The policy of multiculturalism

Introduction

The globalization cause the process of culture’s output of geographical isolation, these cultures, which earlier cross over or coexisted with each other really rarely. The modern Europe, very peaceful and democratic, created the conditions for meeting in it representatives of different cultures and countries.

Certainly in England, as in other European countries, different little communities of not similar to English people’ confessions and culture have been living for ages. But they stood out among the indigenous population. It was almost impossible to meet a man wearing turban or a woman wearing yashmak on the street in Great Britain. However, in the end of 20 century the things started changing: the number of these different ethnical and confessional groups began to increase rapidly.

Among British politicians and simply indifferent citizens the topic of coming problem in interethnic relationships is becoming more and more popular. Because of the financial crisis this problem is getting acuter. Many experts agree in opinion that Great Britain began to transform to the society of coexisted but in the same time autonomous ethno-religious enclaves.

The policy of multiculturalism

Multiculturalism as a way of overcoming of cultural-ethnic gap

The first model of the overcoming of cultural-ethnic gap is assimilation. It is oriented to the full dissolution of an ethnic minority in a society of dominant cultural and ethnic group.

The second way to mention is integrative model. In this situation every small community save its own identity, but in the same time socio-political and private spheres are distinctly divided. At the same the principle of equality of rights and freedoms is performed, but cultural, ethnic and religious aspects are considered to be the private matter of every person. Usually in this case the policy of effacement of national differences is also cared, but not always publicly.

Multiculturalism is the third model of getting round of this problem. It appeared recently in 70^th of 20 century in the USA and Canada. Multiculturalism is a variety of culture, based on tolerate attitude to each other of different cultures, which have to live together in one society, when the culture and traditions of all of them don’t change.

The idea of multiculturalism is the most popular in highly developed societies of Europe, where the level of development has been high for a long time. In modern Europe multiculturalism is first of all based on including the elements of culture of the immigrants from the Third world in cultural spheres of the host country.

Multiculturalism is rather wide concept. Besides of all said before, multiculturalism is synthesis of liberal and communitarian ideas: it has the aim of uniting, taken from communitarianism, and liberal understanding of personality and tolerance.

In fact, the discussion between liberal and communitarian representatives caused the emergence of multiculturalism’s theory.

In 1980^th the principals of multiculturalism were using in the majority of European countries. Because of the serious problems which European countries were faced with the previous integrative model was left. A lot of immigrants who had come to Great Britain didn’t want to assimilate. Moreover, they were uniting into different ethnic communities, what helped them to defend their rights, including the rights of preserving the culture, traditions and customs which they had in their motherland. In these conditions multiculturalism became the most suitable policy to resort to.

The history of multiculturalism in Great Britain

In 1980-1990^th in Great Britain, as all over Europe, the multicultural society began to replace the national one. But in fact this process started a bit earlier. Let’s look over the migration to England for several decades.

The most significant influx of immigrants took place in 50-60^th of 20 century. In those days manpower shortage came to Europe after the war when the economy of countries was going throw changes: the country needed ordinary workers to work on factories and plants. But local workers haven’t gone to these low-skilled, low-paid and dirty jobs: the government was supplying them with various allowances, helped them financially and etc. To eliminate the deficit of manpower English government invited workers from developing countries who were satisfied with rather low salary.

Before 60-70^th the majority of these workers came from former English colonies, that’s why the immigrant usually knew English language somehow and was familiar with English laws. That made his adaptation mach easier. Migrants predominately got a low-skilled job in the industrial factories and plants. But in order to raise their social status they had to know the language perfectly, get qualification, teach their children in local school to ensure their future, in short – to integrate into local community. They worked in big collectives, where they also had to get on well with other English workers. In other words, immigrant had to communicate with local residents of different social levels, status, etc. In such a way, he had to behave himself as respectable citizen of host country. That’s the reason for a rarity of clashes between local citizens and immigrants. Possibly, this was also due to the fact that there number of immigrants in Great Britain was quite small.

There was one other influx of immigrants in those days. It included people from former English colonies (who didn’t want to continue living In their motherland under the new regime), ethnically mixed families, some students. The necessity to integrate for them was even more important that for the aforementioned group of workers: their current social level and prestige depended on their relationship with the collective.

The main adherents of multicultural ideology were members of the Labour Party (and, by the way, they do so even now). For a long time they have been promoting the policy of multiculturalism in Great Britain as the best way to overcome ethnic and cultural gap. A lot of politicians are saying that this is because the majority of the immigrants are finding Labour party the best and vote for them in elections. Possibly, the Labour Party’ preference of the policy of multiculturalism is conditioned by the serious dependence on votes of local immigrants.

In such a way, British politicians (first of all – Laborites) contributed significantly to growth of immigrants’ interest in their own, not similar to local citizens’ religion and culture: local authorities in the UK have channeled their funds actively to support multicultural policy: many faith schools were established, many temples and churches were opened. The government has spent a lot of money on social support programs. Of course, different communities were supported, but exactly the communities of non-Christian religions (Muslims, Hindu and etc) became the recipients of special municipal programs. The aim of them is elimination of elements of immigrants’ discrimination, their integration into indigenous society and, at the same time, preservation of their national and religious identity. All of aforementioned attract the interest of migration to Great Britain.

As a result, since 70^th of 20 century the situation of migration started changing. The warm and friendly atmosphere was replaced by misunderstanding.

Firstly, the nature of migration has changed. Three new types of immigrants appeared: refugee, illegal immigrant and temporary immigrant.

1) The refugee, as a rule, is least adapted to integration into society. Part of them are hoping to come home back after the end of the war, political upheaval and etc, another part is satisfied with receiving allowance.

2) The temporary immigrant aims on making money and after returning to his motherland, he doesn’t care about what is going on around him.

3) The illegal immigration was caused, on one hand, by deterioration of people’s live in developing countries, and, on the other hand, by the entry restrictions in many European countries. As refugee and temporary immigrant, it is very difficult for illegal immigrant to integrate into English society.

Secondly, fuel and energy crisis has worsened the conditions in many old industries: these enterprises were closed or moved to developing world. As a result, service industry became the main sphere for immigrant to work in. The most important features of this sphere are no need of qualification, minimal contacts with society, working in a little collective (or alone) and low level of social prestige. That’s why such a job emerged to be the most suitable for low-qualified or unskilled immigrant from developing country.

Thirdly, unemployment in those day Great Britain is becoming higher and higher (from 3-4% to 9-11%), when the increase of immigrants’ number make Britons think that workplaces are occupied by immigrants (actually, local workers don’t apply for such a low-status job). As a result, local citizens, especially the lowest class of them, have aversion to immigrants.

Fourthly, the decrease of the required level of the language’s knowledge, qualification and etc led to increase of immigration. But besides immigrants from former colonies a lot of people from other countries (Afghans, Iranians and Yemenis) came to England. Meanwhile, the composition of the immigrants from former colonies has changed: they had grown up in independent country with its own laws, traditions and language. That’s why they are becoming complete strangers in host country. Of course, this fact is hindering integration in local society.

The illegality of arrival and staying in host country itself connects immigrants with criminal structures, activities and, in the end, deprives of the opportunity to find a lawful job.

As a result, the immigrant is out of the indigenous society, which is relating to him unfriendly or even hostility. The immigrant has to interact only with people like him, immigrants. He comes to some special suburb and lives there among newcomers, communicates with them, doesn’t know local laws and language, doesn’t see the point in teaching his children in local schools and etc. He joins the group of his compatriots very quickly. This group of people becomes all-sufficient community: it has its own religious organizations, schools and even courts.

But subsequently this fraternity turns to be the center of attraction for the all types of the immigrants of this ethnos, including even highly qualified professors and specialists, who have already integrated into indigenous society. This is due to the fact, that people have always been wanting to save their traditions and customs, to attach their children to native culture.

The consequence of immigration in 20^th century was formation of multicultural society: ethno-confession communities of immigrants, connected by language and traditions, interact with individuals-citizens of Great Britain. The entrepreneurs have been using cheap and sometimes unequal labor to increase additional profit, but, at the same time, it is leading to emergence and growth of ethnic and confessional contradictions between local citizens and newcomers and sometimes between different immigrants’ groups.

The problems

The results of multicultural policy in Great Britain in20th century

The outcome of multicultural policy of 20^th century is ever-increasing number of immigrants, what is shown on picture in application 1.

Final Long-Term International Migration estimates show that 566,000 people immigrated to the UK in 2011 and among of them. There are 150.000 illegal immigrants.

The International Passenger Survey estimates India as the top country for people coming to the UK with 11.9% of all immigrants. It's followed by Poland, Australia and the USA. (see application 2)

The number and the power of these immigrants’ communities, which are not going to integrate into indigenous society, increase precipitously.

All of these is contributing to more and more frequent conflicts and clashes between local citizens and immigrants.

Problems in theory and in practice

Tourist brochures and government speeches usually represent Great Britain in such a way authorities want to see it – different and at the same time united country, where whites, Asians and blacks are living in equality and peace. They usually prove it referring to Notting Hill festival of Jamaican culture (application 3) and to the fact carry (application 4) has become the national dish of Britons. But the reality is quite different: separate districts with poor houses, private churches and temples, private schools, shops. The ideal multicultural society doesn’t exist.

The topic of multicultural policy’s failure isn’t the new one. It has been discussed for about at least ten years.

In 1990 Norman Tebbit, chairman of the Conservative Party, proposed the "Cricket test", also known as the "Tebbit Test", where he argued that whether people from ethnic minorities in Britain supported the England Cricket team rather than the team from their country of ancestry: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?" http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jan/08/britishidentity.race

The next significant statements on the topic of multiculturalism’s failure appeared in May of 2001, when in Oldham (the town not far from Manchester where there are a lot of immigrants) serious unrests on ethnic grounds took place. These unrests were far from the first ones, but they were the biggest among the previous. The aggravation of the situation started after local Asians youth’s attempt to set closed for white Britons areas. In opinion of immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan, who lived there, the police have done nothing to stop some attacks on them made by local extremist groupings, what leaded to mass riots.

In order to investigate these ethnic clashes Labour government established special commission to find out the reasons for these conflicts and devise some complex of edicts to decrease the risk of clash’s repetition in future.

In December of 2001 a report called “Community Cohesion” was presented to the government by Independent Review Team chaired by Ted Cantle. The 'Cantle Report', as it became known, provided a national overview of the state of race and community relations, following visits to a wide range of towns and cities, including both riot stricken areas and those that had not experienced any tensions. This report showed that immigrants’ communities are placed in isolated city blocks, where, as a rule, it is impossible to come across Britons. Immigrants are not integrated into British society, they are not connected with indigenous citizens neither in housing sector no in culture sector; they live their own, separate, “parallel life”.

A report of the independent review team chaired by Ted Cantle(http://www.tedcantle.co.uk/publications/001%20Cantle%20Report%20CCRT%202001.pdf)

After familiarization with Cantle report many politicians concluded that multicultural policy, which was holding in country for about 2 decades, doesn’t valid anymore.

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, in 2004 said that multiculturalism was out of date and no longer useful, not least because it encouraged "separateness" between communities.

In 2005 next wave of discussions occurred. It was caused by acts of terrorism: on the morning of Thursday, 7 July, four Islamist home-grown terrorists(three from Pakistan and one from Jamaica) detonated four bombs, three in quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus. Fifty-two civilians and the four bombers were killed in the attacks, and over 700 more were injured.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4674469.stm

In 2007 the research showed that one third of Muslims consider, that other Muslims from other countries are much closer to them than Britons.

Well-known riots in immigrants’ quarters in London and other cities of England (Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol) in August, 2011 have demonstrated the failure of multicultural policy one more time and proved the rightness of these experts and politicians, who predicted happening a lot of bad things to Great Britain in case of continuing support of multiculturalism.

After these riots the prime minister of Great Britain, David Cameron, expressed his view at a security conference in Munich.

David Cameron has criticised "state multiculturalism" in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism.

He argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism," the prime minister said.

"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?

"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations," he added.

(bbc news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994)

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