Multicultural Citisens: The Philosophy and Politics of Identity
Chandran Kukathas (ed.),
Centre for Independent Studies
BECAUSE France's traditional policy of rapid assimilation of immigrants has broken down, for the time being at least, Paris newspapers nowadays have a daily dose of racial incidents and ethnic strife. One such story that ran in July has stuck in my mind. A girl of 16 or 17 was found murdered by a road near Colmar. She had been smothered and thrown into a ditch like a dead kitten. The police were not long in arresting her killers, who were her own father and brother, two Turkish workers at a nearby car factory. They explained that the girl had betrayed Turkish culture by going out with boys after school; true, they were Muslim boys, but they were assimilated North Africans. Only death could expiate her crime against Turkish customs.
In this modern parable, the girl represents the wishes of most children of immigrants (and probably all of their children in turn), the desire if not to assimilate at least to integrate, to do what one's peers are doing -- in this case, to go to discos with boys. Her stern family represents what has been called since the 1970s "multiculturalism", the desire to keep separate and uncontaminated the customs and prejudices of each ethnic group, somewhat lavishly described as its "culture". Our local multiculturalists would no doubt disapprove of this Turkish family"s actions, but they would be bound to sympathise with its motives, since these lie behind the very policy they promote.
For multiculturalism is a policy, not a description of a society. The Canadians, who were obliged to invent it when the French Canadians insisted on bi-culturalism and the Indians and Inuit jumped on the bandwagon, officially define it this way: it is "recognition of the diverse cultures of a plural society based on three principles: we all have an ethnic origin (equality); all our cultures deserve respect (dignity); and cultural pluralism needs official support". Note the crass racism in the assumption that cultures and ethnic populations correspond one-to-one; i.e. the denial of universalist cultural causes like science and learning. Note, above all, the basic "principle" of official support, which means that governments must intervene in cultural affairs by way of legislation, patronage, subsidy and affirmative action, all in favour of such self-promoting ethnic groups as can wield political influence.
Before going into the arguments for or against such a policy, one might consider the fact that, like so many other government policies, it will probably fail of its purposes. In Australia at least, the economic pressures favouring integration are enormous and are felt keenly by the first generation of immigrants; their children and succeeding generations continue to feel them along with growing social pressure for outright assimilation. For an individual or a community to refuse integration into surrounding economic and social life is to buy a ticket to deprivation, alienation and subjection. The notion of an Australian society consisting of the addition of a Chinatown here, an Amish settlement there, and an Arab ghetto yonder is fanciful. Even the bilingual compromise -- public conformity and private ethnicity -- becomes increasingly difficult as the generations pass; witness the deliquescence of Judaism in the USA and here, to name one of the most admirably tenacious of particularisms.
The most that could be said for multicultural policy is that it can provide an optional support for the first generation of immigrants. If they do not need it, they must be free to spurn it; while for their children it is always a social hindrance. The ambition to turn the melting pot into a salad bowl soon fades in the glare of Australian secularism, hedonism, conformism and sociability. That the locals are influenced reciprocally is obvious, but that influence concerns superficial matters such as food. (When Australians are asked how post-war immigration has changed the country, they always mention food and restaurants, and then run dry.)
ASSIMILATION UNDERMINED
If the forces of integration are so powerful, why then is assimilation in crisis in such countries as the USA and France, to the point where critics are saying it has failed and that one must accept the multicultural compromise as permanent? There are two main causes. The first is the sheer magnitude of contemporary migrations. The second is misguided government policies that have slowed the pace of acculturation and which, although they pre-date the multicultural fad, could well be lumped under that heading today.
The fact is that several major Western countries have lost control of immigration. The USA is receiving, in addition to one million legal migrants a year, at least 300,000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Latin America and most of them from Mexico. Estimates of the number of illegals in the country vary from four million to 10 million. France's situation, in proportion, is no better. These nations both have a proud record of resilient and tolerant assimilation and social promotion, but their resources, both material and psychological, have been swamped by the volume of current migration. There is nothing surprising in that, nor any reason to suppose the situation is irreversible; once they regain control of arrivals, traditional policies can be resumed.
What is surprising is that when Geoffrey Blainey some years ago raised the numerical issue in regard to Australian immigration, he was howled down as though he had said something indecent. It is typical of our innumerate intellectuals and journalists that they resent the application of numbers to any social problems; that is "obscene" or "economic rationalism", to use their favourite fatuities. It might have been factually incorrect in 1984 to say that too many Asian migrants were arriving in Australia, but it cannot be wrong to suggest that there is a social, psychological limit to the pace and volume of immigration in general and of certain migrant streams in particular. Certainly, America's immigration problem right now is "too many Mexicans", and that is one reason why assimilation has broken down and why the newcomers are being offered the second-best accommodation, known as multiculturalism.
The other cause is deliberately slowed acculturation, notably Spanish-English bilingualism, i.e. the acceptance of Spanish alongside English as an official language. This policy was sold to Congress and the American people 30 years ago as a way to facilitate the transition to English speaking and to improve the education of Hispanics. In reality, as Lawrence E. Harrison has shown, [1] the Hispanics have been held back from English and hence from mainstream culture and employment:
"Isolation from the cultural mainstream is likely to have tragic consequences for human beings: a sense of alienation and resentment as well as disproportionate levels of poverty, welfare dependence, drug usage and crime ... Bilingual education is a major impediment to acculturation".
Thus multiculturalism, by discouraging assimilation, claims to produce its own justification: migrants are dissuaded from integration and this is offered as proof that assimilation is unsuitable.
The tide may have begun to turn in the USA. In addition to calls to reassert control over immigration (which President Clinton has heeded, despite his electoral rhetoric), one now hears ancestral voices prophesying war on multiculturalism. James Kurth, who professes political science at Swarthmore College, forecasts two parallel struggles in "post-modern history": one that pits the ethnically homogeneous states of Japan and Germany (and the culturally homogeneous France, he might have added) against multinationalism, immigration and satellite-supported media culture; the other "a civil war within the United States between multicultural enterprises and mass entertainment on the one side, and national cultural and mass education on the other. For now, it appears that it will be the post-modern camp that will prevail. If so, the United States, in the traditional sense of the American people, and the US Government will not be the actors but rather the audience -- or even the arena -- of the post-modern world. They will become takers rather than makers of history". In other words, the survival of the nation-state depends on abandoning multiculturalism, restoring liberal education to all citizens, and restraining Rupert Murdoch. [2]
DEFINING AWAY THE PROBLEM
This apocalyptic tone would have sounded quite strange at a recent Canberra conference on multiculturalism, of which the proceedings have just appeared in book form under the title Multicultural Citizens: The Philosophy and Politics of Identity. All the contributors who deal with multiculturalism are themselves recent immigrants and they are agreed that multiculturalism is a good thing. This apparent agreement depends, as so often at conferences, on each contributor defining it to suit himself. For instance, for Professor Hindess of the ANU, multiculturalism is just the normal condition of all societies: "States have always had to live with culturally diverse populations, including significant groups of foreign descent". But if Japan, to take a case one would have thought obvious to an Australian, is held to be culturally diverse just like Lebanon and Yugoslavia, words have become too slippery for discussion. But then Japan is never mentioned in this book!
Or again, the editor, Chandran Kukathas of the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), gives his "Idea of a Multicultural Society" as one designed "not to deal with the plurality of interests and values in society as they are manifested in particular groups or representatives, but rather to uphold particular individual rights and freedoms regardless of the particular interests or affiliations of the individuals". But, of course, that is just plain old assimilationist liberalism and has nothing to do with multiculturalism, which is about organised groups selling votes to politicians in exchange for subsidies and favours.
But Professor Ian McAllister, also of ADFA, tries a real Fine Cotton of a ring-in by claiming that acceptance of multiculturalism is shown by the fact that Australians, when polled, agree heartily with the propositions: "It's important that we make use of the skills and education of all immigrants" (73 per cent); "No matter whether Australians were born here or come from overseas they should all be given equal opportunities" (81 per cent); and "So long, as a person is committed to Australia it doesn't matter what ethnic background they have" (62 per cent). But such opinions are the essence of French assimilationism and do not demonstrate "overwhelming popular support for multiculturalism".
In contrast, Professor Hindess sees that multiculturalism consists in "the provision of public support for minority cultures" (i.e. handouts), but he objects to it as long as such minorities are defined in terms of ethnic origin, because he thinks any group that offers "cultural diversity" should qualify for subsidies: "Associations of Buddhists or Gays should be regarded, at least in principle, as no less deserving of support than associations of Italians or Vietnamese".
Getting back to the real world, Professor Ramesh Thakur of Otago shows where this everybody-deserves-help policy leads by telling the story of the failure of affirmative action in India. It has bred conflict, perpetuated divisions and benefited the sharp-witted before the disadvantaged. Apart from rehearsing the classic case against positive discrimination, Professor Thakur is the only contributor who both gives muIticulturalism a recognisable definition and squarely criticises it:
"Cultural assimilation of the new migrants into the dominant mainstream may be a gradual or an enforced process. But for someone who has been traumatised by the experience of crossing a major cultural divide, a speedy integration into a new society and its dominant values may not necessarily be such a bad or unwelcome thing".
Speaking of his experience as an immigrant into Canada, Professor Thakur says:
"By being officially hostile to assimilation, Canada forces newcomers to be expatriates rather than immigrants. The mosaic [Canadian code for multiculturalism] becomes a subtle policy instrument in the hands of 'true blood' Canadians for maintaining their distance from the new pretenders. Separateness is maintained, there is no cross-contamination, caste purity is not polluted".
In contrast, the immigrant into the American melting pot knows what to do to become an average American and he also knows he does not have to eradicate his ethnic identity if he prefers to remain a "hyphenated American".
Professor Thakur says the Blainey debate
"raised some important issues that should be dispassionately addressed. There may be limits tothe absorptive capacity of a country. If the multicultural peace is fragile, then too rapid an intake of multi-ethnic migrants is likely to spark off sectarian explosions that will threaten the welfare of ethnic migrants already in the country. On balance, it is more important to ensure fair and equitable treatment to those already in than to insist on enlarging their proportion in the face of hostile opposition, even if the opposition is racist and ignorant. No government policy can afford to move too far ahead of grass-roots community attitudes".
It is a curious reflection on contemporary Australia that the only reason Professor Thakur can say such things without being vilified as racist is that he is Indian.
ENDNOTES
- Harrison, Lawrence E., "America and Its Immigrants", The National Interest, Washington DC, Number 28, Summer 1992, p. 37.
- Kurth, James, "The Post-Modern State", The National Interest, p. 26.
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