Editor's Introduction
“Germany's Integration Blinkers. What's So Bad About Parallel Societies?” by Henryk M. Broder, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2010
“Angela Merkel: German Multiculturalism has Utterly Failed,” by Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, October 17, 2010
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made international headlines with her recent remarks that “multiculturalism has utterly failed.” Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily “side by side” does not work in her country. The Chancellor’s statement created great debate since Germany recently has been immersed in an intense political controversy on multiculturalism and the question of whether or not there is a need to have a guiding national culture or “Leitkultur” when dealing with integration.
The article under review by Henryk M. Broder from the SpiegelOnline captures the extent of the debate through the following questions: “Why, then, does the term ‘parallel society’ have such a negative connotation in Germany? Why has multiculturalism ‘utterly failed?’ Why should people “with immigration backgrounds,” as Germans so carefully say, be forced to merge into the society of the majority if they would rather remain among themselves?” The article goes further by indicating that “ Only primitive societies that allow no differences of any kind, and dictatorships, which control all aspects of life, are free of parallel societies. Both the Third Reich and communist East Germany, for example, had no such thing. In flexible, changing populations, parallel societies are almost inevitable.”
These questions highlight an intense discussion about immigration policies in a country that is home to a great number of immigrants from Turkey, Russia, Poland, and other nations. In some cases the debate on multiculturalism has fostered discriminatory discourses against immigrants, particularly those of Muslim origin. Last week, Horst Seehofer, the Premier of Bavaria and a member of the Christian Social Union—part of Merkel's ruling coalition—called for a halt to Turkish and Arab immigration. Recent polls published by The Guardian showed one third of Germans believed the country was “overrun by foreigners.” It also found 55 percent of Germans believed that Arabs are “unpleasant people,” compared with the 44 percent who held the same opinion seven years ago.
Similar sentiments have been expressed in many Western countries, including Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands; in all of these places, anti-immigrant political parties made gains in recent elections. The United States is no exception to this tension, as demonstrated by the heated debate over Arizona’s new immigration law and the mosque-bashing at Ground Zero.
One of the biggest questions facing societies today continues to be how to respond to cultural and religious diversity. The backlash against multiculturalism, as expressed by Merkel’s statement, provides a new opportunity to re-examine the possible reasons behind the apparent failure of some national integration policies. This month’s panelists provide a wide array of perspectives on multiculturalism and integration through illustrative examples from Europe, Canada, and the United States.
These issues and others are considered in this month’s Roundtable.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
November 2010: Multiculturalism and Integration
Editor's Introduction
“Germany's Integration Blinkers. What's So Bad About Parallel Societies?” by Henryk M. Broder, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2010
“Angela Merkel: German Multiculturalism has Utterly Failed,” by Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, October 17, 2010
Citizenship, Rights and Culture
by Alison Brysk, University of California, Santa Barbara
"(…) Beyond this, those of us who are American citizens have a special obligation to hold our own society to its rights-based citizenship ideals. Racial profiling in Arizona’s immigration law, proposals to change the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to all born in the US, and mosque-bashing at Ground Zero and beyond are all betrayals of American values as well as international human rights."
Shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s repudiation of multiculturalism, the Soros Foundation announced the winners of its Fellowships for New Americans—an award for graduate study for foreign-born students whose career paths show initiative, accomplishment, and “commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution.” Dozens of America’s best and brightest are pursuing degrees in law, medicine, public policy, business, and the arts that will immensely enrich our national and global communities. Many of these outstanding Americans remain deeply rooted in their homelands and cultures. Two of the women wear headscarves, four of the honorees work as advocates for immigrant and refugee communities, and several more plan development research focused on the problems of their countries of origin, such as tropical diseases. All are "truer to values of our Constitution" than native-born Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware Republican Senate candidate who recently revealed her ignorance of the First Amendment.
The Soros Foundation embodies the best aspects of the American model of citizenship based on rights and values, not blood and soil. Although our progress towards this American ideal has been marred in every generation by bigotry and backlash, the fundamental assumption is that newcomers to our society can earn equal citizenship by civic behavior and belief. Conversely, when some immigrants to Germany cause social problems by failing to behave in accordance with Germany’s democratic norms, Germany’s mistake has not been in “allowing” them to maintain their languages and religions, but rather in inviting them only as labor commodities rather than potential citizens—then belatedly confusing cultural practice with civic behavior. Hate crimes, domestic violence, child abuse, and fraud in government services are real and serious civic problems, but they are law enforcement problems caused predominantly by class and social marginality—not by eating hummus rather than sausage. They are also forms of uncivic behavior shared by some native-born, majority-culture citizens, from American Christian cults to European skinheads.
It is instructive, and ironic, that the same characteristics of immigrant groups that are said to undermine democracy in one group or generation are lauded in another. In both Europe and the US, Asian entrepreneurs with deep family ties and little contact with other groups are said to exemplify good Confucian norms, while Hispanics and Muslim families with the same values and behavior are depicted as dangerously insular. Meanwhile, empirical research shows that US Muslims—about two-thirds foreign-born—are decidedly “middle-class and mainstream.” In a previous generation, American Catholics, now prominent in democratic leadership at all levels, were said to be untrustworthy citizens due to their hierarchical religious culture with foreign ties—just as some contemporary leaders condemn Muslims on the basis of an allegedly undemocratic identity. To the French, who have banned headscarves in schools on this basis, I respond as a patriotic American: I do not care what you wear on your head—I care about the ideas inside it, and how you act upon them.
Beyond this, those of us who are American citizens have a special obligation to hold our own society to its rights-based citizenship ideals. Racial profiling in Arizona’s immigration law, proposals to change the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to all born in the US, and mosque-bashing at Ground Zero and beyond are all betrayals of American values as well as international human rights. If a religious group can be deemed to forfeit their right to practice near sites of victimization because some members of the group committed abuses or received impunity inspired by their religious identity, we should forbid Catholic churches near elementary schools.
Even when fully realized, however, the American model is not multicultural but rather culture-neutral. As the denigration of bilingual education in California shows, there is no right to cultural identity in US law, although cultural expression is protected when it coincides with religious freedom. This American assimilation norm contradicts the growing corpus of cultural rights at the international level, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights. The melting-pot model also ignores contemporary thinking like Kwame Anthony Appiah’s that sees the identity of “cosmopolitan patriots” as a building block rather than a barrier to universalism. My immigrant grandmother was welcomed to American citizenship and social status as a public school teacher despite her foreign birth, minority language, and religion—but one of her duties was to Americanize the names of her newly arriving students, so they could access the same opportunities.
On the other hand, in Canada, the most developed contemporary model of true multiculturalism has sometimes foundered on legal pluralism that privileges group rights or customary codes over universal human rights norms, such as an experiment with allowing sharia family law in Ontario along with other “faith-based arbitration.” Indigenous as well as Muslim women in Canada have complained that the gender equity guaranteed by Canada’s own national Charter of Rights, as well as by international norms to which Canada subscribes, may be lost when leaders and traditions of their cultural communities are granted power over specific areas of legal decision-making. Somehow, multiculturalism must find a way to promote a plurality of cultural expression without granting cultural authority over the lives of individual citizens, who should retain the full panoply of universal rights—guaranteed in and by their state—regardless of group membership.
Diversity is a part of democracy. As Germany’s own history tragically teaches, democracy requires far more than majority rule—it rests on full and equal protection under the law, for native-born, naturalized, and non-citizens alike. I suggest that Angela Merkel visit the Soros website; this is what democracy looks like.
ALISON BRYSK is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina (1994), From Tribal Village to Global Village (2000), Human Rights and Private Wrongs (2005), and Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy (2009). Professor Brysk has been a visiting scholar in Argentina, Ecuador, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan. In 2007, she held the Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Chair in Global Governance at Canada's Centre for International Governance Innovation.
European Identity Struggles in the Age of Austerity
by Par Engstrom, University of London
"Right-wing political parties have managed to capitalize on the failure of integration of recent immigrants in many European countries and the increasing visibility of “parallel societies.” However, it is certainly paradoxical in a time of economic crisis and austerity that the most controversial political debates in Europe today seem to revolve around questions concerning the dress code of Muslim girls and women, and the building of minarets and mosques."
The economic crisis has coincided with a discernible rise of right-wing populist parties in a number of European countries. This was most recently seen in elections in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Right-wing populist parties also hold parliamentary seats in Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Norway, and they have been part of coalition governments in Italy and Switzerland for some time. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, although not represented in parliament, wields considerable political influence, and may receive an additional electoral boost should Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, inherit the party leadership. True, these parties still enjoy only rather limited electoral support. But their influence is more significant than what is reflected in their parliamentary mandates, particularly in relation to ongoing struggles over “European values” and identity.
Right-wing populism in Europe has, of course, deep historical roots. There are also many differences between the various right-wing populist parties gaining ground in Europe today. However, a striking commonality of contemporary manifestations of right-wing populism lies in the way in which these parties have managed to exploit undercurrents of European Islamophobia for electoral gain. Exploiting Islamophobia has proven to be strategically more effective in contemporary European politics than more traditional forms of xenophobia. The exploitation of concerns regarding, and in some quarters the fear of, Muslim immigration is the common denominator of the most recent resurgence of right-wing populist parties across Europe.
The growing visibility of Islam in Europe and the problem of integrating the large minority of Muslim citizens have become electoral issues that reflect a deep unease about what is perceived as the changing character of European societies. Clearly, established political parties and political elites have been inept at responding to these concerns and have failed to convey to voters that they take them seriously. The traditional parties have indeed found it difficult to come up with a coherent set of integration policies. Whilst a plethora of institutions has been set up and a veritable industry of integration experts have been employed, the traditional parties have become increasingly removed from voters’ concerns. Faced with the electoral challenges from right-wing populist parties, the traditional parties have moved further to the right in their attempts to sideline the far-right. As a consequence, from Denmark to France, governments have adopted increasingly restrictive and coercive immigration policies that have already started to undermine the very (“European”) values that they often purport to safeguard.
The right-wing populist parties have capitalized on the ineptitude of European political elites by cobbling together a discourse that resonates with a significant strata of voters and draws on Islamophobic sentiments on the one hand and the fear of exploitation of the social welfare state on the other. In so doing, right-wing populism has been remarkably successful in appealing both to socially conservative voters and to those concerned with safeguarding what remains of European social welfare states. Right-wing populist parties have also managed to portray themselves as willing to express sentiments they claim no one else dares to express: that Muslim immigration is undermining European societies; that “Islam” is encroaching on Western values; and that the “West” must be saved. They purport to be defenders of “European values” (freedom of expression and women’s rights in particular), while at the same time actively advocating for the suppression of those values for certain sections of the citizenry and with regards to other related values (most notably freedom of religion).
Traditional defenders of values such as free speech, secularism, and women’s rights have been largely ineffective in their response to right-wing populists who claim to be defending these values in debates over practical issues that most people can relate to, such as veiling in schools and the building of mosques. In part this can be explained by the general reluctance of the political left, still recovering from its earlier embrace of rather crude notions of “multiculturalism,” to fully engage in the debates around “European values.”
However, the current malaise also reflects the more profound reality, highlighted by the economic crisis, of the long-term and structural decline of the (Northern) European social-democratic model. The recent rise of right-wing populism in Northern Europe in particular is linked with declining support of social-democratic parties. This broader trend raises fundamental questions regarding the sustainability of welfare systems based on notions of solidarity as societies become culturally more heterogeneous, societal bonds of trust increasingly fragmented, and shared values and common visions of what constitutes a “good society” increasingly challenged. It is also connected with underlying concerns about the future in a world where the balance of power is rapidly shifting away from Europe (and the West more generally) and in which an ageing Europe is existentially threatened by more dynamic parts of the world.
Right-wing political parties have managed to capitalize on the failure of integration of recent immigrants in many European countries and the increasing visibility of “parallel societies.” However, it is certainly paradoxical in a time of economic crisis and austerity that the most controversial political debates in Europe today seem to revolve around questions concerning the dress code of Muslim girls and women, and the building of minarets and mosques. Voters’ discontent must be seen partly against the background of the fears of many workers whose wages are being undercut by immigrant labor , and partly against a widely shared disillusionment with traditional political elites that have largely evaded the tough question of how to respond to voters’ concerns. Yet, in most of Europe, with the partial exceptions of France and Greece, political resignation reigns over the need for fiscal austerity. Instead of struggles against draconian budget cuts, Europe’s “autumn of discontent” has brought heated debates over European identity and values.
Par Engstrom is lecturer in human rights at the Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and teaches at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas. Current research interests focus on regional human rights institutions both comparatively and with a particular reference to the Inter-American Human Rights System. Further research interests include the relationship between human rights and democratization; transitional justice; the international relations of the Americas; human rights, humanitarianism, and foreign policy; and theories of international relations, particularly relating to international law and institutions. http://sas.academia.edu/ParEngstrom/About
Multiculturalism and the Struggle of National Normative Challenges
by Marc Alexander C. Gionet, St. Thomas University
"It may appear to be disordered and tensioned, but the existence of a multicultural society that is able to reasonably accommodate a vast spectrum of beliefs and practices without compromising normative values is possible. The functionality of such a society requires a high threshold of respect, education, and accessible mechanisms for conflict resolution."
Globalization has not translated into a set of universal monolithic values. As populations relocate for various reasons, increasingly less effort is required not only to stay connected, but to remain within the home community via satellite television, radio, telecommunications, and locally concentrated diaspora. Henryk M. Broder has described such a phenomenon as the development of “parallel societies, ” which result from immigrants’ failure or lack of interest in integrating into a host community. The question that many commentators have attempted to answer is: does the development of parallel societies, or even additional cultural diversity, represent a threat or a compromise to the normative values of a host country? The simple yet intricate answer is—it depends.
France has generated considerable discussion surrounding its decision to ban the niqab in official spaces such as hospitals, post offices, and public transit. A cross-party Parliamentary Commission published a report on the issue which stated “wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic.” And two out of three French citizens would agree, supporting a ban, which was recently passed, extending to all public spaces.
Whether the rationale for donning a face veil is cultural or religious in its roots is rather inconsequential. Whether the practice is viewed as an exercise of agency or the result of sexual inequality and oppression is also secondary to the fundamental question of how personal garb represents a threat to the Republic of France. If the threat can be more accurately referred to as a populist sentiment of discomfort, then that hardly seems to meet any sort of legal criteria. Such practices may be offensive to some, but its tolerance speaks to a democratic society’s foundational principles to provide space and accommodation for an inclusive spectrum of expression and belief.
Fear seems to stem from the question of what happens when “parallel societies” aren’t parallel at all, and instead of self-isolating fringe societies become assertive, resulting in a clash of rights which are held in equal esteem before the law. Canada is also going through a period of experiential learning in its attempts to balance societal norms with multicultural accommodation. The “kirpan case,” as it has come to be known, exemplifies a reasonable balance.
In 2001, a twelve year old orthodox Sikh dropped his kirpan, or ceremonial dagger, in a schoolyard. The school board’s governing body ruled that the dagger violated its ban on bringing "dangerous and forbidden objects" onto school property and told the student to leave it at home, despite protests that the kirpan was not a weapon but a religious symbol which must be worn at all times.
The case worked its way to the Supreme Court where, in a unanimous decision, the court ruled a complete ban was a violation of the Charter right to religious freedom—but concessions were made to school boards allowing for regulations to ensure public safety. As such, Sikhs could carry kirpans to school, but only if they were sewn into a protective sheath. Most would agree that the judicial remedy was a reasonable accommodation, but the process of coming to such a remedy took over five years and considerable resources to litigate.
With the increased publicity of similar cases, deliberated by courts as well as by provincial human rights commissions, an inflated fear of over-compromise seems to be gripping public sentiment. More conservative elements of society are pushing for “foreign” cultural or religious groups to secularize within the public sphere, while accepting dominant religious symbols and practices in the same public space. Perceived threats to normative values are further inflamed by sensational cases such as honor killings, which have occurred in Ontario and other provinces.
What seems to be lost in this exchange is the realization that, however tenuous, the mechanisms in place to help accommodate multiculturalism without sacrificing normative societal values are working. For example, a Sikh employee in a food warehouse wants to wear a kara, a metal bracelet that represents an expression of the Sikh faith, but the warehouse has a jewelry ban for employees who handle food due to hygienic concerns. As an accommodation, the employee could wear the kara provided he or she also wears a glove which covers the article and adheres to public health standards. Such an accommodation does not threaten normative values, and in cases where accommodation would be threatening—such as sentencing leniency for murder on the basis of cultural practice—no accommodation has been provided, nor remotely entertained.
It may appear to be disordered and tensioned, but the existence of a multicultural society that is able to reasonably accommodate a vast spectrum of beliefs and practices without compromising normative values is possible. The functionality of such a society requires a high threshold of respect, education, and accessible mechanisms for conflict resolution.
Marc Alexander C. Gionet is the Director of the Atlantic Human Rights Research and Development Centre housed at St. Thomas University where he also lectures within the undergraduate human rights programme. Mr. Gionet is currently teaching courses on Humanitarian Law, NGOs and Human Rights and Terrorism and Human Rights. His most recent publication discusses the transfer of Canadian captured detainees to third parties in Afghanistan.
A Protection Post-Mortem on the "Death" of Multiculturalism in Germany
"Of course, it is one thing if immigrants choose, as is their right, to maintain strong links with their cultural heritage and community of origin, thereby co-existing in so-called “ parallel societies,” all the while participating in Germany’s economic and cultural development. However, it is another matter entirely when state policy and practice put legal, administrative, and institutional obstacles in their path towards integration.
"Noticeably absent from the recent pronouncements of the “death” of multiculturalism in Germany, including Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own conclusion that the policy had “utterly failed,” has been any interest to seriously examine, let alone address, the reasons for such a failure.
Instead, it is asserted with matter-of-fact conviction that the lack of integration into German society by “immigrants” (a label that ignores the fact that many of the people in question have been in the country for two or three generations) is of their own doing. Of course, it is one thing if immigrants choose, as is their right, to maintain strong links with their cultural heritage and community of origin, thereby co-existing in so-called “parallel societies,” all the while participating in Germany’s economic and cultural development. However, it is another matter entirely when state policy and practice put legal, administrative, and institutional obstacles in their path towards integration.
Many of these problems originate in the education system, thereby impeding integration from the earliest age. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, following a fact-finding mission to Germany in 2006, reported on “the phenomena of exclusion and marginalization of schoolchildren, in particular those of immigrant origin” resulting from a system of classifying children at the age of ten for funnelling into one of three parallel education tracks. The criteria used for this life-changing assessment (for which it was found the assessors were not always adequately trained) give “disproportionate weight” to proficiency in the German language, with the effect of discriminating against children of foreign origin without adequately supporting them to achieve this requirement. Consequently, children of immigrant origin are over-represented at the Hauptschule vocational schools, while they are underrepresented at the academically-oriented Gymnasium schools. Echoing these findings, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has reported that children of immigrants also are overrepresented in “special schools for ‘under-achievers’ (Sonderschulen),” while being underrepresented in secondary and tertiary education. The UN Committee called on the German government to “take effective measures to ensure the integration of children of non-citizens in the regular school system” including by improving programs to support the German language skills of such children. A National Integration Summit and Summit on Education for Migrant Children, both convened by Chancellor Merkel in 2006, outlined over 400 additional suggested measures to improve access to education for children and youth with a migration background.
That much work remains to be done today is evident from the report to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year by the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, who called for comprehensive corrective measures throughout all education levels. In particular, he underscored the need to invest more effort in promoting German language competence among preschool children, considering the long-term and wide-ranging impact this would have on their future educational and therefore also employment opportunities.
Another key concern is the discrimination that migrant communities face in terms of access to housing. Paradoxically, this discrimination is enabled, the Special Rapporteur pointed out, by a provision in the General Equal Treatment Act that allows different treatment on the grounds of race or ethnic origin in the case of housing rentals when this would “serve to create and maintain stable social structures [...] as well as balanced economic, social and cultural conditions” providing a large legal loophole in which discriminatory practices can flourish. This drives migrant communities to settle together in certain “minority areas” which then creates additional barriers to their integration, particularly with regard to their gaining language proficiency.
Further, the Special Rapporteur noted that this process of ghettoization has “fostered the image of migrant communities as being ‘secluded’ and ‘unwilling’ to integrate.” This speaks to a fundamental problem in how the debate over integration has been framed in Germany. The Special Rapporteur observed that although “integration should be a two-way process involving both migrants and German society”, in reality “the debate so far has focused solely on the ‘responsibility’ of migrants to integrate, a term which in many instances is interchangeably used to mean assimilation.” However, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) points out in its 2007 report on Islam and Identity in Germany, placing the onus of adjustment entirely on immigrants not only is an “unrealistic expectation” it also serves “to encourage the authorities and political class to evade their responsibilities to facilitate this evolution.” Accordingly, ICG concluded that “German rather than Turkish attitudes were the primary factor precluding effective integration.”
Like a prescription for a patient who is ill, the reports issued by the UN human rights system and by NGOs over the years not only have documented and diagnosed the problems impeding the integration of migrant communities in Germany; they also have recommended ways to remedy the situation. If the German government actually is interested to reverse the “failure” of multiculturalism and to fulfil its human rights obligations, it is still not too late to follow the doctors’ orders.
Erin Mooney is a consultant to the United Nations and the Brookings Institution on issues of human rights and forced migration and Adjunct Professor in International Relations at the University of Toronto (2008-10). The views expressed are those of the author, writing in an independent capacity.
Posts
