicultural Tragedy' [link], Scheffer made a number of assertions:

His appeal encountered public resistance but the debate, however, had started to gain momentum. Amongst others, Pim Fortuyn criticized multiculturalism and what he called the "islamization of the Netherlands" in the years that followed. In 2002 he managed to organize substantial political support. One week before the national elections of May 15th 2002 a poll predicted Fortuyn to win the elections and hence become prime minister [link], but that very day Fortuyn was shot dead by the animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf .

After the death of Fortuyn, multiculturalism ceased to be immune from criticism as a societal ideology. The cabinets led by Balkenende actively tried to decrease immigration. Recent integration policies now emphasize history, Dutch language and Dutch customs, as well as liberal issues such as women's and gay rights. In a 2006 manifest [link], a group of formerly multiculturalist politicians made an appeal for "one country, one society", i.e. the opposite of a country hosting a multitude of cultures.

United Kingdom

London's Chinatown, near Leicester Square.
Enlarge
London's Chinatown, near Leicester Square.

In the UK, supporters of the current Labour government's approach have described it as having defended the rights of minorities to preserve their culture, while also seeking to ensure they become fully particpatory citizens — that is, integrating without assimilating. Critics say the policy fails on all accounts: If social conditions and racism become barriers to the integration of minorities, then multiculturalism does not properly function. There is now a lively debate in the UK over multiculturalism versus "social cohesion and inclusion." The current Labour government appears to favour the latter. In the wake of the July 7 Bombings 2005 (which left over 50 people dead) the opposition Conservative shadow home secretary called on the government to scrap its "outdated" policy of multiculturalism. One of the foremost critics of multiculturalism is Trevor Phillips the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality and a one-time black activist. Criticisms of the multiculturalism policy have also been made by Uganda-born author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, in her book After Multiculturalism. While it is claimed that the United Kingdom receives the largest number of immigrants every year, ahead of France and the United States, the UNHCR reports on its website that this is in fact exaggerated. Most of the immigrants come from the Indian sub-continent or the Caribbean.

In the May 2004 edition of Prospect Magazine, David Goodhart, the Editor, temporarily couched the debate on Multiculturalism in terms of whether a modern welfare state and a "good society" is sustainable as its citizens are becoming increasingly diverse.[link] Open criticism of multiculturalism, given Prospect's pedigree and reputation, was thereafter firmly part of the mainstream. Since then - such as the London bombings - have shifted the debate away from sustainability and cohesion towards a focus on the uneasy bedfellows of free speech and security. In November 2005 John Sentamu, the first member of an ethnic minority to be appointed as Archbishop of York stated, “Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains.” [link]

United States

Some opponnents argue that the celebration of multicultural diversity in America is used to mask hostility toward the mainstream.

In his 1991 work, Illiberal Education, Dinesh D'Souza argues that the entrenchment of multiculturalism in American universities has undermined the universalistic values that liberal educations once attempted to foster. In particular, he was disturbed by the growth of ethnic studies programs, (e.g., Black Studies).

Multiculturalism throughout the United States is criticized by groups of conservatives for being an attack on Americas traditional Christian culture. Many point out the American founding fathers who stressed the importance of people remaining united through common traits.

"Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs... This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties." -John Jay (First American Supreme Court Chief Justice)

Many critics fear that multiculturalism has been a massive failure while others celebrate it. Many attribute the introduction of multiculturalism to the civil rights movement and the 1965 Immigration Act or the (Hart-Celler Act).

Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich was especially critical of the concept, calling it "crap" and saying that the idea of multiculturalism is flawed and that young immigrants should learn English and assimilate into American culture.

"The question we Americans need to address, before it is answered for us, is: Does this First World nation wish to become a Third World country? Because that is our destiny if we do not build a sea wall against the waves of immigration rolling over our shores....Who speaks for the Euro-Americans, who founded the USA?...Is it not time to take America back?" -Pat Buchanan

Many interpret multiculturalism to be a massive flooding of non white people into ones country which therefore puts the original culture in jeopardy.

In a September 1993 speech to the Christian Coalition, Buchanan described multiculturalism as "an across-the-board assault on our Anglo-American heritage."

Many opponents feel that multiculturalism is destroying national sovereignty and preparing the world for a one world government. Although many Conservatives are afraid to criticize multiculturalism due to overwhelming culture and racial sensitivity in the United States.

In 1998, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a former advisor to the Kennedy and other US administrations and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner in history, published a book with the title The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. Schlesinger states that a new attitude - one that celebrates difference and abandons assimilation - may replace the classic image of the melting pot in which differences are submerged in democracy. He argues that ethnic awareness has had many positive consequences to unite a nation with a "history of prejudice". However, the "cult of ethnicity", if pushed too far, may endanger the unity of society.

See also

References

External links

 

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