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October 13, 2006
This op-ed in The Guardian by A Sivanandan captures what is happening aound the political conflict over multiculturalism. He says:
The mounting campaign against multiculturalism by politicians, pundits and the press, in Britain and across Europe, is neither innocent nor innocuous. It is a prelude to a policy that deems there is one dominant culture, one unique set of values, one nativist loyalty - a policy of assimilation. And yet it is passed off as a virtuous attempt at integration, thereby deliberately and dishonestly conflating the two terms. To use "integration" and "assimilation" as synonyms is not just to misuse language and confuse concepts, but to dissimulate practice. Integration provides for the coexistence of minority cultures with the majority culture; assimilation requires the absorption of minority cultures into the majority culture. The aim of assimilation is a monocultural, even a monofaith, society; the aim of integration is a multicultural, pluralist society.
Australia is no different. The conservative attack on multiculturalism is to shift back to assimilation under the guise of integration. "Guise" is important because assimilation was something that Australia consciously rejected 40 years ago in favour of integration.The core of a multiculturalism that respected each other's cultures and religions and celebrated each other's festivals was anti-racism.
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