UNDERSTANDING OF INTERCULTURALISM AND HUMAN SOLIDARITY IN M.G. VASSANJI’S NO NEW LAND.

Interculturalism refers to support for cross-cultural dialogue and challenging self-segregation tendencies within cultures. Interculturalism involves moving beyond mere passive acceptance of a multicultural fact of multiple cultures effectively present in a society and instead promotes dialogue and interaction among cultures. Interculturalism has arisen in response to criticisms of existing policies of multiculturalism, such as criticisms that such existing multicultural policies had failed to create inclusion of different cultures within a society, but instead have divided society by legitimizing segregated separate communities that have isolated themselves and accentuated their specificity. It is based on the recognition of both differences and similarities among cultures. It has addressed the risk of the creation of absolute relativism in postmodernity and multiculturalism. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum in her work Cultivating Humanity describes interculturalism as involving "the recognition of common human needs across cultures and of dissonance and critical dialogue within cultures" and that interculturalists "reject the claim of identity politics that only members of a particular group can understand the perceptive of that group.