Multicultural Misunderstandings

Abstract

This was not the kind of multicultural harmony the visitor from Germany would have expected. It was a cold winter evening in Montreal when a heated debate took place in the city's congress hall.In our neighbourhood, the number of mosques is rising constantly, and the community forces even young girls to wear a headscarf, complained a blonde woman in her mid-40 s. Immigrants don't intend to change your ways of life, so don't try to tell us what to do, replied a young woman with a headscarf who introduced herself as a Muslim feminist. Our students can work as hard as they want and get good marks, they still will always get second-class jobs, complained a black teacher who teaches at a school with large numbers of students of visible minorities. We have to stop allowing foreigners to tell us how we are supposed to live, shouted a dark-blond man with anger in his voice.One complaint was followed by another; immigrants and Canadian-born Montrealers exchanged accusations, laments, and occasional shouts. Meanwhile, at a small table at the head of the congress hall, philosopher Charles Taylor looked over the authence of 200 people and furrowed his brows. The tense face under his grey hair seemed to express sorrow, annoyance, and quite a bit of incomprehension. This is probably not how he - the 7 5 -year-old mastermind of multiculturalism - expected things to turn.For decades, Taylor has been advocating this particular Canadian philosophy that evolved in the 1960s and is based on the assumption that in liberal, democratic immigration societies such as Canada, it is one of the state's core responsibilities to protect and encourage cultural diversity. Starting from Canada, this concept found numerous supporters around the world, especially in countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom. It found a lot of followers in Germany as well, especially in left-wing and alternative-minded circles represented by the Green party. More recently, the concept of multiculturalism has become something like a swear word in Germany, though. It has been used as a catchword in the ongoing debate about failed immigration policies and deficiencies towards the integration of immigrants. This was summarized in a now-famous, widely reported, and much- supported statement by the local mayor of Berlin's Neukolln district, Heinz Buschkowsky, who said: Multiculturalism has His district is home to a large number of immigrants and faces huge socioeconomic challenges.Based on the original intention of multiculturalism, as I will explain, statements such as the above one show a profound misunderstanding of what the concept was meant to be about. This becomes obvious once one looks into the origins of multiculturalism in the 1960s and 70s, as well as when you have a closer look at the current Canadian debate. Based on my studies of Canadian multiculturalism, I would summarize my observations in two hypotheses. First, multiculturalism as a concept has not failed. It can work very well, as it has, by and large, in Canada during the last few decades. Second, multiculturalism is nota static, fix-it-all solution for challenges that stem from immigration and integration of an ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse population. I would argue that instead of flatly declaring it a failed concept - as is the case in Germany - the Canadian way of redefining multiculturalism and trying to adapt it to new challenges is the more promising treatment. This is especially true for one of the main concerns at the heart of much of the current Canadian debate: the integration of - mostly Muslim - immigrants who are often seen as representing values and lifestyles that potentially contradict the western - and liberal - self-image that many Canadians have of themselves.As the above-mentioned example of the Montreal debate shows, the concept in its current understanding has obviously reached certain limits, or at least serious challenges, in its country of origin. …