Calgary elects a Muslim mayor

Mr Naheed Nenshi was elected Mayor of Calgary last night. The CBC News headline points out that he's the first Muslim mayor of a major Canadian city. In the (linked) webcast Mr Nenshi himself says that people in Canada can wake up and say that in Calgary "...I can be anything", and, indeed, symbolically, his victory is significant in a time when there is so much suspicion directed towards Muslims worldwide. Hopefully, it can contribute to the de-politicization of Islam in Canada. It's also interesting to note that he won in Calgary, rather than Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, which are the cities that are otherwise most famous for ethnic diversity in Canada....

The Globe and Mail explores Multiculturalism

In a series of video features, the first one available here, the major Canadian Daily discusses Multiculturalism and immigration. It's an interesting talk, and to at least some extent revolves around the same topics noted in previous posts on this blog, i.e. the dilemma of groupism, the problems of discrimination and essentialization and the challenges ahead. For those not familiar with the Canadian debate, it could be an interesting example of the public discourse. For those familiar, some of the questions and answers might contribute to further thought on the subject.

Pay special attention to Mr. Tarek Fatah. In the videos, he claims that Multiculturalism has failed in Canada, and that a shift is necessary towards a focus on race instead of culture. Some of the points he raises seem quite poignant to me, for instance the tendency for dominant groups to consider the most different practices of 'others' as cultural markers, as opposed to "eating ice cream and watching the ball game", which can result in segregation rather than integration. This observation forces us to ask how 'cultural difference' is defined, and who gets to define cultural difference.

Still, I'm not convinced that a shift to a focus on race will be the solution. Culture and ethnic heritage does matter, and the right to self-expression should not be underestimated. I feel that Mr. Fatah in this case builds something of a false dichotomy, where culture and race, which can both become grounds for objectification, discrimination, exclusion, or otherness (whatever you want to call it), somehow stand against each other. Indeed, he uses the modern connotations of race when dismissing that Ukrainians or other groups experienced discrimination when entering Canada in the early 20th century, omitting that Italians, Eastern Europeans and even French were, indeed, discussed in terms of their "racial difference" from the British. "Race", like other markers of identity, is not static.

It seems that Kymlicka's notion of building self-protection rights for individuals which allows them to retain cultural differences while not allowing groups to oppress individual members remains a potent idea. Alas, it was absent in this debate.

Scepticism towards scholars...

On the heels of the nationalist Sweden Democrat party entering the Swedish parliament, issues of immigration and multiculturalism have been given more attention in the press. DN, major Swedish daily, recently published a letter to the editor arguing that "four out of ten" respondents in a survey claim to be sceptical towards researchers and scholars studying matters of ethnic relations and integration. That those who support a populist nationalist party would be sceptical towards such research when it does not support their agenda is hardly very surprising. However, the notion that 40 % of the population (provided that the survey is valid, which I cannot speak to) also is sceptical towards the results of academic research is quite alarming, particularly for those who think that enlightment is the primary means by which to create more understanding, tolerance and respect in society.

At the very least, this might be a reminder that we who engage in this kind of research must devote some time to sharing and explaining the results of our work with a wider audience...

Beyond multiculturalism?

In two recent articles in the Globe and Mail, here and here, it is argued that the term multiculturalism might have outlived its usefulness. In the first, Malik argues that the concept has led to a thinking where people are put in "ethnic boxes" and treated exclusively according to their heritage, reduced simply to being representatives of their ethnic groups. This is critique that is fairly common now, and it's certainly been voiced in Europe as well (as has been stated on this page before), for instance in this piece on the Swedish debate site Newsmill.

The second piece argues that Canada should adopt more rigorous language testing and credentials recognition using the Australian model, which allegedly is smoother (though I have to admit that I have seen no studies on the Australian case). It also states that citizenship entails responsibilities as well as rights.

There are important points made here, but also room for raising some caveats. First, while group-think is all too common in the public (and sometimes even academic) debate, it is worthwhile remembering that Multiculturalism was introduced to counter the strong policies of assimilation that preceeded it. Therefore, any replacement of multiculturalism must include a recognition that a) ethnicity is an important marker of identity for many people and that there should be room in public space to recognize that for each individual, b) that immigration in itself often is a fundamental formative moment in the life of the migrant and that this important experience should not be neglected in the public discourse and, c) that also the dominant "mainstream" population has an ethnicity and that practices informed by this ethnicity (involuntarily) can become discriminatory against minorities.

The risk is that the critique against multiculturalism becomes a backlash, leaving the space open for assimilatory policies. It is interesting, for instance, to note that the Globe and Mail editorial feels that specifically new citizens must informed of citizen obligations, which to some extent implies that this segment of the citizenry cannot be entirely trusted with doing their duties, which leaves a lot of questions open, such as what duties? Immigrants to Canada generally do not vote to a lesser degree than the native born population, and if immigrants lack jobs or are under employed, it might have to do with the Canadian immigration policy, rather than the immigration population, which the editorial itself points out.

If it is time to move beyond multiculturalism, and it might be, then care has to be taken so that the embraced alternative does not result in further alienation of the ethnic "others"...

The assault on Multiculturalism continues

It seems Dilsa Demirbag-Sten has decided to make Multiculturalism her target in the debate on integration in Sweden. In her piece in DN she argues that this "-ism" focuses on differences rather than similarities and thus risks segregating society rather than integrating it. This effect, she goes on, comes from the "isms" way of essentializing immigrants as different from Swedes, forcing them to become group represenatives rather than individuals.

This is almost verbatim the same type of argument that Neil Bissoondath launched against Multiculturalism in Canada about 15 years ago, which should allow Demirbag-Sten, and others interested in the tension of identities to look to Canada to see whether these kinds of fears are actually warranted.

My answer would be: no. Canada might also negotiate identities in public space, but the fears of fragmentation that Demirbag-Sten voices are, as far as I can tell, widely overstated. And there are some problems with her arguments: first of all - what is her alternative? Assimilation? In any given contemporary society today, people of a plurality of ethincities coexist in some fashion, and this is constantly evident in public space, not only in terms of languages and religions that people speak, but even in so trivial things as food. Is the Chinese restaurant on the corner, with the storefront sign in Chinese, a threat to Swedish commonality? While this might seem like a banal example, it does underline that there is more than one ethnicity in Sweden.

I think Demirbag-Sten and others who worry about the potential for individuals to reach their full potential in society should rather be concerned with processes of racialization; Why are immigrants treated as a homogenous group in Swedish public space? Why is an individual reduced to a group identity? And more importantly, why does this group identity obfuscate the capacity and competency of the individual (who might very well be proud over this identity, and don't want to deny it, but might also wants to be seen as more than just that identity)? These are all questions that can be answered by studying how identities are constructed in public space, and how the images of those identities becomes guiding for public policy and political action, and manifests as discrimination, potentially on a structural level.

Attacking Multiculturalism will likely draw attention away from these questions and therefore do more harm than good...

More confusion on Multiculturalism in Sweden

It looks like the backlash trend against multiculturalism in Europe continues, as is evident from these comments Selimovic, a liberal candidate for Parliament. He argues that multiculturalism, as a political ideology, cements identities and encourages differences, leading to extremists becoming seen as the "proper" spokespersons for different ethnic communities (he's actually thinking about Muslims here). Thus, moderate forces are marginalized, he concludes. The critique is very similar to Neil Bissoondath's critique of Canadian multiculturalism in the mid -90s.

But I feel that Selimovic is a series of incorrect assumptions that finally leads him to flawed to conclusions. First of all, the reason that moderate forces within ethnic communities (in this case Muslims) have been marginalized, is not because of multiculturalism as a political ideology, but rather because who the gatekeepers to access to public space are. In this case, we're talking about the Swedish media and the Swedish political parties, both of which are dominated, in the higher echelons, but ethnic Swedish middle class people who know very little about the ethnic communities around them. I would hypothesize that they have invited whomever they think fits their own stereotypes about the ethnic "others", people who can be visibly easily identified as not ethnic Swedes and (preferably) have opinons that also come across as fairly foreign. To what extent such people actually represent the points of view of the people they are supposed to represent is never investigated properly, at least this is my impression.

I'm also kind of curious about how multiculturalism forms a coherent "political ideology". While it is true that many in public space, both politicians, scholars and others, too often engage in essentialist assumptions about identity, there is really nothing in multiculturalism itself that makes this a requirement, as far as I can tell. Rather, it simply recognizes that contemporary societies are ethnically diverse, and that this matters in politics.

I'm also kind of curious about what policy alternative Selimovic and his Liberal party sees to multiculturalism? The article speaks about emphasizing "commonalities, dialogue and expectations", but say little about any practical policies. And why areethnic differences seen as so problematic? They exist, why shouldn't they be acknowledged and accepted?

Forum on integration on Swedish TV

Swedish public service TV gathered experts and politicians for a debate on integration politics the other day. Blogg commentators seem particularly pleased by the statements of Sakime Madon, who is regarded as an expert on the field by many. She criticizes what she lables "identity politics" - i.e. the tendency for Swedish governments to devote special attention and programmes to interventions targeted at immigrants specifically and even argues that they do more harm than good by singling out immigrants as particularly helpless.

While some of her arguments are sound - the programmes have indeed had little effect - her analysis still falls short in some respects. For instance, she fails to recognize that long-term unemployed immigrants do often face more barriers to employment than the average unemployed person would. Indeed, it is an inescapable fact that the Swedish labour market, like in so many other entrenched democracies, is strongly ethnically segmented, where clearly the most racialized minorities are to be found at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarcy (in Sweden, this will often be Somalis). Instead of getting hung up on the percieved evils of identity-politics (critiquing identity politics and multiculturalism seems quite fashionable in Sweden now), maybe experts should ask themselves why these quite substantial government programmes have failed....

On a brighter note, Pernilla Ouis writes an quite sound analysis of the typical ideological pitfalls in the Swedish political debate on islam in all ideological camps.