The Limits of Multi-Culturalism
“>Prime Minister Tony Blair has long hinted that he harbours doubts about the ideology of multi-culturalism that has done so much to divide one British person from another. Recently, he finally expressed those doubts – plainly enough to infuriate both professional multi-culturalists in the public sector and the Muslim Association of Britain, which described his remarks as “alarming”.
One of the distinctions many of us are learning about Iraq is that it seems that most people there are more loyal to their sect or clan than they are to their Nation. It feels like the dynamic there is for things to spin apart rather than draw together. The people there seem to define themselves more by how they are different from each other than by how they are the same.
One of the dynamics that allowed the US to flourish has been that immigrants from all over the world tend to identify with the American meritocracy and rule of law a bit more than their personal heritage. We are more the same than we are different.
What I think PM Blair is lamenting is that the celebration of multi-culturalism is teetering towards celebrating our differences more than our sameness. It is a recipe for the growth of factions and sects and the kinds of divisions that make a diverse civil society more difficult.
The challenge for us is to build consensus that while we respect personal beliefs and rituals we must first give allegiance to behaviors that promote mutual respect, facilitate a common mode of communication and transaction, and commitment to our accepted rules of law.
This is why I come down on the side of English as the national language that is required for all public business. And that when in public, faces are not covered as a way to announce that one is not part of this community, and that one doesn’t inconvenience or intrude on the public with your mode of prayer.
For me, the path to embracing multi-culturalism is agreeing to a minimum standard of public behavior that emphasizes what we share in common.
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15 Responses to “The Limits of Multi-Culturalism”
Things always seem to be tearing apart before sohesion takes place- it’s a natural reaction to colonialism’s death.
I noticed Blair’s comments, too, Paul, and I agree he makes an incredibly valid point. Here’s my much more limited take on the topic.
cosmoetica,
I think the cycle is continuous and the pendulum swings back and forth. Once disparate people come together there are forces that cause them to pull apart again. Our challenge is to resist those forces or suffer like those in Iraq.
First, here is my official and belated welcome to Paul. I have found his contributions so far quite frequently intriguing and well-argued, often especially when we disagree.
I think there are a lot of issues tied together here that should really be disentangled. One is that multiculturalism is not the opposite of nationalism. Multiculturalism’s opposite is something more like a monolithic society instead. It is fully possible for a multicultural society to be heavily nationalistic and a monolithic one to be “tribal” for lack of a better word. In fact, much of the Balkanization of the world we’ve seen in the last 20 years, including in Iraq, is not multiculturalism gone awry. Instead, it is the desire by many cultures to live apart from other cultures. They have no desire to live in a place where people of many different faiths and ethnicities mix. They want everyone around them to be like them. Sometimes this is xenophobic or such, but often it is from the belief that only if they (whoever “they” are) have their own government can they live securely and protect their own language and culture.
So, it seems multiculturalism is in fact a vision in which many different cultures can live together in one nation. If they are apart, then it’s not multicultural.
As for national languages, I wrote a huge long post on this on my own blog if people are interested. The short version is that, if you are talking about true cultural integration as the purpose of an official language policy, then you really have to be talking about children. Any healthy child learns any language they are exposed to as part of developing. However, it is the rare adult who learns a new language fluently. (I’ve studied four, so I have experience in not ever learning languages.
)If people are going to be required to defend themselves in court, read tax documents and the like, you are asking them to study English for a good five years at least. Everyone here should think about their year or two of Spanish or French, and now ask whether they are ready to negotiate with an IRS auditor in that language. Anyway, focus on making sure children have access and natural incentives to learn English and they will learn it.
pacatrue wrote “Sometimes this is xenophobic or such, but often it is from the belief that only if they (whoever “they” are) have their own government can they live securely and protect their own language and culture.”.
I would submit that is the very definition of xenophobia. Where it isn’t it certainly tends to lead to it as the evolution of that thought process often leads to distrust of “the other” and denigration of them to justify that attitude.
Another thought floating across my brain:
It’s intriguing that we in the U.S. at least are often worried about multculturalism tearing us apart so that we have little in common with our fellow man anymore and simultaneously worried about cultural homogenization such that everyone is shopping in the same chain store, driving in the same cars, eating in the same chain restaurants. You can replicate most of your daily experiences living in a suburb of Chicago in a suburb in Massachussetts, California, or Georgia. And yet we share nothing in common.
It’s possible that both thoughts are valid, but the issues certainly aren’t simple.
Pacatrue, thanks for the welcome.
While multiculturalism may not be the opposite of nationalism it is still reconciling and priortizing the two that is a challenge for us all.
I wish I was exposed to more languages when my mind was still a sponge.
I like multiculture but, I like to talk to people. My mom came here from another country and learned the language and says she cannot see how a person who doesn’t learn it can survive or enjoy life being somewhat handicapped by a language differnce.
One thing I do lament is that America doesn’t put learning other languages as important. It seems so arrogant. We should all be able to communicate in another language as well. We expect it of others and so, why not us.
I like different cultures and ideas. If we limit ourselves we become like the towns are now becoming – box stores. Not too interesting when you drive down a street with the same houses with same front yard and the same car in the driveway. It’s so much better when you go thru a place with different houses and small interesting stores. The same is with people. It’s fun and interesting and you always find something new.
There are historical examples of extinct peoples that allowed or could not prevent the barbarians from storming their borders. To many barbarians too soon and the empire becomes barbaric rather than vice versa. The entire point of storming the borders then becomes redundant.
It’s kind of one of those “the negative results of rapid change too rapidly” scenarios.
“More the Merrier” does not apply.
Maybe it’s more about the compatibility of the various cultures that are coming together? Maybe some cultures have enough in common that they can celebrate their differences but still have a national identity, while other cultures might reject some of the pillars that the national society is based upon. I think this is the fear that many people have about Islam and Western culture.
C Stanley,
Excellent point.
Some cultures assimilate more easily than others.
Sometimes I wonder why people emigrate to a culture with which they do not want to assimilate.
Why move to France and put so much effort into trying not to be like the french? Or UK or US…
This issue has been raised before. By Richard Lamm, former Governor of Colorado. See his ten-point plan for how to destroy America.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/lamm.asp
Lamm, and now Blair are correct in noting that a society which fails to assimilate immigrants eventually self-destructs when the immigrants retain stronger cultural and language ties to their former homeland than their new home. I have no problem with legal immigration, I might, under selected circumstances, consider amnesty for illegal migrants. But one thing I agree with Lamm and Blair on is that maintaining the civic culture and language of the USA should be absolute. If you want to be a citizen, you learn English. There should be no exceptions. Period.
There is nothing wrong with some pride in your heritage. But, I think multiculturalism, as it has become practiced in the USA, Canada, Britain, and much of the western world, has failed precisely because it refuses to recognize the desirability of requiring immigrants to any nation to assimilate into their new country.
I am in favor of encouraging Americans to learn other languages, but I do not agree that immigrants (or anyone else) have a right to conduct official business with any level of government in this country in any langauge except English. Blair and Lamm are correct – if you want to come to Britain, or the US, learn what the culture is like, and learn enough of the language to start to function. Or recognize that you will be at a disadvantage until you do learn enough English to be fully functional.
For those who think that multiculturalism has been a success in western political practice, I suggest a quick look at recent Canadian politics. Multicultural governments tend more toward the Yugoslavian fate than the Swiss one. Canada has once again come to the brink of break up over culture and language. I do not want to repeat the situation in the USA. I would hope that our political leaders were birght enough to leanr this lesson, but I am not optimistic.
Oh yes, did anyone else note the other similarity between Blair and Lamm? Both are politically left of center in US political terms. Lamm was the Democratic Governor of Colorado.
C Stanley
That might be true if those cultures were all equal on the barbarian scale. They are not.
Just to point out that the Quebecois separatism movement has little to nothing to do with the modern immigration patterns of Canada. The fight is the same French versus English one that’s been going on since Canada was a nation. I don’t think it’s the Pakistani immigrants to Montreal who are leading the separatist charge.
On a broader note, it’s often been said that liberals and conservatives don’t differ so much about government involvement in people’s lives as they do about how government should be involved. This seems to be another such case, though the ideological lines are not clear. Many of us want the free market to control business, education, and the like – and government to keep out of it. But we don’t mind the government stepping in and deciding what language people should use, apparently. Why not let the market control that as well? Languages will stand and fall with the roles they play in people’s lives.
Pacatrue writes: “Just to point out that the Quebecois separatism movement has little to nothing to do with the modern immigration patterns of Canada. The fight is the same French versus English one that’s been going on since Canada was a nation. I don’t think it’s the Pakistani immigrants to Montreal who are leading the separatist charge.”
Quite so. However, I think it also effectively confirms my point about the problems encountered by trying to be multicultural. The British tried to be very understanding and tolerant following their taking control of all of Canada. The results of 300 years or so of patience with the franofone portion of the population do not seem to have resulted in a stronger sense of Canadian unity. And while the Quebec sepratistists may not include many Pakistanis, I would suspect that the Pakistanis who prefer their culture and language to that of the west have an easier time making a case for special treatment because the country is already bi-lingual and bi-cultural. So what’s the matter with adding one more, and one more, etc. At what point does national unity disintigrate?
Again, I think there is a point that Blair and Lamm are making which is worth considering. I think they are correct, that a national language requirement helps to cement the national population together. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Others may disagree.