Multiculturalism

We are all aware that we live in societies with heightened diversity and that aspects of that are being used divisively. So a response is that we need to bring people together by making some kind of deal amongst ourselves, or with the state – some kind of social contract. Social contract thinking – originating in the religious divisions of the 17th century – usually emerges when trust is breaking down and society is becoming a jungle (famously for Hobbes, “nasty, brutish and short”). Yet the remedy, a contract between self-interested individuals (or between groups), may pacify but it is not enough to make people care for each other. We need something stronger than transactional thinking to deal with the stresses and strains of diversity, and to tackle the rampant polarisation we are seeing today. We need respect and belonging, a sense of the public or national good, not just contracts. I believe that multiculturalism has a contribution to make here. This may sound preposterous – for some people, multiculturalism is the problem! Well, yes, if you think that multiculturalism is all about singular identities, separatism, the privileging of minorities, racial binaries, unprovoked militancy, fundamentalism, ethnic absolutism, anti-nationalism and so on. But that is a caricature. I know of no multiculturalist theorist – as opposed to liberal globalist, aka a cosmopolitan – who has advocated any of these things. In any case, let me offer you a different vision of multiculturalism.

The subtitle of my 2007 book, Multiculturalism, was A civic idea.1 My argument was that multiculturalism was derived from a political ethics of citizenship that includes but goes beyond rights, representation, rule of law and so on, namely not just a liberal citizenship. All modes of integration should be analysed in terms of their interpretation of the triad of liberty, equality and fraternity/solidarity.

Multiculturalism is specifically concerned with the right to a subgroup identity and that subgroup identity is treated in an equal citizenship way. This means symbolic recognition but also institutional accommodation and the remaking of the whole, namely of the citizenship identity itself. This leads to a second feature, namely the recognition of the subgroup identity as part of or at least consistent with full membership, a form of inclusion that allows all citizens to have a sense of belonging to their national citizenship; sometimes expressed as fraternity or solidarity. Minorities, especially marginalised or oppressed minorities, have this right to group identity recognition because the majorities do; or, if you like, all subgroups, including the majority, have this right.

If, as I believe, multiculturalism is trying to provide minorities with what majorities have or seek to have, namely their own national or cultural identities folded into their citizenship, I also have come to appreciate that parts of majorities have become identity-anxious and multiculturalists should be sensitive to this, though it complicates the multicultural framework.

So, while multiculturalists may need to think more about ‘the majority’, it is not the case that existing theories are negative about majority culture per se or even that multiculturalism is about protecting minorities from majority culture.

No state, including liberal democracies, is culturally neutral – all states support a certain language or languages, a religious calendar in respect of national holidays, the teaching of religion in schools, the funding of faith schools, certain arts, sports and leisure activities and so on. Naturally enough, this language, religion, arts or sport will be that of the majority population. This is true even if no malign domination is at work. Hence, it is important to distinguish when the institutional domination of the majority culture is or is not present – and, moreover, when it has or may legitimately have normative value.

For example, the English language has a de facto dominant position in Britain that is manifested in so many ways. Yet, one can also recognise that the position of English is of normative value, given the meaning that it has historically and today for the people of Britain. This normative primacy can be explained without having to bring in any domination concepts such as whiteness, or at the very least, without reducing it to questions of whiteness. For multiculturalism, however, it is a matter of extending this valued condition – of creating a society based on one's cultural identity – to include minorities.

At a minimum, the predominance that the cultural majority enjoys in shaping the national culture, symbols and institutions should not be exercised in a non-minority accommodating way. The distinctive goal of multicultural nationalism, as I have come in recent years to call my position, is to allow people to hold, adapt, hyphenate, fuse and create identities important to them in the context of their being not just unique individuals but also members of sociocultural, ethno-racial and ethno-religious groups, as well as national co-citizens. National co-citizens care about their country, which is not just another place on the map or workplace opportunity – it is where they belong, it is their country.

So, how can multiculturalism, as I have described it and which I advocate, respond to the polarisation which I have said we should aim to overcome? Even if multiculturalism is one of the poles and part of the dynamic resulting in the majoritarian backlash pole, it can be adapted to be part of the solution. Depolarisation involves being able to reach out toward the other pole, and multiculturalism can do this; indeed, it can do so better than most other alternatives. I suggest that multiculturalism can make three positive contributions to depolarisation.