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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

Multicultural Citizenship + Civic Pluralism « Previous | |Next »
September 29, 2009

Tom Soutphommasane in his 'Grounding Multicultural Citizenship: From Minority Rights to Civic Pluralism' in the Journal of Intercultural Studies, (Vol. 26, No. 4 Nov 2005) says that whereas theoretical discussions of multicultural citizenship have predominantly focused on notions of minority rights, policies of multicultural citizenship in Australia have emphasized multiculturalism as part of the universal rights and obligations of citizenship.

Multicultural citizenship in Australia have always been couched in the language of universalism and integration. There has always been a concern within Australia that multicultural claims be interpreted as demands for greater inclusion as citizens and not for the fragmentation of the polity into a set of strong and possibly mutually antipathetic communities. Hence the emphasis on multiculturalism as enhancing social cohesion and as set within a framework of shared fundamental values.

Multiculturalism has been understood as both conferring the right to cultural identity and obligations by all Australians to accept the basis structures and principles of Australian society such as the Constitution and the rule of law, toleranceand equality, parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech and religion, English as a national language and equality of the sexes.

Soutphommasane advocates a civic pluralist model of multiculturalism linked to deliberative democracy. He asks: 'Can multicultural citizenship be grounded in a common civic culture?' He responds thus:

This question needs to be answered at two levels...multicultural citizenship must not only recognize cultural difference, but must also provide the basis for a new sense of political identity. I argue in this paper it is indeed possible for a civic pluralist model of multicultural citizenship to meet these tests. However, such a model must diverge from existing multicultural citizenship regimes in practice in two important respects. First, it must allow for an open civic culture, in which the institutions and practices in a particular political community are exposed to scrutiny and re-interpretation. In addition, it must frame political unity and belonging in terms of shared civic competence in negotiating difference, rather than in terms of shared political values. Notions of political unity and belonging relate, in this sense, to the common membership of public debate within a ‘deliberative democracy’.

How does Soutphommasane defend a ‘civic pluralist’ multiculturalism that acknowledges both cultural difference but also provide a new form of political belonging.

Soutphommasane argues that:

Multicultural citizenship is not possible if political institutions uphold a ‘core’ public culture that places pressure on diverse cultural groups to assimilate to dominant norms. It instead demands that multicultural societies be prepared to entertain shifts in their political institutions and identities. In this sense, a common civic culture might need to be understood less in terms of an allegiance to shared political values, and more in terms of the character of the public debate within a particular political community. Multicultural citizenship offers a new basis of political belonging based on citizens’ shared experience in negotiating difference. Citizens within a civic pluralist model of multicultural citizenship are thus united by a shared commitment to dialogue within the polity---to the ‘national conversation’, with all its unique and distinctive features.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:44 AM |