Irish Political News

What is Multiculturalism? I’m seeing a number of negative references in the current to “multiculturalism”, suggesting the using the word as: something which undermined our society something which has “failed” something for which the Archbishop was actually arguing in his lecture (because he considering the needs of different groups). a “Bad Thing” - in the Sellars and Yateman sense. That is, a scary big bad wolf concept that you are supposed to in fear of without finding out what it actually means - and can be used to make anything else in the same sentence sound good; really rather like “Sharia“, “Islam” or “Norman Tebbit“. And I want a real and agreed definition, so that there can be a meaningful argument. Attacks on “Multiculturalism” A couple of examples. Johan Hari: Rowan Williams has shown us why the doctrine of multiculturalism needs to abandoned. If you really believe that Britain is comprised of a smorgasbord of “cultures” that need to be preserved, promoted and respected as an end in itself, then this proposal is perfectly logical. Different cultures should have different courts, and rules, and schools. International Herald Tribune: However, the solution proposed by the archbishop repeats the errors of 1960s liberal multiculturalism. In conjuring up the idea of communities sharing the same space but leading separate lives, he unwittingly endorses a scenario that entrenches segregation and fractures any conception of a common good binding all citizens. Despite this, Williams at least recognizes that Britain is struggling to find a way of accommodating its increasingly ghettoized and radicalized Muslim population. In both cases I do not recognise “multiculturalism” as I understand it now, nor as I think I first met the word in political debate in the 1980s - used of the political need to give recognition to “groups” and “minorities”. Lots of Not Quite Definitions The BBC has a whole page of attempted definitions, which talk about “Multiculturalism is not dead,” (Karen Chouhan), “There are two ways in which people interpret multiculturalism” (Ruth Lea) or “I see no incompatibility between multiculturalism and Britishness” (Bernard Crick). No one really gets round to defining it. So we are left playing blind-man’s-buff with glove-puppets. This from The Free Dictionary multiculturalism - the doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can coexist peacefully and equitably in a single country This definition (more…)