Interculturalism, Multiculturalism or Both?

Tariq Modood and Nasar Meer

Last February, David Cameron, addressing the Munich Security Conference, declared that multiculturalism has not worked in the UK. The Prime Minister’s comments, echoing the sentiment of a number of politicians in ‘old’ immigration countries (especially France and the Netherlands), came not long after the German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that ‘multiculturalism has failed, completely failed’, despite Germany having never adopted a multiculturalist policy agenda ((1)).

In the UK those multiculturalist policies have broadly remained intact, even though an anti- multicultural rhetoric has now achieved traction ((2)) and the concept of multiculturalism is politically embattled ((21)). The reasons for this anti-multicultural turn are various, but include the view that multiculturalism has facilitated social fragmentation and entrenched ((6)) divisions; for others it has displaced ((22)) attention from socio-economic disparities; or encouraged a moral hesitancy amongst ‘native’ populations ((47)). Some even blame it for international terrorism.

Alongside these anxieties over multiculturalism ((3)), a number of other political orientations promoting unity have come to the fore, including the discovery or rediscovery of national identity, notions of civicness and a resurgent ((23)) - ‘muscular’ - liberalism. Several governments also speak of social or community cohesion, while hovering above all these debates is the notion of ‘integration’.

Interculturalism

Yet one competitor term has been little explored, despite both its frequency in public discourse and its apparent capacity to retain something of what multiculturalism is concerned with. This is ‘interculturalism’ and the related idea of ‘intercultural dialogue’. For example, both the Council of Europe and UNESCO have been promoting the concept as a preferred mode of integration to multiculturalism, and it is now frequently found in places as diverse as German and Greek education programs, Belgian commissions on cultural diversity, and Russian teaching on world cultures. Indeed, 2008 was designated as the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (EYID) ((4)), with the European Commission’s stated objective being to encourage ‘all those living in Europe to explore the benefits of our rich cultural heritage and opportunities to learn from different cultural traditions’ ((43)).

It is worth stepping back from these fine sentiments to consider what distinguishes these

efforts from others concerned with recognising cultural diversity. Is interculturalism, as some have suggested, an updated version of multiculturalism? If so: what is being updated? If not, in what ways - if at all - is interculturalism different, substantively or otherwise, from multiculturalism? We suggest there are four.

Beyond Multicultural Co-existence?

Firstly, communication is said to be a defining characteristic of interculturalism. But to what extent can this be claimed as either a unique or distinguishing quality of interculturalism when dialogue and reciprocity are foundational to most, if not all, accounts of multiculturalism?

Take Charles Taylor’s essay The Politics of Recognition (1992), widely seen as a founding statement of multiculturalism in political theory, in which the Canadian philosopher characterises the emergence of a modern politics of identity based on an idea of ‘recognition’. In it he emphasises ‘dialogical’ relationships and argues that it is a mistake to think people form their identities ‘monologically’ (without dependence ((24)) on others). As such he maintains that we are ‘always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us’ ((44)).

Whether it is at a philosophical or a political level, the leading theorists of multiculturalism give dialogue a centrality missing in liberal nationalist, human rights or class-based approaches - and missed by interculturalist critics of multiculturalism. The multiculturalists assume, however, that there is a sense in which the participants to a dialogue are ‘groups’ or ‘cultures’, and this leads us to a second point of alleged ((7)) contrast with interculturalists.

Less Groupist and Culture-bound

It is said that the diversity of the locations that migrants and ethnic minorities herald ((8)) from gives rise not to the creation of communities or groups but to a churning ((9)) mass of languages, ethnicities and religions all cutting across each other and creating a ‘superdiversity’ ((48)). An intercultural perspective is better served to these sociological realities, it is argued ((12)), in a way that can be contrasted against a multiculturalism that emphasises strong ethnic or cultural identities at the expense of wider cultural exchanges ((11)).

Two Interculturalist Approaches

To find an explicit political interculturalism we need to turn to Quebec ((13)), and authors such as Alain-G. Gagnon and Gerard Bouchard. Gagnon and Iacovino, for example, contrast interculturalism positively

with multiculturalism. The interesting aspect for our discussion here is that they do so in a way that relies upon a formulation of groups ((18)), and by arguing that Quebec has developed a distinctive intercultural political approach to diversity that is explicitly in opposition to federal Canadian multiculturalism ((45)).

These interculturalists make a moral and policy case for the recognition of relatively distinct sub-state nationalisms. As such, they are less concerned with the diversity of the location that migrants and ethnic minorities are from ((19)), or the ‘superdiversity’ that this is alleged to cultivate therein.

On the other hand, the less macro-level ((27)) European interculturalism that focuses on neighbourhoods, classroom pedagogy, the funding of the arts and so on is not a critique of multiculturalism but a different exercise ((20)). Unfortunately, it is sometimes offered as, or used to play, an anti-multiculturalist ((25)) role.

A Stronger Sense of Whole

A third related charge is that, far from being a system that speaks to the whole of society, multiculturalism speaks only to and for the minorities within it. Thus it encourages resentment, fragmentation and disunity ((30)) ((5)). This can be prevented ((33)) or overcome ((28)) through an interculturalism that promotes community cohesion on a local level and the subscription ((29)) to national citizenship identities ((14)).

What such sentiment ignores is how all forms of prescribed unity retain a majoritarian bias that places the burden of adaptation upon the minority, and so is inconsistent with interculturalism’s alleged commitment to ‘mutual integration’. Much of the literature on national identity in particular has tended to be retrospective ((34)), to the extent that such contemporary concerns do not enjoy a widespread appeal ((46)).

By not easily fitting into a majoritarian account of national identity, or either being unable ((35)) or unwilling ((31)) to be reduced to or assimilated into a prescribed public culture, minority ‘differences’ may therefore become negatively conceived. The multicultural objective here was to place a greater emphasis upon the unifying potential of a renegotiated and inclusive national identity.

Illiberalism and Culture

The fourth charge is that multiculturalism lends itself to illiberality ((32)) and relativism, whereas interculturalism has the capacity to criticise and censure culture (as part of a process of intercultural dialogue), and so is more likely to emphasise the protection of individual rights ((15)). In Europe, this charge ((36)) assumes a role in the backlash ((10)) against multiculturalism and is particularly evident in debates concerning the accommodation of religious minorities, especially

when religion is perceived to take a conservative line on issues of gender equality, sexual orientation and progressive politics generally.

For these reasons, Muslim claims have been particularly characterised as ambitious and difficult to accommodate. This is the case when Muslims are perceived to be in contravention ((26)) of discourses of individual rights and secularism ((38)), and is exemplified by the way in which visible Muslim practices, such as veiling, have in public discourses been reduced to and conflated with alleged Muslim practices such as forced marriages, female genital mutilation, a rejection of positive law ((40)) in favour of criminal sharia law ((39)) and so on. This suggests a radical ‘otherness’ ((41)) about Muslims and an illiberality about multiculturalism ((42)), since the latter is alleged to license such practices ((37)).

It is difficult, however, not to view this as a knee- jerk reaction that condemns religious identities rather than examines them on a case-by-case basis while, on the other hand, assuming that ethnic identities are free of illiberalism. This is problematic given that some of these practices are not religious but cultural ((49)). It is much better to acknowledge that the ‘multi’ in ‘multiculturalism’ will encompass different kinds of groups and does not itself privilege any one kind ((16)), but that ‘recognition’ should be given to the identities that marginalised groups themselves value and find strength in ((17)), whether these be racial, religious or ethnic ((50)).

Taken as a whole, the interculturalism versus multiculturalism debate is one strand of wider discussion on the proper ways of reconciling cultural diversity with enduring forms of social unity. Interculturalism, and other concepts such as cohesion and indeed integration, need to be allied to multiculturalism rather than presented as an alternative.

(Published originally in the Journal of Intercultural Studies, 33((2)), April, 2012.)

(Adapted from $<$http://www.politicalinsightmagazine.com/?p=933$>$, Retrieved on August $1^{st}$, 2012.)

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