A slightly longer thought-piece. Multicultural toleration is a fundamental good, even in today's climate of suspicion. In reality, it is economic inequality which drives cultural conflict, and this inequality should be the target of our efforts to create a more harmonious society.
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Just over twelve months ago, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality caused widespread surprise by calling for the concept of multiculturalism to be abandoned in Britain. A “core of British-ness” needed to be asserted, he argued. Once the leading UK racial equality body is advocating the end of multiculturalism, it is no longer possible to dismiss such suggestions as extreme-right intolerance for other ways of living, as backward-looking hopes for a homogenous, mono-cultural society. As with the emergence of Pim Fortuyn’s anti-immigration platform in the Netherlands and well-known headscarf debates in France, they arise from a widespread concern that the multi-ethnic nature of Western European societies is breaking down common social ties which hold communities, and nations, together. And what is almost as problematic, there is a popular sense in the Western media that “multiculturalism” as a political doctrine protects cultures whose repressive ethics are far from the liberal values encouraged in Western public discourse. Do these twin problems of social breakdown and intolerable cultural difference finally spell the end of the multicultural road?
Political theorists have long argued that modern states are founded by and for a culturally homogenous nation in some form of social contract. Democracy is possible because we share a sense of national community: a tax and welfare system is seen as legitimate in a way that a global wealth tax for the poor overseas would not be, because it is provided by, for and within a community. David Miller, who in writing on international justice has long highlighted the “special responsibilities” we owe to people of our own nation because we are part of a community, draws our attention to the fact that “the legitimacy of the modern state derives in part from its role as protector and promoter of the national culture of its people.” If this common culture were to fragment, the legitimacy of the state and its democracy would become increasingly suspect. The worry is this: do we live in a society which increasingly is too diverse to be a coherent political unit?
The question would be superfluous if we could assume that a policy of multiculturalism engendered a gradual process of assimilation and hybridity, gradually melding diversity into a new identity. Yet is this the case? Black communities in “multicultural” America, and many South Asian communities across Britain, are becoming increasingly physically segregated from their neighbouring communities. Such trends, and the social dislocation and suspicion they engender, are behind the widespread fear of uncontrolled immigration which so preoccupies tabloid leader-writers for Middle England. Equally damaging, is the cultural segregation which a tolerant multiculturalism permits, leading to accusations that “multiculturalism” provides cover for practices and beliefs that many find uncomfortable, dangerous or wrong. Arranged marriages, militant Islamic preaching or patriarchal ‘control’ of family votes are all beyond the pale of British culture. And so people begin to ask: should a society permit cultural practices which run counter to some of its own core beliefs?
“Educating children in a tradition”, Rowan Williams argued in his first public lecture in 2003, seems a good way out of both of these dilemmas. Education, the major cultural preserve of the state, is central to the multiculturalism debate. Through education, many feel that the state can create the common culture necessary to support the social contract in a modern democracy, while also promoting the values, and setting the cultural limits, which “society” deems to be acceptable. France remains the best-known example of the assertive cultural state, but the phenomenon is hardly a European one: Turkey has a notorious tradition of state-enforced secularism to keep the dangers of multiculturalism in check (often at the expense of democracy).
Yet for all that, the state is not the solution. Not if we want to avoid a situation where culture is defined by majoritarian principles and imposed from above. One aspect of the danger is demonstrated by America, where a majority Christian society has in many states decided that public culture, the “core of American-ness”, if you like, should be overtly Christian. Despite the secularism of the First Amendment, the Ten Commandments are prominently displayed in schools, courtrooms and legislatures across the country – irrespective of the beliefs of non-Christian or non-religious minorities. Conversely, in France, Turkey and elsewhere an aggressive public secularism prevents many believers from expressing their faith. Creating some sort of obligatory cultural education – beyond, presumably, Shakespeare and the British history – is chronically illiberal. All communities have to obey a common law if they are to live in a country. But this does not entail that they must also be taught to embrace a new culture – static, elitist and largely invented for the purpose.
What the cultural nationalists and the contractarian liberals never understand is that we have always had a multicultural society. The British nation state, for example, was never built on a homogenous nation, but emerged at a time when North and South, England and Scotland, city and country were far more culturally different places than they are today. “British-ness” is not primeval but a 19th century invention. Nor can it be claimed that something has fundamentally changed in the 21st century. Miller argues that “the rise of a global culture, which makes preserving distinct national cultures an increasingly precarious business, gives the state a greater responsibility for the self-conscious defence and reproduction of national culture.” Yet why on earth should it be the state’s responsibility to “defend” some objectified national culture? In truth, “culture” only exists in the experience, beliefs and memories of individuals in their social relations with others, and will always evolve with them as they and their social relations evolves. The idea that the state has a responsibility to fix it in time, nail colours to its mast and defend it against the rising tide of globalisation is deeply misguided. The liberal good of offering individuals more freedom than a society with a state-controlled common tradition should be obvious. And the central experience of Britain’s tolerant, multicultural attitude is that at the level of the individual it allows is a fertile cross-cultural creativity where all can find their own identity from choice not compulsion.
There are limits. Asserting the values of public cultural tolerance and pluralism neither draws on nor entails a philosophy which asserts that any cultural belief is acceptable. On some issues, as mentioned above, the same laws must apply to all. Nobody expects a multicultural society to tolerate the racism of the BNP. On others, such as the freedom of speech question in Birmingham, the very philosophy of multiculturalism contains a belief in tolerance and freedom of speech which must apply equally to Sikhs and to Christians protesting outside “Jerry Springer: the musical.” That is a matter of philosophical coherence: a consistent belief in the right of individuals to judge for themselves the insightful from the insulting, the crass from the clever. And on yet other issues, such as arranged marriages, multiculturalism must not be a blanket under which debate is stifled – that debate must be conducted at the level of society, but must not become the preserve of the state, whose involvement in the private affairs of families should surely be kept to a minimum. After all, as regards family life, there are beams in our own culture which should be addressed before we start sending the state to extract motes from others. In the end, the importance of multiculturalism as a philosophy for public politics is that it allows interaction between different cultures without prioritising any or attempting to set up a national standard, that it encourages tolerance of and respect for diversity and a willingness to seek the good in any society, culture or individual. It is a liberalism which must be defended against illiberalism in other societies and cultures and in our own.
I would like to make one final suggestion about the apparent problems of multiculturalism in modern Britain. That is, that our primary concern is not a cultural one at all. It is economic. Compare race relations, or beliefs about cultural and social diversity, in rich neighbourhoods and poor ones, or among rich and poor young people. Rich people are not nicer. Rather, the “diversity problem” in our society is a problem of “economic diversity” – inequality – more than cultural difference: the depth of the former contributes significantly to the aggressive assertion of the latter. Concerns about “culture” reflect fears arising from economic insecurity, whether felt by the relatively well-off (immigration) or the poor (benefits discrimination). Conversely – and without being too cynical – many find it easier to love one’s neighbour from the comfort of a large detached house and a secure job. Yet multiculturalism is not thereby misguided, elitist or utopian. The correct conclusion is not to condemn socio-cultural pluralism but to address ourselves more strongly to the problem of economic inequality and insecurity. Improve people’s economic security, and fears of social fragmentation or “too much” cultural tolerance melt away. We need a multicultural liberal society; we need more multiculturalism, not less. But the only way we will secure that is by building a society which is not only more tolerant but also more equal, more secure and more prosperous.
