Author: Christopher Houtkamp (Board-member & Web-editor European Student Think Tank)
Multiculturalism is dead. At least, according to many prominent EU-leaders. It’s a shame though, that they didn’t present a feasible alternative to the multicultural society. Should we say our permanent farewells to the multicultural ideal, or should we instead try to reform it, giving it a chance to survive? I’ll try to answer that question below.
The last few months we have seen a trend among conservative politicians to sharply distance themselves from the multicultural ideal. Chancellor Merkel of Germany opened the ball by saying that the thought of multiculturalism in Germany “ist absolut gescheitert”. UK’s prime-minister Cameron soon followed, declaring that “state multiculturalism” has failed. Naturally the French president Sarkozy didn’t wish to be left behind: he declared roughly the same as his conservative colleagues. And yes, even in my own small country, the Netherlands, our conservative-liberal Prime Minister Rutte buried ‘multi-culti’ in the cemetery of failed ideas, for good.
Why the politicians aren’t entirely wrong
The different government leaders formulated their death declarations in various ways, but the core of their criticism is roughly the same. We as north-western European countries made a grave mistake in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, to think that immigrants with a wholly different cultural background could easily integrate, with little government intervention, in our societies. According to them, the opposite is true: immigrants don’t learn the host country’s language, sometimes absolutely refuse to respect the dominant cultural norms and are in the worst case the root of many social problems. Despite the fact that the statistics, at least in the Netherlands, nuance that image a bit (according to the hard facts, the process of integration in terms of socio-economic participation is going smoother than ever before), it’s hard to completely deny their statements. There are indeed many segregated districts in the big European cities, where the majority of inhabitants is of non-western origin. I also know stories of people that had a couple of Muslims living above them in a flat. Sometimes the Muslims felt the need to initiate a ritual slaughter, killing for example a goat without anaesthetic. The blood then seeped down from the bars of the balcony. You might understand that integration under such circumstances tends to be a bit difficult.
Robert Putnam on ‘multi-culti’
In his article E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century the famous political scientist Robert Putnam does some research on the effect of ethnic diversity on social capital. By social capital I mean the extent of an individual’s network and the amount of participation within social activities. For example, an individual that participates in various sport-clubs and volunteering work has much more social capital than another who never sees a soul. Anyway, Putnam found that, on the short term, in all ethnic divers (or ‘multicultural’) neighbourhoods the amount of social capital was at an all-time low, both for natives and immigrants. Integration is then evidently practically impossible, because it requires at least an intensive interaction between native and immigrant communities to be successful. In that sense Putnam’s research confirms the statements of the four government leaders I mentioned before: different cultures can’t effortlessly live together. The sad message he has for the politicians is that government policy alone can’t make integration work. Sure, if you’re a policymaker you should let the immigrants learn the dominant language and provide for the necessary conditions to improve the interaction between natives and non-natives, but integration is foremost a time consuming process. It’s an absolute illusion to think that if you let immigrants pass a citizenship course, which is basically just a language course, and ‘release’ them in our society with minimal knowledge of our language and culture, that they will be able to instantly participate as if they were natives. It takes time for every person to adapt to a new culture. And it’s worthwhile to take that time: Putnam emphasises the enormous positive boost immigration gives on the long term. Immigrants give a country a kind of dynamism, by presenting new fresh ideas. Putnam clearly argues that the West needs immigrants to not completely lose its leading position on the world stage. His arguments in this regard are roughly the same as Amy Chua’s, whose ideas I’ve discussed in a previous blog (http://studentthinktank.eu/blogs/beyond-intolerance-and-xenophobia-a-plea-for-a-liberal-labour-immigration-policy/).
The task of Europe’s leaders
Declaring the ideal of multiculturalism dead while not presenting a feasible alternative is not only a bit odd, but also, on the long term, plain foolish. It’s a fact that we live in a multi-cultural society and we should try to deal with it the best way we can. I do realise however that the ideal is in dire need of reform. As long as we don’t think it’s the panacea for all the integration diseases, I advocate that all immigrants do an easy citizenship course before coming to Europe and finish it when they are finally here. Scientific research has proven that the chances of successful integration will then increase. But that’s basically all a government can do. For the rest our different leaders, and maybe even the EU as a whole, should try to formulate a convincing set of values and beliefs that binds ‘us natives’ all. That way the immigrants have a clear idea what kind of values they need to respect, and maybe even make their own. But it’s more importantly to actively live up to them. In Holland for example, we have a fundamentalist protestant-Christian party in the parliament (the SGP) that seeks to install a theocracy and discriminates women, while we at the same time condemn the fundamentalist Muslims for advocating exactly the same. I believe that if we both add this ‘value’ ingredient to our multi-cultural recipe (however hard that may be, I’m aware of that) and present the new immigrants with even more opportunities to help them with their integration, then a reformed multi-cultural ideal should be able to survive.
Literature:
Putnam, R (2007) ‘E pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century in Scandinavian Political Studies 30(2) pp. 137-174
The idea of Multiculturalism derives from the work of Derrida and is really about polarization and revolution. It is a brilliant political platform because it merges seamlessly into "diversity" and who would object to diversity?
ResponderEliminarMulticulturalism was heavily encouraged by the Soviets because of its potential to destabilise the West and we are now waiting for all the old extreme left wingers to die before we can be rid of it (See Multiculturalism).