Multicultural Society, Multiculturalism & Nation Building

By Prof. ram dev bharadwaj

Department of Political Science Rani Durgavati University Jabalpur(MP) 482001.India <ramdevbharadwaj47@rediffmail.com>

WE are living in a world together with different nationalities, colours of the skin and religious belief. When different people live together they form a multicultural society. When we talk about multicultural society we dont only talk about different religion religion and race but we also mean different culture. In the category culture we also include the sub-cultures such as Goths, homosexuals, first language and shared history. A multicultural society is a society, Group, school or organization where people of different races, cultures and religions live, work and communicate with each other in peace. There are many multicultural societies all over the world where communities live in peace with each other, in some countries this is sometimes not the case Understanding Multicultural Society & Multiculturalism: multiculturalism is described by academic analysts as diversity management policies of governments. In a more activist context, multiculturalism stands for a left-radicalist attempt to overturn dominant, monocultural conceptions of history and society, which were considered ethnocentric or even racist multiculturalism because it allegedly depoliticizes or aestheticisms difference by emphasizing the cosmetic celebration of cultural diversity, rather than the socially It is defined as transformative struggle against racism or white supremacy. multiculturalism stands for a strategy of containment of resistance and revolt rather than for a true desire for the elimination of racial/ethnic oppression. ------------* Lecture delivered in an International Seminar on Nation Building in Multicultural Society, organized by Rajiv Gandhi Chair in Contemporary Studies, Allhabad Central University, Allhabad, March 4th & 5th ,2011

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In a more postcolonial vein, the celebrationistnotion of diversity the practical expression of which can be witnessed in the proliferation of multicultural festivals organized by local governments in areas with a high presence of migrant populations is often dismissed by cultural critics because of its exoticizing, folkloristic, and consumerist nature: Multiculturalism in Australia isacceptable as acelebration of costumes, customs, and cooking From the perspective of postcolonial and postmodern theory multiculturalism is criticized for its implicit assumption that ethnic groups are the inherent proprietors of culture and that cultures are fixed and static realities .(a) These diverse critical strands have in common that they consider multiculturalism, as a state-managed policy and discourse, as not going far enough in transforming the whitedominated dominant culture. (b)Hence, the term critical multiculturalism is sometimes coined as a radical alternative to liberal multiculturalism. Unlike the latter, the former sees diversity itself as a goal, but rather argues that diversity must be affirmed within a politics of cultural criticism and a commitment to social justice As Australian prime minister John Howard said in1988: that multiculturalism had acquired a certain meaning and place in our society, (a) as a way of imposing the unifying umbrella of national identity on the tapestry of diversity , (b) which he, and others like him, consider as having a dangerous potential for unleashing centrifugal forces within society. Very similar controversies have raged in other countries as well. In the UK, multiculturalist notion of Britain as a community of communities, was widely criticized by conservatives as a recipe for the balkanization of society. In the USA, multiculturalism was similarly attacked for promoting national division, as reflected by J. Schlesingers best-selling book, The disuniting of Invoking the USs motto E pluribus unum, Schlesinger argues that multiculturalism, especially in its radical version, is based on a cult of ethnicity . All these critics stress the need for a common culture if a nation is to function peacefully. One effect of the fallout of the terrorist attacks on the USA on September 11, 2001, has been a heightened concern with the possibility of a global clash of civilizations (Huntington, 1993), specifically between Islam and the West, with grave implications for the place of the millions of Muslims now living in liberal-democratic societies. As they are now in danger of being positioned as the enemy within, and their culture and religion dismissed as backward or inferior by some extremist right-wing politicians, especially in Western Europe (including the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi), the multiculturalist credo of valuing and protecting cultural diversity is increasingly countered by a renewed call for assimilation or for a halt on immigration altogether unrealistic desires in the complex realities of the globalized, postmodern world. As globalization has become generally, if sometimes reluctantly accepted as a fact of life, the issues which were first addressed by multiculturalism (a) that is, how to deal with the proliferation of ethnic and cultural differences within the nation as national borders become increasingly porous have become increasingly urgent and complex, even as the term itself is becoming more and more problematic. (b) As the name Multiculturalism it is still necessary as an heuristic concept that points to the uneasy and contested space between exclusionary and homogenizing modes of nationalism, on the one hand, and on the other, the unrealistic utopia of a rootless cosmopolitanism where everyone is supposedly a world citizen in a borderless world.

-3. Living in multicultural society has also some advantages. People can get to know many cultures, their lifestyles, traditions, habits, cuisine and music. In big cities there are many different restaurants which offer their national food and drink together with an existing new atmosphere. Experiencing and understanding different cultures is the first part of acceptance. In a truly multicultural society you will find people of different backgrounds or religions living together and even getting married. development of multi culture society Multicultural society has a lot in common with migration . Due to the migrating of different cultures and races we now have our modern multi cultural societies. The history of any multicultural society is highly linked to migration. The United States, Canada, Australia and in Europe the Netherlands, Britain, Spain and France are the biggest multicultural societies. In Asia is India the major Multicultural society. We will discuss these societies one by one in the terms of their historical perspective. All these historical experience and an examples be described under following points 1. Netherlands as a multicultural society: On 26 July 1581, independence of The Netherlands was declared, and finally recognized after the Eighty Years War1568-1648.. The years of the war also marked the beginning of the Dutch Golden Age a period of great commercial and cultural prosperity roughly spanning the 17th century. In Netherlands there are large numbers of people coming from all over the world. Although many of them speak Dutch; the national language of the Netherlands, they also have their own languages, norms and values, religion according to which they are spending their lives which give rise to a multicultural society. Since the multiculturalism is highly linked to the policies of the government and about its foreign affairs and European Migration Policy . 2. Inhabited for millennia by First Nations (aboriginals), the history of Canada has evolved from a group of European colonies into a bilingual, multicultural federation, having peacefully obtained sovereignty from its last colonial possessor, the United Kingdom. France sent the first large group of settlers in the 17th century, but the collection of territories and colonies now comprising the Dominion of Canada came to be ruled by the British until attaining full independence in the 20th century. 3. During the early twenty first century, the average year-on-year demographic growth set a new record with its 2003 peak variation of 2.1%, doubling the previous record reached back in the 1960s when a mean year on year growth of 1% was experienced. This trend is far from being reversed at the present moment and, in 2005 alone, the immigrant population of Spain increased by 700 000 people. Spain has become the open door laboratory on immigration . So the people coming from all over the world are making Spain a multicultural society 4. Inhabited for millennia by First Nations (aboriginals), the history of Canada has evolved from a group of European colonies into a bilingual, multicultural federation, having peacefully obtained sovereignty from its last colonial

possessor, the United Kingdom. France sent the first large group of settlers in the 17th century, but the collection of territories and colonies now comprising the

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Dominion of Canada came to be ruled by the British until attaining full independence in the 20th century. 5. Immigration to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland since 1922 has been substantial, in particular from Ireland and the former colonies of the British Empire such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, South Africa, Kenya and Hong Kong under British nationality law. Others have come as asylum seekers , seeking protection as refugees under the United Natuins1951 Refugee Convention, or from European Union population at the time) were born abroad, although the census gives no indication of their immigration status or intended length of stay. 6. In 2006, there were 149,035 applications for British citizenship, 32 percent fewer than in 2005. The number of people granted citizenship during 2006 was 154,095, 5 per cent fewer than in 2005. The largest groups of people granted British citizenship were from India, Pakistan, Somalia and the Philippines. In 2006, 134,430 people were granted settlement in the UK, a drop of 25 per cent on 2005. Meanwhile, migration from Central and Eastern Europe has increased since 2004 with the accession to the European Union of eight Central and Eastern European states, since there is free movement of labour within the EU. The UK government is currently phasing in a new points based immigration system for people from outside of the European Economic Area. So it is clear that in UK there are a large number of people coming from outside of the UK with different langages, norms and values which makes the United Kingdom a multicultural socuiety. 7. Spain is also very rich in its multiculturalism . Spain has recently experienced large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. According to the Spanish government, there were 4,145,000 foreign residents in Spain in January 2007. Of these, well over half a million were Moroccan while the Ecuadorian s figure was around half a million as well. Romanian and Colombian populations amounted to around 300,000 each. There are also a significant number of British (274,000 as of 2006) and German (133,588) citizens, mainly in Alicante, Mlaga provinces, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands. Chinese in Spain are estimated to number between 10 to 60,000, and South East Asian groups such as Filipinos whose country was a former Spanish possession created a small community in Spain immigration to Spain. Immigrants from several sub-Saharan African countries have also settled in Spain as contract workers, although they represent only 4.08% of all the foreign residents in the country but still playing a role in multicultural society. 8. In case of France, out of 59.9 million people there are 4.2 million foreigners .The period between the two world wars saw great advances and progression in artistic, literary and cultural movements, with France a key player in their development and evolution. The period between the two world wars saw great advances and progression in artistic, literary and cultural movements, with France a key player in their development and evolution. The Eiffel Tower was built for the International Exhibition of Paris of 1889 commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII of England,

opened the tower so there are effects of Britain as well are there at multiculturalism of France.

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Notion of Nation Building Nation-building is the process of constructing or structuring a national identity through using the power of the state and unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. Nation-building can involve the use of propaganda or major infrastructure development to foster social harmony and economic growth. Originally, nation-building referred to the efforts of newly-independent nations, which included the creation of national paraphernalia such as flags, anthems. national days, national stadiums, national airlines, national languages, and national myths . At a deeper level, national identity needed to be deliberately constructed by molding different groups into a nation, especially since colonialism had used divide and rule tactics to maintain its domination. However, many new states were plagued by "tribalism", rivalry between ethnic groups within the nation. This sometimes resulted in their near-disintegration, such as the attempt by Biafra to secede from Nigeria in 1970, or the continuing demand of the Somali people in the Ogaden region of Ethopia for complete independence. In Asia, the disintegration of India into Pakistan and Bamgladesh is another example where ethnic differences, aided by geographic distance, tore apart a post-colonial state. The Rwandan genocide as well as the recurrent problems experienced by the Sudan can also be related to a lack of ethnic, religious, or racial cohesion within the nation. It has often proved difficult to unite states with similar ethnic but different colonial backgrounds. Whereas successful examples like Camiroon do exist, failures like Senegambia Confederation demonstrate the problems of uniting Francophone and Anglophone territorie Nation building or State building ? Traditionally there has been some confusion between the use of the term nationbuilding and that ofstate-building (the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in North America). Both have fairly narrow and different definitions in political science, the former referring to national identity, the latter to the institutions of the state. The debate has been clouded further by the existence of two very difference schools of thinking on state-building . The confusion over terminology has meant that more recently, nation-building has come to be used in a completely different context, with reference to what has been succinctly described by its proponents as "the use of armed force in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin an enduring transition to democracy." In this sense nation-building, better referred to as state building describes deliberate efforts by a foreign power to construct or install the institutions of a national government, according to a model that may be more familiar to the foreign power but is often considered foreign and even destabilising. In this sense, state-building is typically characterised by massive investment, military

occupation, transitional government, and the use of propaganda to communicate governmental policy.

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Theory of Social Integration of Nation Building The theoretically the concept of Nation-building advocated by American academics like Karl Deutsch,Charles Tilly and Reinhard Bendix with the processes of national integration and consolidation that led up to the establishment of the modern nation-state-as distinct from various form of traditional states, such as feudal and dynastic states, church states, empires, etc. Nation-building is an architectural metaphor which, strictly speaking, implies the existence of consciously acting agents such as architects, engineers, carpenters, and the like. However,the concept of nation-building became for political science what industrialization was to social economy: an indispensable tool for detecting, describing and analyzing the macrohistorical and sociological dynamics that have producedthe modern state. The traditional, pre-modern state was made up of isolated communities with parochial cultures at the bottom of society and a distant, and aloof, state structure at the top, largely content with collecting taxes and keeping order. -------- Through nation-building these two spheres were brought into more intimate contact with each other. Members of the local communities were drawn upwards into the larger society through education and political participation. The state authorities, in turn, expanded their demands and obligations towards the members of society by offering a wide array of services and integrative social networks. ------------The subjects of the monarch were gradually and imperceptibly turned into citizens of the nation-state. Sub state cultures and loyalties either vanished or lost their political importance, superseded by loyalties toward the larger entity, the state. (a)The first phase resulted in economic and cultural unification at elite level. (b) The second phase brought ever larger sectors of the masses into the system through conscription into the army, enrollment in compulsory schools, etc. The burgeoning mass media created channels for direct contact between the central elites and periphery populations and generated widespread feelings of identity with the political system at large. In the third phase, the subject masses were brought into active participation in the workings of the territorial political system. Finally, in the last stage the administrative apparatus of the state expanded. Public welfare services were established and nation-wide policies for the equalization of economic conditions were designed. 1, In the oldest nation-states of Europe, along the Atlantic rim, the earliest stage of these processes commenced in the Middle Ages and lasted until the French Revolution. While it is impossible to pin-point exactly when the entire nation-building process was completed, it certainly went on for several centuries. 2, In the mid-1970s, discussions on nation-building took a new turn. In a seminal article pointedly titled Nation-building orNation-destroying? Walker Connor launched a blistering attack on the school of thought associated with Karl Deutsch and his students. Connor noted that the nation-building literature was preoccupied with social cleavages of various kinds--between burghers and peasants, nobles and commoners, elites and masses--but virtually or totally ignored ethnic diversity. Since nation-building in the

Deutschian tradition meant assimilation into the larger society and the eradication of ethnic peculiarities, Connor believed that in world history it had produced more nationdestroying than nation-building.

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To Understand Nation - the nation is cultural and ethic entity and state is political and geographical entity. Therefore there are two aspects of nation and nation building to be highlighted first ethnic aspect of nation building and second cultural aspect of nation building . some of the scholar also describe about imagination concepts. Nation is the product of imagination= Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm have strongly underlined the myth aspect of the nation . that The nation is a product of imagina tion in the sense that the members of the community do not know each other personally and can only imagine themselves to be in communion with each other. However, Anderson distanced himself from Gellner and Hobsbawm who took the imagination metaphor one step further, interpreting it in the direction of invention and fabrication. The nation should not be defined as false consciousness Ethnic aspect of nation= Anthony Smith, Rasma Karklins and others developed Connors themes further in another direction, strongly emphasizing the ethnic aspect of the nation. Smith insisted that they have a long prehistory, evolving out of ethnic cores. Smith and his disciples retained but re-employed the term nation-building introduced by the earlier, modernist school of thought. In accordance with their neo-primordialist understanding of all modern nations as products of age-old ethnic building material they heavily underlined the cultural, symbolic, (ethnic) and myth-making aspects of nation-building: Liberal tradition consider cultural aspects of social integration and nation building = In the liberal tradition of the 19th century we may identify two somewhat divergent views on national integration (i) One dominant line of thought regarded the cultural and linguistic dissolution of the minorities into high cultures. This process was often labeled assimilation, acculturation or amalgamation rather than integration A classic expression of the assimilationist view may be found in John Stuart Mills Considerations on Representative Government: Experience proves that it is possible for one nationality to merge and be absorbed in another: and when it was originally an inferior and more backward portion of the human race the absorption is greatly to its advantage. For example French nationality. According to Lord Acton, cultural diversity as a blessing for the members of society and a safeguard against tyranny: Acton considered all cultures as equal or equally worthy of preservation. On the contrary, one of the main reasons why people from different cultures ought to be included in the same state was that inferior races could thereby be raised, by learning from intellectually superior nationalities: In fact, Acton was prepared to use such phrases as the cauldron of the State in which a fusion takes place through which the vigor, the knowledge, and the capacity of one portion of mankind may be communicated to another. Most of what was written on nation-building and integration in the 1960s and 1970s stood in the combined tradition of Mill and Acton. To Karl Deutsch and his disciples, nation-building and national integration were but two sides of the same coin,

indeed, simply two ways of describing the same process. A major object of nationbuilding was to weld the disparate population elements into a congruent whole, by forging new loyalties and identities at the national (= state) level at the expense of localism and particularistic identification.

- 8 Deutsch specified four stages by which he expected this process to take place(i) Open or latent resistance to political amalgamation into a common national state;(ii) minimal integration to the point of passive compliance with the orders of such an amalgamated government; (iii)deeper political integration to the point of active support for such a common state but with continuing ethnic or cultural group cohesion and diversity, and finally (iv), the coincidence of political amalgamation and integration with the assimilation of all groups to a common language and culture. The classical theory of nation building was an endeavor to understand the evolution of Western states. Inevitably, it reflected Western realities. Nevertheless, its proponents maintained that the theory was applicable also to the study of non-Western societies. This belief was based in part on a linear perception of history which was not always made explicit: all societies were,by the inner logic of human development, bound to pass through the same stages. In addition, most nation-building theorists believed that Western society was really a better society to live in. If they were not compelled by the forces of history to emulate the West, the leaders of non-Western states ought to do so--for their own sake and the sake of their population. In fact, contrast with the outside world was from the very beginning part and parcel of the endeavor. It was certainly not fortuitous that this theory developed in the 1960s. The increased interest in the genesis of states came as a response to the flurry of new statemaking in the wake of decolonization in Africa. Nation-building theorists wanted to underline that states could mean very many different things in different settings, and that one should not too readily equate these new, hastily created political contraptions with the sturdy, time-tested nation-states of old. At the very most, these new members of the international community should be viewed as nation-states in the making only. A fair number of the contemporary nation-building projects, it was assumed, would never succeed. Such unfortunates would either sink back into non-existence, or remain internationally recognized states devoid of any national character. Rokkan remarked that the one distinguishing factor that set nation-building in the new states off from the old processes was the time factor. Developments which in Western Europe had lasted for centuries, now had to be telescoped into decades. Under such circumstances the various phases could hardly be kept apart, but would overlap or even run parallel. This, in his opinion, would produce fundamentally different conditions. The risks of wrong turns and discontinuities would multiply.Likewise, the element of conscious social engineering in the nation-building process would increase. Nevertheless, Rokkan felt that the new states could learn from European experience, more from the smaller countries than from the large, more from the multiculturally consociational polities than from the homogeneous dynastic states, more from the European latecomers than from the old established nations. The assumptions which informed the nation-building debate in the post-colonial era of the 1960s and 1970s have a bearing also upon the debate on nation-building in the postCommunist world of the 1990s. Once again we see the state authorities and scholars

in todays newly independent countries employing the categories and terminology of Western political science to describe--and prescribe--social processes in their own countries, while their Western colleagues hasten to remind them that similarities in terminology easily may obscure significant differences in substance. --9 --

The Process of Nations and Nation-Building in Eastern Europe have two very different meanings: as a community of a state and as a community of culture the civic nation vs. the ethnic nation. Just for an Example, In Eastern Europe--east of the Elbe-the ethnic understanding of the nation has deep roots, whereas the civic concept has tended to have very few adherents. There are probably two important, interrelated reasons for this.(A) First, in the West the bourgeoisie was the main motor behind the civic nation-state and civic national consciousness, (B) while in Eastern Europe the national bourgeoisie has traditionally been conspicuously absent.Trade and commerce were regarded as not very prestigious occupations, often relegated to outsiders. As a result,of A+B the thin stratum of bourgeoisie that could be found was very often of foreign stock--diaspora groups of Jews, Armenians, Germans and Greeks. Such groups were frequently vilified as un-national leeches on the national body. In addition, (i) the imperial, dynastic state held its ground much longer in Eastern Europe than along the Atlantic rim. Both the Habsburg and the Romanov empires collapsed only as a result of the cataclysm that was World War I (ii)The cultural and territorial heterogeneity of the East European empires was not a result of their size only. It also reflected the fact that their rulers were far less energetic and systematic nationbuilders than were their Western counterparts. (iii)As long as the state was imperial, the nation could remain cultural and non-state.(iv)In Russia, the ethnic understanding of the nation was reinforced rather than weakened after the Bolshevik take-over.(v)The 1920s and early 1930s saw a vigorous policy of promoting (often this meant: creating) new elites among these groups.This is usually referred to as the policy of korenizatsiya or nativization, but one leading Western expert on Soviet nationality policies prefers to call it the Soviet policy of nation-building.(vi)Russian culture, and especially the Russian language, certainly enjoyed a privileged position and was forced on the nonRussiansas well..