Multiculturalism, Politics and Conflicting Values
[ IT ]
Daniele Castellani Perelli“That Moroccan family next door was back home again. They steal bikes like a magpie. And there sits this monkey, this little Moroccan”. This is one of the phrases gathered up by Paul M. Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn for their informative and scientific investigation, the central theme in their latest book, When Ways of Life Collide (Princeton University Press 2007, 176 pages), which discusses the state of Muslim integration in Holland. Despite two main drawbacks (research was carried out prior to 11 September; and it confronts a theme written at the same time as bestsellers such as Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma, albeit with a very different approach), it’s a piece of work which is able to provide an analysis and an in-depth reflection on the limitations of multicultural society.
The authors rebuke Dutch politics of the eighties and nineties for having involuntarily stood in the way of the Muslim community integration process by means of multiculturalism. According to the authors, the divergence of values between Muslim immigrants and westerners was strong and visible even before 11 September. Instead of favouring integration, multiculturalists promoted, legitimised and subsidised a very particular version of Muslim culture (“ironically the one most at odds with the pluralistic spirit of liberal democracy”), by providing education, services and information and financing television and newspapers in their mother tongue, or bringing their Imam over from abroad. All in the false belief that sooner or later, the immigrants will return to home. Instead they stayed in Europe, and our societies were not able to cope with cohabitation.
‘Whoever pronounced the limitations of multiculturalism’, recalls the authors, ‘was for a long time forced to remain silent under accusations of racism. In many countries, criticism of multiculturalism was silenced and contorted into a taboo, which then suddenly exploded in radical ways. Just like in Holland, where people from the extreme right such as Pim Fortuyn have put down their flag in the battle against Islam. And it’s not just these people either. One of the key issues raised in the book is that the lack of Muslim integration has generated suspicion and distrust towards them, not just from racists but also from the ‘middle’ of society, tolerant people who in theory should not hate Muslims. Even before 11 September, liberal societies would try to pacify people’s ‘prejudices’, urging Muslims towards a moderate integration instead of staying tucked away in ghettos set up through multicultural projects (which display or rather magnify cultural differences). Instead multiculturalism has generated a mutual distrust and misunderstanding between both parties.
There’s one point on which the book seems to exaggerate, where an unrecoverable difference in values between two communities is often taken for granted. In reality the problem is often more social than religious; today immigrants are in the poorest and most overlooked band of society (the same band they were in in their own countries). In some generations where Muslim communities will become more integrated, it’s easy to anticipate (or to hope) that they will represent a substantially more open and more secular middle class. Thus there would not be two sets of clearly distinct values (Islam and the West), but two products of the present-day situation. In conclusion the difference in values is perhaps less open than what we are led to believe, if not in Holland then certainly in countries where religion (such as Catholicism) plays a decisive public role. Take Italy for instance: here the aversion of many Catholics towards homosexuality is equal to that of Muslims, and this issue commonly applies to drugs, sexuality, even in loyalty to their country Italian Catholics from the last century are not that different to Muslims in Holland today.
When Ways of Life Collide is an accurate book (the authors also explain in detail how interviews were carried out) and full of interesting points. It maintains that cultural implications count more than economic ones in the relationship between Muslims and the west (primarily both groups feel that their own cultural identity is threatened by the other). It explains how voters, even those less sensitive to the issue, are manipulable through a campaign of values and identity, and that they appeal to politics in order to carefully manage their own propaganda. Cohabitation between cultures can be encouraged by politics, and according to Sniderman and Hagendoorn, multiculturalism has achieved the opposite to its intention: in attempting conciliation it has increased hostilities.
Translation by Helen Waghorn
6 Mar 2008
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