Guest editorialThe rights of women and the crisis of multiculturalism (original) (raw)
Across Europe, the discourse and practices of multiculturalism are in crisis. Politicians compete to stress the importance of a strong sense of national identity and belonging, and have come to regard diversity as a problem rather than a resource. The language of integration-once perceived by many as objectionably close to assimilation-increasingly dominates debate. Newspaper articles call on immigrants to confirm that they have opted for the values of their host society, while governments insist on applicants for citizenship undergoing courses in the national language and what are said to be the values of the host country. Multiculturalism-never as powerful a force in European politics as its critics have suggested-has come to be associated with ethnic ghettos and people living 'parallel lives'. Multiculturalism was attacked from the right almost from its inception, and was repudiated by segments of the left for allegedly burying the inequalities of race in vague celebrations of cultural difference. It was never adopted as official policy in any part of Europe, though Belgium has long pursued what might be described as policies of multiculturalism in relation to its major language groups, and Norway, Sweden, and Finland have increasingly recognized the rights of the indigenous Sami people, most notably with the creation of a Sami Parliament in Norway. In France, however, multiculturalism was rejected pretty much out of hand as at odds with republican principles; 1 in Germany, as at odds with a predominantly ethnicized conception of citizenship; while in Italy or Spain, multiculturalism barely figured in either popular or political discourse until the last few years. In those countries most commonly cited as exemplars of multicultural
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