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Multiculturalism

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Culture and Diversity

   Multiculturalism is the idea or belief that modern societies should
   embrace and include distinct cultural groups with equal cultural and
   political status. Multiculturalism is a term often used to describe the
   cultural and ethnic diversity of a nation and advocates of it often
   argue that diversity is a positive force for a society’s nationhood or
   cultural identity. Multiculturalism contrasts with monoculturalism
   which had been the norm in the nation-state paradigm since the early
   nineteenth century. (Monoculturalism implies a normative cultural
   unity, 'monocultural' can be a descriptive term for pre-existing
   homogeneity). Assimilation implies the need for groups that fall out of
   the homogeneous norm to fully embrace and accept the dominant cultural
   paradigm as their own without concurrent adjustments from the dominant
   group. The term multiculturalism is often applied to distinct cultures
   of immigrant groups in developed countries (with the United States,
   Japan, and Australia as exceptions), not to the presence of indigenous
   peoples.

   Multiculturalism began as an official policy in English-speaking
   countries, starting in Canada in 1971. It was quickly adopted by most
   member-states in the European Union, as official policy, and as a
   social consensus among the elite. In recent years, several European
   states, notably the Netherlands and Denmark, right-of-centre
   governments have reversed the national policy consensus, and returned
   to an official monoculturalism. A similar reversal is the subject of
   debate in the United Kingdom and Germany, among others due to a belief
   that immigrant communities do not "fit in" or want to integrate into a
   particular lifestyle.

   But multiculturalism's history is not limited to official policy in the
   English-speaking world. As a philosophy it began its evolution, first
   as part of philosophy's pragmatism movement at the end of the
   nineteenth century in Britain and in the United States, then as
   political and cultural pluralism by the turn of the twentieth. It was
   partly in response to a new wave of European imperialism in sub-Saharan
   Africa and the massive immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans to
   the United States and Latin America. Philosophers, psychologists and
   historians (including a couple who laid the foundations for sociology
   as a field) such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, George
   Santayana, Horace Kallen, John Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois and Alain Locke
   helped facilitate the evolution for what we understand today as
   multiculturalism. James said in his Pluralistic Universe (1909) that he
   "believed that the idea of a plural society would be crucial in the
   formation of philosophical and social humanism," that the embracing of
   a multicultural society could help build a better, more egalitarian
   society.

   Multiculturalism has its supporters and critics alike. Its supporters
   often see it as a self-evident entitlement of cultural groups, as a
   form of civil rights grounded in equality of cultures. They often
   assume it will lead to interculturalism - beneficial cultural
   exchanges, where cultures learn about each other's literature, art and
   philosophy ( high culture), and influence each other's music, fashion
   and cuisine. Its opponents often see it as something which has been
   imposed on them without their consent. As multiculturalism as an
   official policy is almost exclusively limited to Western countries,
   some in the West view multiculturalism as an assault upon the
   foundations of Western civilization. Opponents of multiculturalism see
   it as inherently divisive and fear it will lead to cultural ghettos,
   undermining national unity. In Europe especially, opponents see
   multiculturalism as a direct assault on the national identity, and on
   the nation itself, and sometimes as a conspiracy to Islamise Europe.

Before multiculturalism

   It may be an anachronism to speak of multiculturalism in historical
   societies which did not use the term, especially before modernity. The
   degree of cultural homogeneity in past societies also depends on their
   size: smaller groups are more likely to show cultural unity. However,
   it is clear that in the past large states, especially empires, lacked
   the cultural unity of modern nation-states, and lacked the means to
   create it.

The monocultural nation-state (Europe)

   Especially in the 19th century, the ideology of nationalism transformed
   the way Europeans thought about the state. Existing states were broken
   up and new ones created: in the associated wars, millions of people
   died. The new nation-states were founded on the principle that each
   nation is entitled to its own sovereign state, to reflect, facilitate,
   and protect its own unique culture and history. Unity, under this
   ideology, is seen as an essential feature of the nation and the
   nation-state - unity of descent, unity of culture, unity of language,
   and often unity of religion. The nation-state implies a culturally
   homogeneous society, although some national movements recognised
   regional differences. None of them, however, accepted "foreign"
   elements in culture and society. The older multilingual and
   multi-ethnic empires, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the
   Ottoman Empire were derided as oppressive, and most Europeans no longer
   accept that such a state can be legitimate. British political thought
   was slower in accepting the implications of the concept of the
   nation-state.

   Where the cultural unity insufficient, it was encouraged (and enforced)
   by the state. The 19th-century nation-states developed an array of
   policies: the most important was compulsory primary education in the
   national language. The language itself was often standardised by a
   linguistic academy, and regional languages were ignored or suppressed.
   Some nation-states pursued violent and oppressive policies of cultural
   assimilation, not to mention ethnic cleansing. Recently,
   Monoculturalism is being supported more than previous years due to
   events occuring in the recent past.

The Melting Pot Ideal (USA)

   In the United States, continuous mass immigration had been a feature of
   economy and society since the first half of the 19th century. There was
   no fiction that the immigrants would return: immigration was seen as a
   permanent choice for a new country. The absorption of the stream of
   immigrants became, in itself, a prominent feature of the national
   mythos, along with the expansion westwards. The central metaphor is the
   idea of the Melting Pot - where all the immigrant cultures are mixed
   and amalgamated without state intervention. The Melting Pot implied
   that each individual immigrant, and each group of immigrants,
   assimilated into American society at their own pace, improving their
   income and social status on the way. It reflected and influenced
   official policy: although language courses were offered, they were
   rarely compulsory. As a result, several immigrant communities
   maintained a non-English language for generations. The nature of
   American national identity, with its emphasis on symbolic patriotism,
   allegiance, national values and a national mythos, facilitated the
   assimilation of immigrants. The Melting Pot attitude did not require a
   detailed knowledge of American history, acquisition of a complex
   cultural heritage, or English with an American accent. It allowed
   interest in the culture of the country of origin, and family ties with
   that country. In practice, the original culture disappeared within two
   generations. An Americanized (and often stereotypical) version of the
   original nation's cuisine, and its holidays, survived.

   The Melting Pot concept has been criticized, as an idealized version of
   the assimilation process. One common criticism is that it apparently
   did not apply to English-speaking, US-born black people, who stayed at
   the bottom of the social ladder from the American Civil War on. Another
   criticism is that the Melting Pot model described the assimilation of
   immigrants from Europe, rather than the assimilation of any immigrant.
   The growth in the use of the Spanish language - the model implies it
   would decline - has led to calls for state-enforced language policy
   similar to those in Europe. More recently, some have argued that "the
   Melting Pot" leads to an erosion of groups individual heritage and have
   argued that the USA is better described as "a tossed salad", with each
   group intermingling with all, but maintaining their separate identity.

   Note that the Melting Pot tradition co-exists with a belief in national
   unity, dating from the American founding fathers:

          "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).

Ethnic selection (Australia)

   Prior to settlement by the Europeans, the Australian continent was not
   a single 'nation', but had many indigenous cultures and between 200 and
   400 active languages at any one time. The present nation of Australia
   resulted from a deliberate process of immigration intended to fill the
   "empty" continent (also excluding potential rivals to the British
   Empire). The earliest people that were not indigenous to the continent
   to live in Australia, were settlers from the United Kingdom, after 1800
   including Ireland. Dutch colonization (see New Holland) and possible
   visits to Australia by explorers and/or traders from China, did not
   lead to permanent settlement. Until 1901, Australia existed as a group
   of independent colonies.

   Proposals to limit immigration by nationality were intended to maintain
   the cultural and political identity of the colonies as part of the
   British Empire. The White Australia policy, which in various forms
   lasted 150 years but was not "official" policy per se for much of that
   time, was the most comprehensive policy of this type in the world. Such
   policies theoretically limit the cultural diversity of the immigrant
   population, and in theory facilitate the cultural assimilation of the
   immigrants, since they would come from related cultures. Taken from a
   historical perspective, however, this was not a matter of cultural
   diversity or otherwise, but maintenance of the British Empire aspects
   of the colony. The definition of "white" also changed quite
   substantially over the course of the White Australia Policy - as the
   Twentieth Century progressed, "white" moved further East through
   Europe, encompassing the Italians, Greeks and refugees from World War
   II in Europe.

Multiculturalism as introductory to monoculturalism

   An anti-discrimination poster in a Hong Kong subway station. Circa.
   2005
   An anti-discrimination poster in a Hong Kong subway station. Circa.
   2005

   Multiculturalism, as generally understood, refers to ideology and
   policy in western nation-states, which previously had an uncontested
   national identity. Many nation-states in Africa, Asia, and Latin
   America are culturally diverse, and are 'multi-cultural' in a
   descriptive sense. In some, communalism is a major political issue. The
   policies adopted by these states often have parallels with
   multicultural-ist policies in the Western world, but the historical
   background is different, and the goal may be a monocultural or
   mono-ethnic nation-building - for instance in the Malaysian governments
   attempt to create a 'Malaysian race' by 2020.

Developing opposition to multiculturalism

United States

   In the United States especially, multiculturalism became associated
   with political correctness and with the rise of ethnic identity
   politics. In the 1980s and 1990s many criticisms were expressed, from
   both the left and right, although predominantly from the right wing.
   Criticisms come from a wide variety of perspectives, but predominantly
   from the perspective of liberal individualism, from American
   conservatives concerned about values, and from a national unity
   perspective.

   An early critic of multiculturalism was Ayn Rand, who feared the
   worldwide ethnic revival of the late 1960s would lead to an ethnic
   Balkanization destructive to modern industrial societies. She
   considered multiculturalism and monoculturalism to be culturally
   determinist collectivism (in the sense 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 it undermines the concept of free will, arguing that
   the human mind is a tabula rasa at birth.

   The liberal-feminist critique is related to the liberal and libertarian
   critique, since it is concerned with what happens inside the cultural
   groups. In her 1999 essay, later expanded into an anthology, "Is
   Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" the feminist and political theorist
   Susan 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.

   A prominent criticism in the US, later echoed in Europe, was that
   multiculturalism undermined national unity, hindered social integration
   and cultural assimilation, and led to the fragmentation of society into
   several ethnic factions - Balkanization.

   In 1998, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a former advisor to the Kennedy
   and other US administrations and Pulitzer Prize winner, 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.

   In the United States, the cultural relativism implicit in
   multiculturalism attracted criticism. Often that was combined with an
   explicit preference for western Enlightenment values as universal
   values. In his 1991 work, Illiberal Education, Dinesh D'Souza argues
   that the entrenchment of multiculturalism in American universities
   undermined the universalist values that liberal education once
   attempted to foster. In particular, he was disturbed by the growth of
   ethnic studies programs (e.g., Black Studies).

   Conservatives - in the US, largely Christian conservatives - tend to
   see multiculturalism as an attack on America's traditional Christian
   culture. They may attribute the introduction of multiculturalism to the
   civil rights movement and the 1965 Immigration Act or the (Hart-Celler
   Act).

   Criticism of multiculturalism in the US was not always synonymous with
   opposition to immigration. Some politicians did address both themes,
   notably Pat Buchanan, who in 1993 described multiculturalism as "an
   across-the-board assault on our Anglo-American heritage."

   Buchanan and other paleoconservatives argue that multiculturalism is
   the ideology of the modern managerial state, an ongoing regime that
   remains in power, regardless of what political party holds a majority.
   It acts in the name of abstract goals, such as equality or positive
   rights, and uses its claim of moral superiority, power of taxation and
   wealth redistribution to keep itself in power.

   Another recent critic of multiculturalism is the political theorist
   Brian Barry. In his 2002 book Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian
   Critique of Multiculturalism, he argues that some forms of
   multiculturalism can divide people, although they need to unite in
   order to fight for social justice.

Canada

   Approximately 35% of today's Canadian citizens were born outside
   Canada, the highest immigration rate of any G8 country. Recent
   immigrants are largely concentrated in the cities of Vancouver,
   Montreal and Toronto, which have high population growth due to this
   concentrated immigration. In Canada, the most noted critics of
   multiculturalism are Kenneth McRoberts, Neil Bissoondath, and Daniel
   Stoffman.

   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 Québecois 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 an 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 the idea of Quebec's population as a single and
   distinct nation within another 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.

   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.

   Daniel Stoffman's 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.

Australia

   The response to multiculturalism in Australia has been extremely
   varied, with a recent wave of criticism against it in the past decade.
   An anti-immigration party, the One Nation Party, was formed by Pauline
   Hanson in the late 1990s. The party enjoyed significant electoral
   success for a while, most notably in its home state of Queensland, but
   is now electorally marginalized. In its 1998 policy document on
   Immigration, Population and Social Cohesion, One Nation advocated the
   complete abolition of multiculturalism, asserting that there was "no
   reason why migrant cultures should be maintained at the expense of our
   shared, national culture." According to One Nation, multiculturalism
   represented a "threat to the very basis of the Australian culture,
   identity and shared values." Such a policy in combination with high
   immigration, One Nation argued, would eventually lead to "the
   Asianisation of Australia."

   Many of One Nation's criticisms echoed those made by one of Australia's
   most significant and popular historians, Professor Geoffrey Blainey,
   during the 1980s. In his 1984 book All for Australia, Blainey
   criticized multiculturalism for overemphasizing the rights of ethnic
   minorities at the expense of the majority of Australians, thus
   unnecessarily encouraging divisions and threatening social cohesion.

   Opposition to multiculturalism in Australia is, as of 2006, focused on
   the position of Islamic immigrants from Middle Eastern countries. Prior
   to the September 11 attacks, the main targets of anti-immigration
   campaigns were immigrants from southern Europe, and later east Asia.

   A Federal Government proposal in 2006 to introduce a compulsory
   citizenship test, which would assess English skills and knowledge of
   Australian values, sparked renewed debate over the future of
   multiculturalism in Australia. Andrew Robb, then Parliamentary
   Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, told a conference
   in November 2006 that some Australians worried the term "multicultural"
   had been transformed by interest groups into a philosophy that put
   "allegiances to original culture ahead of national loyalty, a
   philosophy which fosters separate development, a federation of ethnic
   cultures, not one community". He added: "A community of separate
   cultures fosters a rights mentality, rather than a responsibilities
   mentality. It is divisive. It works against quick and effective
   integration."

   In January 2007 the Howard Government removed the word 'multicultural'
   from the name of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural
   Affairs, changing its name to the Department of Immigration and
   Citizenship.

Intellectual critique

   Following the upsurge of support for the One Nation Party in 1996,
   Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage published an notable critique in
   1997 of Australian multiculturalism in the book White Nation. Drawing
   on theoretical frameworks from Whiteness studies, Jacques Lacan and
   Pierre Bourdieu, Hage examined a range of everyday discourses that
   implicated both anti-multiculturalists and pro-multiculturalists alike.
   The book was taken by many merely to be an attack on White Australians,
   but its analysis is more sophisticated than a charge of racism by the
   dominant ethnic group. Hage's analysis suggests that Australian
   multiculturalism has fallen a long way short of its original ideals and
   works much more as a form of assimilation by the participation of
   Whites and non-Whites alike in maintaining the centrality of a set of
   cultural values associated with Whiteness.

The Netherlands

   In the 1950s, the Netherlands was generally a mono-ethnic and
   monocultural society: it was not monolingual, but almost everyone could
   speak standard Dutch. Its inhabitants shared a classic national
   identity, with a national mythos emphasising the Dutch Golden Age, and
   national heroes such as Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. Major immigration in
   the form of labour migration began in the 1960s, and accelerated in the
   1970s, with Morocco and Turkey as the main origin countries. From the
   1970s, multiculturalism was a consensus ideology among the 'political
   class', and determined official policy. The principle was expressed in
   the phrase "Integratie met behoud van eigen taal en cultuur", that is,
   social integration while retaining the language and culture of the
   immigrant groups. Immigrants were treated as members of a monolithic
   cultural bloc, on the basis of nationality - their religion only became
   an issue in the 1990s. These communities were addressed by the Dutch
   government, in what it considered to be their own languages - Arabic
   for Moroccan immigrants, even though many of them did not speak it.
   Opposition to the consensus was politically marginal. The
   anti-immigration Centrumpartij had occasional electoral successes, but
   its leader Hans Janmaat was ostracised, and fined for his strident
   opposition to multiculturalism.

   The elite consensus on multiculturalism co-existed with widespread
   aversion to immigration, and an ethnic definition of the Dutch nation.
   Dutch nationalism, and support for a traditional national identity,
   never disappeared, but were not visible. When these factors re-entered
   political debate in the late 1990s, they contributed to the collapse of
   the consensus. The Netherlands has now attracted international
   attention for the extent to which it reversed its previous
   multiculturalist policies, and its policies on cultural assimilation
   have been described as the toughest in Europe.

   The multicultural policy consensus regarded the presence of immigrant
   cultural communities as non-problematic, or beneficial. Immigration was
   not subject to limits on cultural grounds: in practice, the immigration
   rate was determined by demand for unskilled labour, and later by
   migration of family members. Gross non-Western immigration was about
   three million, but many of these later returned. Net immigration, and
   the higher birth rate of the immigrant communities, have transformed
   the Netherlands since the 1950s. Although the majority are still ethnic
   Dutch, in 2006 one fifth of the population was of non-Dutch ethnicity,
   about half of which were of non-western origin . Immigration
   transformed Dutch cities especially: in Amsterdam, 55% of young people
   are of non-western origin (mainly Turkish and Moroccan). . For
   opponents of multiculturalism and immigration, this is unacceptable and
   wrong. At the end of the 1990s, their opposition became more
   structured.

Intellectual critique

   In 1999, the legal philosopher Paul Cliteur attacked multiculturalism
   in his book 'The Philosophy of Human Rights' Cliteur rejects all
   political correctness on the issue: western culture, the Rechtsstaat
   (rule of law), and human rights are superior to non-western culture and
   values. They are the product of the Enlightenment: Cliteur sees
   non-western cultures not as different, but as backward. He sees
   multiculturalism primarily as an unacceptable ideology of cultural
   relativism, which would lead to acceptance of barbaric practices,
   including those brought to the Western World by immigrants. Cliteur
   lists infanticide, torture, slavery, oppression of women, homophobia,
   racism, anti-Semitism, gangs, female circumcision, discrimination by
   immigrants, suttee, and the death penalty. Cliteur compares
   multiculturalism to the moral acceptance of Auschwitz, Stalin, Pol Pot
   and the Ku Klux Klan.

   Cliteur's 1999 work is indicative of the polemic tone of the debate, in
   the following years. Most of the 'immigrant barbarities' which he
   names, are regularly cited by opponents of multiculturalism, sometimes
   as a reductio ad absurdum, but also as factual practices of immigrants
   in the Netherlands.

   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.

   In 2000, Paul Scheffer - a member of the PvdA (Labour Party) and
   subsequently a professor of urban studies - published 'The
   multicultural drama', an essay critical of both immigration and
   multiculturalism. Scheffer is a committed supporter of the
   nation-state, and his starting point is that homogeneity and
   integration are necessary for a society: the presence of immigrants
   undermines this. A society does have an 'absorptive capacity' for those
   from other cultures, he says, but this has been exceeded in the
   Netherlands. Specifically:
     * a huge influx of people from diverse cultural backgrounds, in
       combination with multiculturalism, resulted in spontaneous ethnic
       segregation.
     * the Netherlands must take its own language, culture, and history
       seriously, and immigrants must learn this language, culture, and
       history.
     * multiculturalism and immigration led to adaptation problems such as
       school drop-out, unemployment, and high crime rates.
     * a society which does not respect itself (its Dutch national
       identity) also has no value for immigrants
     * multicultural policy ignored Dutch language acquisition, which
       should be a priority in education.
     * Islam has not yet reformed itself, and does not accept the
       separation of church and state. Some Muslims did not accept the law
       in Amsterdam because its mayor was Jewish.
     * immigrants must always lose their own culture - that is the price
       of immigration, a "brutal bargain" (quote from Norman Podhoretz)

   Scheffer approvingly quoted the sociologist J.A.A. van Doorn, that the
   presence of immigrants in the Netherlands had "put the clock back" by
   100 or 150 years. The high immigration rate, and the lack of
   'integration' threatened society, and must be stopped. His essay had a
   great impact, and led to what became known as the 'integration debate'.
   As in the essay, this was not simply about multiculturalism, but about
   immigration, Islam, the national identity, and national unity.

   In 2002, the legal scholar Afshin Ellian - a refugee from Iran -
   advocated a monocultural Rechtsstaat in the Netherlands. A liberal
   democracy cannot be multicultural, he argued, because multiculturalism
   is an ideology and a democracy has no official ideology. What is more,
   according to Ellian, a democracy must be monolingual. The Dutch
   language is the language of the constitution, and therefore it must be
   the only public language - all others must be limited to the private
   sphere. The Netherlands, he wrote, had been taken hostage by the
   left-wing multiculturalists, and their policy was in turn determined by
   the Islamic conservatives. Ellian complained that there were 800 000
   Muslims in the country, with 450 mosques, and that the Netherlands had
   legalised the "feudal system of the Islamic Empire". Democracy and the
   rule of law could only be restored by abolishing multiculturalism.

Political reaction

   The intellectual rejection of multiculturalism was accompanied by a
   political transformation, which led to the abandonment of official
   multiculturalism. It is often described in the Dutch media as a
   populist 'revolt' against the elite. The catalyst was Pim Fortuyn. He
   was a critic of multiculturalism, and especially of what he called the
   "Islamisation of the Netherlands", but succeeded primarily because of
   his charisma. Unlike the intellectual critics, who wrote for fellow
   members of the elite, Fortuyn mobilised millions of disillusioned (and
   occasionally xenophobic) voters. Overturning the political stability of
   the 1990s, Fortuyn came close to being prime minister of the
   Netherlands. When he was assassinated in May 2002, his supporters saw
   him as a national martyr in the struggle against multiculturalism,
   although he was in fact shot by an animal rights activist.

   Following Fortuyn's death, open rejection of multiculturalism and
   immigration ceased to be taboo. To a large extent, open racism also
   ceased to be taboo: negative reactions to immigrants became the norm,
   for a section of the population. The new cabinet, under premier
   Jan-Peter Balkenende instituted a hard-line assimilation policy,
   enforced by fines and deportation, accompanied by far tighter controls
   on immigration and asylum. Many former supporters of multiculturalism
   shifted their position. In a 2006 manifesto "one country, one society",
   several of them launched an appeal for a homogeneous society.

   The most prominent figure in the post-Fortuyn debate of the issue was
   Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her first criticisms of multiculturalism paralleled
   those of the early liberal-feminist critics in the United States - the
   emphasis on group identity and group rights diminished individual
   liberty for those within the minorities, and especially for women. As
   time went on, her criticism was increasingly directed at Islam itself,
   and its incompatibility with democracy and western culture. By 2004 she
   was the most prominent critic of Islam in Europe. When she scripted a
   short film on Islamic oppression of women, featuring texts from the
   Quran on the naked bodies of women, its director Theo van Gogh was
   assassinated by an Islamist. Threatened with death and heavily guarded,
   she spent most of her time in the United States, and moved to
   Washington in 2006 to work for the American Enterprise Institute. In
   2006 she also expressed support for the Eurabia thesis - that Europe is
   being fully Islamised, and that its non-Muslim inhabitants will be
   reduced to dhimmitude. In a speech for CORE in January 2007, she
   declared that Western culture was overwhelmingly superior:

          ...my dream is that those lucky enough to be born into a culture
          of "ladies first" will let go of the myth that all cultures are
          equal. Human beings are equal; cultures are not.

United Kingdom

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

   The United Kingdom has continuous high immigration rates, among the
   highest in the EU. Most of the immigrants of the last decades came from
   the Indian sub-continent or the Caribbean, in other words from the
   former colonies. Recently, the largest group of immigrants is from
   eastern Europe, especially from Poland.

   In the UK, supporters of the Labour government's approach saw it as
   defending the rights of minorities to preserve their culture, while
   encouraging their participation as 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.

   Prominent critics of multiculturalism include Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,
   Uganda-born author of After Multiculturalism, and one-time black
   activist Trevor Phillips the chairman of the Commission for Racial
   Equality. In 2006, Phillips was criticised by London mayor Ken
   Livingstone, who accused him of fuelling hostility towards ethnic
   minorities, by attacking the principle of multiculturalism. Livingstone
   accused Phillips of being so right-wing that he would 'soon be joining
   the British National Party'.

   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. Open criticism of
   multiculturalism, given Prospect's pedigree and reputation, was
   thereafter firmly part of the mainstream. Since then events - 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.” . Criticisms have
   been voiced by bishop Nazir Ali of Rochester.

   In August 2006, the community and local government secretary Ruth Kelly
   made a speech, which some saw as signalling the end of multiculturalism
   as official policy. In November 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair stated
   that Britain has certain "essential values" and that these are a
   "duty". He did not reject multiculturalism as such, but he included
   British heritage among the essential values:

          "When it comes to our essential values - belief in democracy,
          the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for
          this country and its shared heritage - then that is where we
          come together, it is what we hold in common."

Islam, Europe and multiculturalism

   There is a developing distaste toward the idea and policies of
   multiculturalism in Europe, especially, like stated earlier, in the
   Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom and Germany with many others
   starting to build up their dislike and disagreement with
   multiculturalism and how it actually creates friction within society.
   This is not just Christianity against Islam, as many are led to believe
   as this is not the case. For example Bosnia and Herzegovina which could
   be termed as a Muslim country are disliking multiculturalism, like
   living with Christians. As the population that have a majority do not
   want their country and its traditions to be eradicated by immigrants.
   Although this is quite obviously a difficult issue to discuss, it must
   be a priority as it needs to be observed and debated.

   From the 1990s, especially in Europe, the debate on multiculturalism
   began to focus on Islam and its status in the Western World. In several
   European countries, the majority of immigrants are from Islamic
   countries - Algeria, Morocco and Turkey. Although not all of them are
   practicing Muslims, their religion became a powerful symbol of their
   essential difference from the surrounding national community. (In
   Europe, only Bosnia and European Turkey have a substantial indigenous
   Muslim population). The perceived status of the immigrant minorities
   shifted - the 'Turkish immigrants' became the 'Muslim immigrants'.
   Conversely, the construction of mosques, and the increased adoption of
   the Islamic headscarf and in a few cases the burqa, made Muslims a
   distinctly visible minority. The examples cited by opponents of
   multiculturalism to show what they considered unacceptable, were
   increasingly Islam-related - female genital cutting and honour
   killings, for instance. (Many Muslims dispute that these practices have
   nothing to do with Islam). The opponents began to appeal to a Clash of
   Civilisations perspective, seeing Islam as incompatible with democracy
   and western culture. The emergence of Islamist terrorism confirmed, in
   their eyes, the dangers of multiculturalism and immigration from Muslim
   countries. Pim Fortuyn, for instance, proposed a specific ban on
   'Islamic' immigration. And although strictly speaking it is not a
   multiculturalism or immigration issue, the possible accession of Turkey
   to the European Union became a contentious issue there.

   In Canada, the possible introduction of sharia family courts became a
   contentious issue, and received much media attention.

   From the late 1990s multiculturalism came under sustained intellectual
   attack in Western Europe, again largely, but not exclusively, from the
   political right. The reaction was more vehement than in North America,
   since it was associated with several other factors - the return of
   explicit nationalism as a political force, the revival of national
   identity, the rise of Euroscepticism, and concerns about Islam in
   Europe. (The September 11 attacks in 2001 exacerbated the tensions
   around Muslim immigration, but they existed already). The period saw
   the rise of anti-immigrant populism in Europe, which was uniformly, and
   often fanatically, hostile to multiculturalism. The debate became
   increasingly polarised, and increasingly associated with Islam and
   terrorism. The multiculturalism issue merged with the immigration
   policy issue. The most extreme rejection of multiculturalism comes from
   supporters of the Eurabia concept (see Bat Ye'or). For them, Islam is a
   political movement comparable to fascism, which is attempting to seize
   control of Europe, and to destroy its civilisation. Their hostility to
   multiculturalism is often combined with militant euroscepticism, as in
   this essay by blogger Fjordman:

          The EU must die, or Europe will die. It’s that simple. Bat Ye’or
          in her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis is right in pointing out
          that ordinary Europeans have never voted for this merger with
          the Islamic world through massive Muslim immigration and
          Multiculturalism. This is closely tied to the rise of the
          European Union, which has transferred power away from the people
          and the democratic process to behind-the-scenes deals made by
          corrupt, Eurabian officials and bureaucrats. ... The creation of
          Eurabia is the greatest act of treason in the history of Western
          civilization for two thousand years, ... they are creating a
          civilizational breakdown across much of Western Europe as the
          barbarians are overrunning the continent.

Post-multiculturalism in Europe

   Following the collapse of the consensus on multiculturalism, several
   European Union countries have introduced policies for 'social
   cohesion', 'integration', and (sometimes) 'assimilation'. They are
   sometimes a direct reversal of earlier multiculturalist policies, and
   seek to assimilate immigrant minorities and restore a de facto
   monocultural society. They include restriction of immigration -
   assimilation and immigration law on new immigrants are no longer seen
   as separate issues. The policies include:
     * compulsory language courses in the national language, assessed by a
       compulsory language test - for immigrants, and in some cases for
       those of immigrant descent
     * compulsory courses and/or tests on national history, on the
       constitution and the legal system, see Life in the United Kingdom
       test
     * introduction of an official national history, such as the national
       canon defined for the Netherlands by the van Oostrom Commission,
       and promotion of that history, for instance by exhibitions about
       national heroes.
     * official campaigns to promote national unity, and individual
       identification with the nation - such as the campaign Du bist
       Deutschland in Germany
     * official lists of national values, and tests of acceptance of these
       values
     * tests designed to elicit 'unacceptable' values, such as the
       "Muslim-test" in Germany. In Baden-Württemberg immigrants are asked
       what they would do, if their son says he is a homosexual. (The
       expected answer is that they would accept it).
     * restriction on spouses or children joining immigrants already in
       the country, and age and income restrictions on non-western
       marriage partners, sometimes with language tests for potential
       spouses, in their country of origin
     * official declarations - so far not laws - specifying that only the
       national language may be spoken in certain areas.
     * language prohibitions in schools, universities, and public
       buildings. Language bans have also been proposed for public
       transport and hospitals.
     * prohibitions on Islamic dress and especially the burqa.
     * introduction of an oath of allegiance or loyalty oath for
       immigrants, usually following naturalisation, and usually during a
       compulsory ceremony.

   Some of the measures, especially those seeking to promote patriotic
   identification, have an element of kitsch. In the Netherlands, the
   naturalisation ceremony includes a gift symbolising national unity. In
   Gouda it is a candle in the national colours red-white-blue, in
   Amsterdam a Delftware potato with floral motives.

   There are proposed measures, which go much further than these. They
   typically, but not always, come from right-wing parties and their
   supporters. Although implementation is not on the political agenda in
   any EU state, the proposals illustrate the 'post-multicultural'
   climate: a loyalty oath for all citizens, legal prohibition of public
   use of a foreign language, cessation of all immigration, withdrawal
   from the European Union, a compulsory (non-military) national service,
   a ban on the construction of mosques, closure of all Islamic schools,
   or a complete ban on Islam. These could be put in place in the near
   future in some EU countries which could start to an all round policy on
   monoculturalism and the policies stated above.

Polarisation

   Although these policies often have the stated aim of increasing
   national unity, one result has been an increased polarisation. With the
   disappearance of former taboos, open criticism of the culture and
   values of specific minorities became common. Muslims in Britain or the
   Netherlands may occasionally hear that their culture is backward, that
   western culture is superior, and that they have a duty to adopt it. In
   turn, overly-defensive reactions include an increased
   self-identification as 'Muslims', and adoption of Islamic dress by
   women and 'Islamic' beards by men. Part of the Muslim minority is now
   alienated and hostile to the society they live in, and sympathetic to
   terrorism. In Amsterdam's secondary schools, about half the Moroccan
   minority does not identify with the Netherlands: they see their
   identity as 'Muslim', and regularly express anti-western views. In turn
   society is increasingly hostile to Muslims: a survey showed that 18% in
   Britain think that "a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense
   of loyalty to this country and are prepared to condone or even carry
   out acts of terrorism". A TNS/Global poll showed that 79% in Britain
   would feel "uncomfortable living next to a Muslim". A major attitude
   survey of teenagers in Flanders showed that 75% refuse to have a
   relationship with a black person, a Muslim, or an immigrant. Half want
   all immigration stopped, and 41% say they distrust anyone from another
   ethnic background.

   The rejection of the multicultural consensus in Europe included the
   revival of a traditional national identity, often defined by ethnicity.
   Paradoxically, that excludes not only first-generation immigrants, but
   their identifiable descendants, from full membership of the nation. New
   terms for minorities of immigrant descent have come into use: the
   (originally geological) term allochtoon in Belgium and the Netherlands,
   and 'nichtdeutsche Herkunft' or 'ndH' in Germany ('non-German origin').
   Both are applied regardless of citizenship. The renewed emphasis on
   historical culture places higher demands on cultural assimilation.
   Immigrants must learn to identify and describe cultural heroes and
   historical figures such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and William of
   Orange. The adoption of semi-official 'national values' may
   occasionally undermine the national unity, which it is supposed to
   promote. For instance, the 'Muslim test' in Baden-Württemberg implies
   that those who do not accept homosexuality, cannot be German. It was
   criticised for this, and/or for inconsistency (it was introduced by a
   Christian-Democrat administration).

   Issues of nationality and loyalty are often divisive. In the
   Netherlands, the Party for Freedom of anti-immigration politician Geert
   Wilders opposed the nomination of two ministers because they had dual
   nationality. The party subsequently proposed a motion of no confidence
   in both ministers. The party doubts their loyalty to the Netherlands,
   in cases of conflict with their countries of origin (Turkey and
   Morocco). Accordign to an opinion poll more than half the population
   agrees with the party. Opinion is sharply divided by political party:
   96% of Wilders' voters agree with him, and 93% of GreenLeft voters
   disagree.
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