A Paradox of Multicultural Societies

Acceptance, perhaps even celebration, of cultural diversity is now orthodox. No longer are immigrants or the descendents of immigrants, expected to submerge themselves without making any waves beneath the dominant culture. Nor are indigenous minorities or migrant workers required to assimilate themselves with minimum visibility into an amorphous whole. This acceptance of cultural diversity, whatever its motive, is expressive of, and justified by, a belief in equality. A multicultural society cannot hope to treat its citizens as equals unless it is also prepared to show equal concern and respect for their cultures. This is a fairly straightforward point but a vital one. Culture and cultural identity are of quite crucial significance. Most obviously culture is an important source of a person’s sense of her own identity, of who she is and where, and to what, she belongs. Cultures are classically centred on a religion [l] or on some other set of deeply held beliefs, but culture ranges far wider than this. Acceptance of other cultures’ equal right to exist, or to co-exist, involves not simply their freedom to believe, but also to be. Culture is not just a matter of doctrine but also of lifestyle. It includes as T. S. Eliot remarked, “all the characteristic activities and interests of a people” 121. But not only of ‘a people’, also a group or class [3]. So, to deny respect to someone’s culture can hardly fail to be insulting; and in that it will inevitably gainsay either their religion or perhaps some other deeply held beliefs and also their way of life, or some important aspect of their way of life, injury will be added to insult. And part of the added injury they suffer will be the injury of suffering injustice. A recent writer on multicultural education puts this point very well, P. H. Walkling [4] notes the injustice of requiring “a man crassly to accept the unimportance or worthlessness of the things he holds most dear” and argues that this is