Interculturalism: what is it?
As I blogged recently, the youth wing of the Quebec Liberals is said to be moving away from multiculturalism, much to the delight of Mathieu Bock-Côté, who continues to believe in a legendary golden age when everyone in Montreal spoke only French and shared a single culture. I read somewhere (will find link) that multiculturalism was never the Quebec Liberals’ official line anyway: it was more that they assented without discussion to the federal line on the matter.
It’s not only the youth wing: Gaétan Barrette is quoted as being on side with the more nationalist side of the party now.
Le Devoir’s definition of the term interculturalism is interesting: “l’interculturalisme […] reconnaît la « présence, au Québec, d’un groupe majoritaire francophone » et l’existence d’une « culture commune [qui] doit servir de socle pour l’intégration des immigrants », la culture québécoise étant « source de cohésion sociale ». In other words, we’re all equal, but some are more equal than others.
The Wikipedia entry on interculturalism defines it thus: “Interculturalism involves moving beyond mere passive acceptance of a multicultural fact of multiple cultures effectively existing in a society and instead promotes dialogue and interaction between cultures.” It goes on to say that multiculturalism was criticized because it “failed to create inclusion of different cultures within society, but instead divided society by legitimizing segregated separate communities that have isolated themselves and accentuated their specificity.”
So far so good. But nothing in the standard definitions goes so far as to say that interculturalism means everyone agrees there’s a single dominant culture, precious and most important, and that everyone needs to agree on preserving it, even the sacrifice of their own. It’s more that there’s a negotiation among equals to arrive at a new collective culture. But does that ever work out in practicality?
Update: Le Devoir says the Liberals’ nationalist swerve is only moderate. Also this weekend, an amusing story about sloppy French coming from none other than Simon Jolin-Barrette’s ministry.
Jack 13:54 on 2019-08-11 Permalink
Multiculturalism simply means no state culture takes precedence over any another. Interculturalism posits there is only one culture of assimilation. So it’s just a UQAM made up word to enforce the majorities domination in the public sphere. With of course the always included “historic English Speaking community” what ever that means.
To see how successful each integration strategy has been, the easiest way is to look at the two highest elected bodies in Canada and Quebec. Take a look at who sits in the House of Commons, then take a look who sits in the National Assembly.
In the House of Commons 57 of 338 seats are held by visible minorities, 10 First Nations MPs , 10 Muslim MP’s etc. So in essence the strategy of multiculturalism as contributed to some measure of the House of Commons looking like Canada, so the strategy has been successful.
Take a look at the National Assembly . Of 125 MNA’s 7 are visible minorities and 114 are “veille souche”,so I would argue Quebec’s strategy has also been an overwhelming success. With 78% of Quebec’s population the over representation of the majority community in the public sphere is quite incredible.