Human Rights
The Cultural Contradictions of Multiculturalism
Paulina Neuding
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STOCKHOLM – State-sponsored multiculturalism has failed. That proclamation by British Prime Minister David Cameron, following hard on the heels of similar renunciations of multiculturalism by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, suggests that a page is being turned in European society. But is it?
Cameron’s attack on multiculturalism minced no words. “Frankly,” he said, “we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and a much more active, muscular liberalism.” He was not criticizing ethnic and cultural pluralism, but the idea of “state multiculturalism,” which applies different moral standards to various social groups. In the future, Cameron declared, Muslim groups that do not, for example, endorse women’s rights, defend freedom of expression, or promote integration would lose all government funding.
It is not just official multiculturalism that has failed in Europe, however; so has the multiculturalism endorsed by large parts of European civil society. Sweden, one of the most liberal countries in the world, but also one that has recently seen a surge in extremism, is a case in point.
Sweden has long been known for its lifestyle liberalism. Swedes are overwhelmingly secular and indifferent toward the Swedish church. Homosexuals have been able to register civil partnerships since 1995 and marry since 2009, and the country is one of the most radical in its understanding of women’s rights – as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can attest. Moreover, Sweden’s far-reaching freedom of expression is one reason why Assange located WikiLeaks’ servers in the country.
But Sweden’s freedom of expression was also one of the motives behind a grisly suicide attack in Stockholm in December of last year. According to a last testament left behind by the attacker, a Swedish citizen named Taimour Abdulwahab, Christmas shoppers in downtown Stockholm had to die in retaliation for “the Swedes’ support” for Lars Vilks, an artist who stirred outrage in the country with drawings of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. Vilks argued that his work was a provocation aimed at revealing the selective liberalism within the Swedish intellectual establishment – its multiculturalism, one could say.
The Stockholm suicide bombing was not the first act of violence linked to Vilks. Two young men were recently sentenced to prison for trying to set fire to the artist’s home. During a lecture at Uppsala University last summer, a mob attacked Vilks, a professor of art history, while crying Allahu akbar. The then 64-year-old artist was head-butted, but escaped serious injury thanks to heavy police protection.
What is remarkable is not just the violence and threats against Vilks – anyone who doubts the determination of Islamist extremists in Sweden should watch the YouTube clip from that lecture – but also the reaction from the otherwise radically secular Swedish establishment. A number of influential Swedish intellectuals and politicians have directed their harshest criticism against Vilks, not against those who have called for censorship and even incited violence.
Only a few of the country’s newspapers and political magazines published Vilks’ drawings. Like murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the British novelist Salman Rushdie before him, Vilks was criticized by liberals and the left for causing unrest with his art. In this respect, Vilks’ work must be regarded as having succeeded in exposing moral double standards – no matter what one thinks of the drawing itself.
In Sweden, just as in similarly liberal Holland and Denmark, right-wing populists have profited from liberals’ failure to stand up for their values. The Sweden Democrats (SD), a party with roots in the country’s white-supremacist movement, entered the parliament for the first time in September 2010, with the support of 5.7% of the Swedish electorate. The SD has sought to position itself as the sole defender of gays and Jews in the face of intolerance stoked by large-scale Muslim immigration in the past two decades. Swedes who stand far from the SD’s original platform are apparently willing to be represented by a party that until recently was full of neo-Nazis.
Thus, the lack of “muscular liberalism” in one of the world’s most liberal countries has paved the way for both Islamists and right-wing populists. Europe’s leading politicians have spoken out, and now it is time for European civil society – its newspapers, critics, curators, academics, and publishers – to declare the failure of multiculturalism and show some courage in defending the values they claim to embody.
Paulina Neuding is the editor in chief of Neo magazine
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
www.project-syndicate.org
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RalphMus 07:25 27 Feb 11
Another thinly veiled attack on democracy under the now popular guise of “multiculturalism over long established indigenous cultures”. Cameron and Merkel are democratically elected leaders in their respective countries, thus opposition to their views is divisive politics aimed at manipulating the minds of the confused and fearful. However, whether in Western Europe or North America, Multiculturalism ultimately destroys itself, for reasons which the Average British National Party member has grasped, but which are a mile above the heads of the liberal elite. Those reasons are as follows.
When cultures mix, they merge, and form a new hybrid culture. Take for example one important form of culture: language. Britain used to have three languages: French, Latin and Anglo Saxon. These have now merged into one language – modern English. That is a loss of two languages in Britain. The world is losing one language every two weeks, according to a book entitled “When Languages Die”.
Multiculturalism ultimately destroys itself.
mg 06:27 28 Feb 11
"He was not criticizing ethnic and cultural pluralism, but the idea of “state multiculturalism,” which applies different moral standards to various social groups."
"Vilks’ work must be regarded as having succeeded in exposing moral double standards"
If the critique of multiculturalism is really about seeking out socially devisive double standards, why is it that neither Cameron nor the author here talk about Iraq and Afghanistan? In Britain the death of every soldier serving in the Middle East is annouced in the news, yet the death toll of civilians (greater by several magnitudes) goes unremarked upon. What of this double standard?
As is usual when attacking multiculturalism, the author keeps everything pretty vague, but one is left to conclude that the current tensions between communities, and the entrenching of group identities (for example the increasing popularity of traditional Muslim dress amongst Western Muslim women), are somehow the result of liberal double standards. I'm entirely unclear about what the mechanism for this is supposed to be. What I am clear about is that our long standing exploitation of the Middle East for oil, and the 'blowback' from it, is the primary culprit in the cases of extremism listed above.
belgradetokyo 01:42 01 Mar 11
@RalphMus,
In your fascinating, though rather cynical dissertion of the self-destructive inevitability of Multiculturism, as exemplified by the death of 3 distinct languages through their merger into the hybrid modern English; you have failed to mention that neither of these 3 is indigenous to the British Isles. The indeginous languages, albeit somewhat altered, are still preserved as official tounges. Also, it is fair to assert that French, Latin, and even Anglo-Saxon are very much alive in Britain. They might not be official languages, but neither is Hindi and yet it's widely spoken throughout the country. I'm also a little baffled as to how opposition to Cameron and Merkel's (in my view) hate speech is divisive? I guess I should read into the BNP's manifesto more thoroughly to find answers, but I'm afraid it'll probably be a mile above my head.
mg 01:30 01 Mar 11
RalphMus
I'm not sure what you're criticising. I've never met a multiculturalist who sees the purpose of multiculturalism as being the fixing of current cultural identities in concrete for all eternity. In fact I'd argue a pretty integral feature of multiculturalism is its recognition of how cultural identity is transitory. Its the critics of multiculturalism who try and foster a one-size-fits-all national culture on everyone, as with Cameron's mythical 'British identity'. Cameron's solution back then would have been to enforce Latin on everyone (which incidentally private schoolboys like him are still taught)! If multiculturalism ultimately results in a more cohesive society (eg with one language as you say), then great. What's your complaint?
As for your take on 'hate speech', you make the common fallacy of failing to acknowledge context. Shout 'fire' in a park and people will think you're trying to be funny, or just mad. Shout it in a theatre and you could cause a stampede. Its context. The idea that mocking a football team is no different from mocking a race, religion or culture is ridiculous. Would you be as insulted by a friend mocking your shoes as you would be if a stranger mocked your wife or sister?
belgradetokyo 05:29 25 Feb 11
Another thinly veiled attack on democracy under the now popular guise of "our values over Islamic fundamentalism." Cameron and Merkel are very unpopular leaders in their respective countries, so divisive politics manipulating the minds of the minds of the confused and fearful is their only way of consolidating some support from the electorate. However, whether in Western Europe or North America, Multiculturism is here to stay, political populists come and go.