CHAPTER 2: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MIGRANTS AND THE HOST
2.3. Multiculturalism
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homogeneity is a mirage that does not take differences such as socio-economic distinctions amongst citizens into account.
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Kymlicka (2012) argues that, in order to ensure that minority groups’ cultural characteristics are allowed to exist alongside the dominant groups’, legislation should be promulgated to protect their existence in both the private and public spheres. Therefore, effective multiculturalism is built on the principle of “the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity” (Kymlicka 2012: 1). In this way, multiculturalism encompasses legal and political inclusion of those perceived to be different. Hence, Dis Skarpadottir describes multiculturalism as a situation in which all members of a state and immigrants are granted civil rights irrespective of their country of origin, and are allowed to preserve their cultural background within the host community (2004: 586). This creates a space for the existence of such differences without prejudice. Vermeulen (1997) argues that a multicultural society is not just a society with multiple cultures or identities, but one that protects these differences.
A multicultural society is a community “which urges at least the recognition and tolerance of cultural differences, and sometimes even the active stimulation of cultural diversity”
(Vermeulen 1997: 134). Westermeyer adds that a host community can be described as multicultural or pluralist when it allows the existence of diverse cultural identities (1989: 28).
Similarly, Casey (1998: 117) reiterates that “in multicultural societies, there is more respect for the maintenance of the cultures of origin of the immigrants as part of the integration process that sees society more as a mosaic of cultures”. Multiculturalism argues that these differences must be respected and allowed to thrive and in this way, plural societies can achieve unity irrespective of differences. As Kymlicka (1989 cited in Neumannova 2007: 3) argues,
membership in a cultural community is essential to our personal identity and provides individuals with the necessary framework to exercise their true liberty…. cultural recognition and identity are values belonging to all human beings, and they are also a premise for our individual autonomy. The attempts of multiculturalism to guarantee individuals’ rights, mainly consisting in the possibility to change their own cultural identity, lead us to conclude that these rights are embodied in internal principles holding for any community…
Therefore, according to the multiculturalist view, achieving a homogeneous society through the implementation of exclusive or assimilative policies in order to do away with differences is not a prerequisite for unity. Makedon (1996: 4) argues that “multiculturalism is not the
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aggregate of so many ethnocentric groups, each one of which coalesces around its particular island of cultural values, but on the contrary a tightly interwoven network of cultural centres that every citizen feels free to learn from”. This cultural centre is not a battleground for the supremacy of cultures but a basis for integration and developing unity based on respect for differences. In order to achieve respect for and recognition of cultures, they should not be presented in hierarchies, that is, there should be no categorization of dominant/superior or minority/inferior cultures. One of the strengths of multiculturalism is that allowing cultural differences to exist not only ensures unity and respect for human rights but benefits host communities. Maagero and Simonsen (2005: 147) argue that the differences and diversities of migrants’ cultures can have progressive and positive effects on communities if they are allowed to exist.
Thus, multiculturalism represents a mosaic of identities and cultures that coexist without exclusion or deprivation for the benefit of both migrants and members of the host community. However, it has been criticized for failing to enable the integration of migrants.
For example, Herbert et al (2008: 53-54) argue that multiculturalism further fragments society, leading to greater inequality. They assert that allowing the existence of cultural differences threatens the values and culture of the host community especially when these values conflict, further fragmenting the state. Some scholars argue that multiculturalism has the dual effect of propagating cultural differences and dividing the host community by breaking the “common bonds” that tie them together (Wun Fung 2010: 33). Simply put, multiculturalism is criticized for being a threat to national unity or the idea of nationhood.
Other scholars have argued that multiculturalism allows for differences that are not necessarily absorbed into the core of communities but exist independently in society. This co-existence has been described as “parallel lives4” where differences exist but are isolated from one another, thereby discouraging integration (Amin 2002). Cantle’s (2001) study showed how two groups existed within the same geographic space and shared a common citizenship but had heterogeneous cultures which made for little meaningful interaction, thereby resulting in parallel lives. Therefore, the presence of differences or the
4 Parallel lives was the term used to describe the socio-cultural and economic polarization of white and Asian residents in urban areas in Britain (Cantle 2001: 9).
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implementation of multicultural policies that allow for the existence of these differences does not lead to integration. In this situation, “different communities lived, worked and socialised separately, thereby creating an uncivil atmosphere of mistrust, jealousy and intolerance”
(Wun Fung 2010: 34). Implicit within this ideal mosaic of a multicultural society are socio- cultural and economic demarcations that create multiple nations that lead parallel lives. It depicts a picture of a heterogeneous society with mini-homogeneous communities that are isolated from each other in different ethnic or racial enclaves.
Multiculturalism has also been criticized as being sometimes selective in its acceptance of diversity. While it boasts of creating a plural society that allows cultural differences to co- exist, this does not necessarily imply total acceptance of the differences migrants bring to society. Acceptance of these differences is often selective and regulated as some cultural differences may be considered morally and legally unacceptable by the host society and may in fact violate its constitution. For instance, the call by “minority devout” Muslims in Canada to create a separate Sharia tribunal to deal with legal matters guided by Sharia law was opposed by “silent majority” Muslims in the country (Bhabha 2009: 50-51). Multiculturalism has therefore been regulated, such that some cultural differences that do not conform to state practices are excluded. That is, the host society creates a space for the integration of strangers, but with certain reservations and rejection of aspects of their cultures.
Using a documentary, Fortier (2007) explains how new forms of multicultural intimacy are imagined and how they are applied in dealing with differences in Britain. She notes that 21st century Britain adopted a ‘new politics of multicultural intimacy’ which aimed to encourage the integration of strangers (Fortier 2007: 107). The goal was to ensure the integration of those who were perceived as different with a culture alien to that of their host. Fortier notes that the problem lay in how to achieve the goal of integration. In her words,
the issue is not only how do we live peacefully side-by-side, but how do we reach out to and embrace each/the other? …However, two tensions arise within the national fantasy of multiculture: first, a tension between, on the one hand, a rhetoric of loving thy neighbour as different, and, on the other, the utopian moment of abstraction, in which the nation is an assumed bond of
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shared allegiance where differences are obliterated under a veneer of universal diversity – we are all different, we are all ethnics, we are all migrants, hence we are all the same. Second, the national embrace is in tension with a moral racist politics that underpins the neo-liberalist turn toward tolerance, integration, and diversity, in which the rhetoric of the national bond emphasises the glue of values rather than the glue of ethnicity...Within this moral politics, the problem of living together becomes a problem of them adjusting to our values, being gracious guests in our home
While the United Kingdom (UK) can boast of being a pluralist and multicultural society that encourages the integration of strangers who are allowed to exist with their differences, it is also wary of certain differences that collide with its national identity; therefore, it encourages some level of assimilation. As Fortier (2007: 108) puts it, “concealed within the narrative of integration is an assimilationist strategy”. A multicultural strategy for integration is to some extent selective in a bid to compromise on certain but not necessarily all the differences; it therefore becomes a blend of assimilation and plurality.