By: Wes Robinson
Multiculturalism, as a term itself, comes off as a rather benign idea. Yet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the former prime minister of Australia, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, ex-premier Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Netherlands have all recently denounced the policy of multiculturalism or taken measures to reverse their past policies. To be clear, the multiculturalism that I speak of is not the same thing as the multicultural fairs seventh-graders everywhere attend; sampling everything from Panamanian ceviche to Thai lemongrass soup. Rather, multiculturalism as a policy position is based on the theory that that any, and all, cultures have the right to live within a state while maintaining a subscription to their cultural practices and livelihood with no state intervention.
Another way multiculturalism has been defined is that every culture is morally valid and no one culture has the right to impose its values on another It sounds simple enough; let Culture X live side-by-side with Culture Y in a given state. The nations mentioned above had previously taken this “hands-off” approach towards those with different ethnicities and cultural differences. It is important, and even essential, for one to maintain a sense of their heritage regardless of where they are geographically. However, it will be ultimately detrimental for the multiculturalist state should this person make no effort, nor be required to, assimilate into their new society. As multiculturalism took root, the leaders of these states cited problems such as, a loss of national identity, polarized social and political structures, violence and extremism, social friction, and increased racism, according to interviews they have each given.
Significant academic research has even predicted these negative externalities that have been cited by the leaders of the denouncing nations. It is important to understand the notion of social capital and its effects on a democracy. Social capital, as define by Dr. Francis Fukuyama, is an “informal norm that promotes cooperation between two or more people.” The expands to say that social capital bridges unlike people together to accomplish a common goal or promote some sort of civic action. Social capital serves as the backbone for any civil engagement and is therefore essential to any of the Western liberal democracies that have since denounced multiculturalism. Dr. Robert Putnam engaged in a study where he found that high social capital is necessary for any successful democracy. However, in a later study that took place in the United States, Putnam found that more ethnically diverse areas are less likely to have social trust and therefore they have lower social capital. This is not a divide among one group towards another; rather it is degradation in social capital as a whole; as social trust is lower even among the same ethnic group. Therefore the social polarization and increased social frictions, which the leaders cited, were to be expected as ethnic divisions erode social capital which will, in turn, strain the overall political system.
In effect, the principles of the multiculturalism practiced in these states are counterintuitive to the Lockean sense of the social contract that has helped to establish so many of these modern day democracies. For one, Locke assumes that people are moral beings and will ultimately come together to create a moral state. However, the moral relativism that serves as an essential pillar to multiculturalism refutes the ability for this moral state to exist. There are ample examples available to illustrate this moral relativism and the inequities in the application of law that it produces. Take, for instance, an incident that occurred in California. A woman was caught attempting suicide after she first drowned her two children. One would likely assert that this action is certainly immoral and should be punishable with the utmost severity. However, this woman was a Japanese immigrant. She claimed defense in her practice of the “parent-child suicide” of her native country and spent only one year in jail (which was the year she was on trial). Another example presented by Dr. Sarah Song, of the University of California’s Berkeley campus, notes the case of a Chinese immigrant who beat and killed her wife for having an affair. An anthropologist testified that this behavior was quite regular against unfaithful women and he ultimately served no jail time and only five-years of probation. While these are just two examples, they illustrate the impracticality of moral relativism. This relativism denies the ability for a state to exist as a moral one when it allows certain crimes of this nature to go largely unpunished when the rest of the general population understands the consequences of such egregious actions. Additionally, in the case of the second example, it completely refutes the value in gender equality. Gender equality is an absolute value in just about any of the Western democracies, yet it is a value that many of these nations yield in favor of unlimited cultural sensitivity.
One could argue that the immigrants which move into these nations are free-riders in the tacit consent problem. Tacit consent is explained as informal consent between the government of a country and an inhabitant. These Western democracies seemingly accept tacit consent as a viable form of consent into each of their social contracts. While the notion of tacit consent is perhaps one better saved for a debate on political theory, it does have relevance in the case of multiculturalism. Although they do not state it explicitly, the countries that have denounced multiculturalism are beginning to deny tacit consent as a viable form of consent to be a member of their society. These countries are beginning to require certain assimilation standards into their immigration practices to ensure that immigrants understand the norms and culture of the society to which they are relocating. They are pressing the idea that certain cultural practices acceptable in their native country may no longer be permissible in their new country. From the Netherlands proposing language requirements to France enforcing specific dress codes it is clear that these countries are attempting to do more than allow tacit consent by requiring specific assimilations standards to ensure immigrants understand better the society to which they are relocating.
Writer Mark Steyn once said, “The interesting thing about multiculturalism is it is a unicultural phenomenon.” Nowhere else in the world, other than the liberal democracies of the West, will you find the adherence to multiculturalism that we currently see. Nicolas Sarkozy stated, “We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him.” It is important to understand that the full practice of multiculturalism is having detrimental effects on the states which employ it. Multiculturalism is so sensitive to cultures that it, in effect, alienates the group further from the at-large society. If multiculturalism encouraged a mixing of cultures and a more homogenous “global-culture”, as those who initially subscribed to it probably expected, that would be one thing. But that is not what can be observed as actually happening. Instead, multiculturalism has promoted divisive grouping with detrimental effects on the social capital of a state and inequities before the law. The rejection of multiculturalism is not ethnocentric, xenophobic, or racist. Rather, it is a basic understanding that the values of their country are being compromised. It is not in the best interest of the immigrant to live in a society where alienation is almost guaranteed due to the divides multiculturalism creates and it is not in the best interest of the nation to allow the legal exemptions required by multiculturalism while their society becomes increasing fragmented. Multiculturalism, as it was, has failed according to these world leaders. It will be interesting to see what the long term costs of this failure will be in each of these nations.
