Tag: Multiculturalism (Page 12 of 19)

Over at Pickled Politics, Sunny Hundal presents his essay on how the War On Terror has fractured the British Asian community along religious lines.

… a change has been taking place within minority communities in the way they interact with each other, identify themselves and become politically engaged… The atmosphere of distrust following 9/11 and 7/7 made it easier for Muslim, Sikh and Hindu religious extremists to openly express distaste towards other religious minorities.

For me, the a key feature of the post-9/11 politics, which includes the enigma that is ‘Britishness’ and the hammering of ‘multiculturalism’, has been a focus on differences between groups: How does the white majority interact with the minorities; how do the values of different groups differ, and can they be reconciled; what concessions does the State make to these groups, and does it ask for any change in return?
As we debate ad nauseum the conflicting identities within the State, it often seems as if other aspects of multiculturalism are neglected. Specifically, the different and conflicting identities that exist within the individual. This is a particular issue for British-Asians (Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims all) as well many people with dual nationality, and many people of mixed race (an exponentially expanding group). For these people, to suggest that notions of multiculturalism should be abandoned is nonsensical. For while a compromise with (or even a capitulation to) the behemoth that is ‘mainstream culture’ might be theoretically possible on a group level, this is not true on the level of the individual.
That is not to say that people, on an individual level, cannot resolve what conflicts they are presented with. Indeed, they seem to succeed much more often than they fail. At places like Pickled Politics I think the contributors manage to elucidate very well how they reconcile such differences, and what immediately becomes clear is that their solutions do not lie in their granting total supremacy of one culture over the other. That they can do this proves for me the value of multiculturalism. The most sensible commentators seem to be those who can say, for example, “I am 100% Hindu and 100% Asian and 100% British”.
And yet much of the political debate (from both the, erm, generic white majority, and also within the various interest groups Sunny highlights) refuses to accept that this kind of reconciliation is possible. Because these critics cannot make that reconciliation themselves, they smear those who can as either delusional or fake. In this dismissal, they fail to accept the idea that one may be changed by other ideas, fail to understand the value of multiculturalism, and therefore become a kind of fundamentalist. Its a shame that the post 9/11 political climate has exacerbated this problem too.

The common (some might say inevitable) response to my previous post is to suggest that I am mis-defining the term multiculturalism, and that it does in fact mean simply the idea that all cultures have complete parity. How else do we get the absurd defences of illiberal practices? Even if the the counter-intuitive work done in the name of multiculturalism is no such thing, why persist with a term that has been sullied by these actions. Far better, say the critics, to call the tolerance and change something like ‘melting pot’ instead.
But cling to ‘multiculturalism’ I do. First, because I question the extent to which the word has been discredited by its misuse. And secondly, because it just seems a better word, which better captures the ideas which I think are important. ‘Melting pot’ implies an all-consuming mass in which individual identity is lost. It has a whiff of homogeneity about it, and any new addition is barely perceptible. I want to emphasise the fact that change will occur within the majority population too. New additions are not just ‘spice’ but a whole extra ingredient…
Here are some areas of interest to me. First, the notion of group or cultural rights. Where they exist and are taken into account, I tend to the idea that they arise from a combination of individual rights, and tradition. Preserving (or at least respecting) a particular cultural practice will allow individuals to flourish. I suspect that this puts me at odds with what we could call fundamentalist multiculturalists, who hold that a culture is inherently valuable in itself.
Second, the extent to which multiculturalism is an off-shoot of western liberal thought. Is it simply a kind of legislated tolerance? Is it possible in other societies? Critics say that it is not, but I am less sure. India and the new South Africa are worthy of examination here. Clearly the impasse in Iraq, and between Israel and the Palestinians will only be solved when the various ethnic groups agree that there are things of value in different cultures they might encounter, and that these other cultures are not malign. Nation states with a single identifiable culture are not an option. But it is still an open question as to whether these solutions can succeed without an acceptance of basic liberal values. No wonder the theocracies of Iran and The Vatican feel threatened by multiculturalism – it is entirely incompatible with their claim to the absolute truth.
A third point about the multicultural debate is the extent to which it is dominated by religion, and religious obsession with sex and the sexes. Culture is of course more than that. It extends into those areas of life that are less contentious, where people might be more willing to engage in a dialogue, more willing to change. Cultural practices concerning not only food, but hospitality, leisure and ritual are all fair game for this kind of discussion. And how we evolve in these areas is as much a concern of multiculturalism, as the the ‘flash-point’ issues which periodically sweep through our periodicals like wildfire. It is perfectly possible to sit in a souq smoking a shisha pipe, without endorsing any of the pillars of Islam. Likewise, it is perfectly possible to visit the mosque in the morning and the football in the afternoon. Finsbury Park Mosque is a short walk from the Emirates Stadium at Ashburton Grove. When people talk of London and New York as the two truly multicultural ‘world cities,’ it is surely this kind of diversity that they are referring to.

Johann Hari’s lazy column in yesterday’s Independent prompts me to pick up my old, familiar drum. Multiculturalism, he says, provokes domestic abuse, on the basis that some German authorities have allowed men to get away with violence against women, by claiming that it is ‘their culture’.

It is a wilfully petulant view of multiculturalism that allows Hari to draw this conclusion, in part because it is a similar warped view of multiculturalism which causes the ridiculous judgements that he cites. In the cases Hari mentions, and by his own analysis, the concept is defined to mean that all cultures in their entirety are of equal value. If he wishes to argue against this version of multiculturalism, he is welcome to it. Attempting to define something so nebulous as a culture in its entirety is an impossible task. Occasionally, we find jobsworths and fools (usually on the far left, it must be noted) who subscribe to this definition, and they leave themselves open to ridicule and condemnation.

But Johann Hari should know that this analysis has never been what most defenders of the concept, including myself, have been arguing for. To us, multiculturalism is the idea that change is inevitable and should be embraced. To us, it is the idea that one may be changed by other ideas. To us, it is a rejection of the view that the dominant majority culture is complete and perfect, and that it cannot be changed for the better by outside influences. Many people see these ideas as a threat to their entrenched status quo, and so they attack the entire philosophy by citing only its deformation. Hari is clearly pandering to this view.

The column noticeably focuses on problems within Muslim households, as if this is all that ‘multiculturalism’ concerns itself with. Hari forgets that a broader multicultural philosophy also encompasses positive cultural changes such as (say) homosexual rights. We acknowledge these rights precisely because we accept that not all alternative lifestyles and cultures are bad. If it turns out that a given cultural practice is damaging, this does not damn other cultural practices that originate in the same group. Nor does it prove that encouraging other cultures to flourish is an a priori Bad Thing. By railing against multiculturalism in general, Hari endorses both these logical fallacies.

He pin-points the abominable practice of domestic abuse, forgetting that such a practice occurs in our own culture (and endorsed by the Old Testament too, if anyone cared to ask).  More important in this context, he forgets it is multiculturalism – in its proper form – that is stamping out this practice.

One real-life example: An Indian friend of mine recently had to confess to her Pakistani boyfriend that she had been previously married. She had refrained from telling him about her past because, well, he is from a very traditional Muslim background. She feared a judgemental, angry reaction… but in the event, his response surprised her. Although he found her revelationd difficult at first, he made the effort to listen, and to understand… something that (he says) would be beyond the strict values of his parents.

This change of outlook is, I suggest, an inevitable product of his time in the UK. When we were interviewing young people for the documentary Sex Lies and Culture last year, we unearthed countless examples of formerly socially conservative parents changing their attitudes (much to the surprise of their children). The change had been brought about by their immersion in a different culture. Multiculturalism is a two-way process. It is not about the introduction of Sharia Law into the UK, as Johann Hari might claim, but in fact the slow yet inevitable undermining of Sharia Law by presenting alternatives (this is why Islamists are threatened by multiculturalism too). In a post-colonial and globalised world, multiculturalism is actually the means by which we export our values to new places and peoples. But unlike in colonial times, the values cannot be delivered to others via the tip of a bayonet, or indeed imposed via legislation. Nor are all guaranteed to survive. Instead, our values must compete and win out in the marketplace of ideas. They are doing so, and the unfortunate incidents Johann Hari cites are noteworthy because they are incongrous, not because they are the sign of things to come.

It is right to be vigilant, and it is right to argue against these mad German judgements. But its a mistake to attribute these tragedies to a failure of ‘multiculturalism’ And it is most certainly a mistake to think that a more insular approach would be a better response to something so fluid as ‘culture’. These debates will define the coming century, and we need to understand the complexity and subtlety of the ideas we are describing.