Musings on the Death of Multiculturalism in the West

Musings on the Death of Multiculturalism in the West

David Cameron’s public statement’s on the nature of ills plaguing Muslim Britain and hence the broader society and polity echo Angela Merkel’s disdain and resigned comments on multiculturalism in Germany. It would, however, be a mistake to see a parallel between Britain and Germany. Britain-proud heir to or perhaps even pioneer of multiculturalism – clearly departs from the condition of Germany where it was the policy problem or conundrum raised by the gastarbeiter(or guest workers) overlain perhaps by the problems engendered by the deepening and widening of the European Union and the structural forces of globalization catalyzed the problem rendering it in the process into a social problem. It would thus, to repeat, be a mistake to view the entire multicultural enterprise as being flawed and introduce an alternate policy straitjacket or paradigm that goes against the gravamen of diversity and pluralism. Having said this, it is about time that some of the assumptions undergirding multiculturalism and its policy implications are due for a comprehensive review.


The consensus or the evolving consensus in the west about the ills or pitfalls of multiculturalism stem largely from the failure of state encouraged or more accurately state patronized multiculturalism to inculcate the ‘we’ feeling among Muslims who have chosen to live or who for other reasons-persecution, refugees fleeing from failed states-find themselves in the west. Or in other words, state patronized multiculturalism has failed to make citizens out of Muslims in the west. This state of affairs, alarming as it is for intrinsic reasons, it must be pointed out, does not accrue from Islam or the nature of the Islamic faith. The failure lies in the lackadaisical approach towards the presence and existence of Muslims living in western societies and in the final analysis is an educational failure. By educational failure is meant that the nature of open societies, the rights, duties and responsibilities accruing from living in open societies has not been adequately explained to Muslims in the west. Having said this, I am not for one moment suggesting that western societies owe Muslims an explanation but it, for reasons of prudence and sagacity, it would have been better, if the nature of liberalism and open societies would have been made clear to Muslims in an idiom that would be understood by them.

It would be a travesty if the entire project or enterprise of multiculturalism were to be abandoned because implicit in aspects of multiculturalism is a renewed or a fresh relationship between Islam and the West. Hitherto articulated in the idiom of and colored by colonialism and the colonial legacy and, of course, the historical memory of the crusades, the contemporary encounter between Islam and the west mediated by globalization, offers a meeting point which can potentially be frictionless, from a long duree point of view. And the good thing is that it can be a good for Muslims and by extension the host societies. Good because some of the accretions that have been built upon the Islamic tradition, on account of vested interests and power of the mullahs, and that have stubbornly persisted, may be given short shrift by the contemporary encounter. Or in other words, reform of some of Islamic traditions, long overdue, and resisted by the corpus of mullahs and their patrons, within the Islamic world may actually happen in the west or on account of Islam’s contemporary encounter with the west. The doors of Ijtihad (roughly meaning, independent and enlightened reasoning), frowned upon by the extremists and fanatics may actually be opened in the west- the ancillary benefit of liberalism and the liberal tradition.

An added advantage may be that the virtues of toleration and respect for diversity- virtues that the Quran respects and enjoins- become a reflex among Muslims living in the west. Long used to living in mono cultural societies, some Muslims have, unfortunately lost this virtue and in some cases or instances may even aggressively pursue a majoritarian agenda.(Taliban ruled Afghanistan springs to mind here).Appreciation of diversity, tolerance and toleration, the ability to countenance diverse points of view may accrue only in multi cultural and liberal societies and continuing with the legacy of multiculturalism albeit in a new and reviewed form. In our globalized world, with diasporic movements across cultures, these enlightened Muslims can represent the west as it is than the warped images which reduce the west to a crude caricature. This new model of multiculturalism may take as its starting point the kind of integration which, one assuages Muslims fears, that living in the west does not mean or necessarily entail loss of faith, and second also lays the onus of integrating with the broader society on both Muslims themselves and members of the broader societies too. In other others, review the model of citizenship by rendering it into an active model and allow the impetus of integration come from within by demonstrating the soft power of liberal societies. The alternative-extreme models of assimilation –may send a wrong message to Muslims both within and without. A message that validates the fears of some Muslims that the west is out on an all out assault on Islam and renders the passive majority of Muslims if not open to the suasions of extremists but certainly sympathetic to them. This is a message that does not need to be sent out at this delicate moment of tension between the Islamic worlds and the west. So Mr. Cameron, a review but not a jettisoning of the multiculturalism paradigm is called for.