DIVERSITY

            

Our world praises countries which embrace “Diversity”, cultural, political, religious and social. The underlying narrative is that such societies are richly tolerant and modern and that the cocktail they deliver is much stronger than the sum of their parts. An idealistic aura envelops diverse societies – we want them to succeed, but we often underestimate the effort required to make the model work. There are many sad examples of failed diverse societies and far fewer examples of those embedding the rare virtues which make successful diverse societies so attractive and admired. Let me focus first on the success stories and I cite the merits of Switzerland, Germany, the UK, the USA and Canada.

Cultural Diversity in Canada

With her 4 languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh, Switzerland is inevitably culturally diverse. A cherished cantonal arrangement protects the distinctive cultural identity of her rural and city-dwelling communities. Religious freedom is now taken for granted, after historic battles. Universal military duties fortify centralised loyalty while philanthropic tradition and accumulated wealth make possible a global involvement in the less developed world. Immigration control is tight for permanent settlement but ethnic communities are encouraged and the Swiss life-style is enviable, if you can afford it.

Germany has been the great European success story since WW2 ended in 1945. Rebuilt on liberal democratic principles with a sturdy 1949 constitution, her economy surged ahead and she re-unified with her Eastern provinces in 1990. At first the country was largely culturally homogenous, but the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1960 triggered off a search for fresh labour and immigrants were welcomed from other European countries and crucially from Muslim Turkey. The education, benefit and workplace systems seem to have been effective in absorbing these new arrivals and hitherto political parties have accepted immigrants and accorded equal rights to them. The sudden surge of 1m immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2015 unbalanced the German political consensus; the nationalist AfD party has attracted much support and in the more socially backward East we have seen ugly disorder from extremists in Chemnitz and elsewhere. For all that, Germany is still among the most attractively diverse and tolerant countries in Europe.

The United Kingdom has plenty diversity with the ancient rivalry of Scotland and England only resolved in 1603 and 1707 by the unions of crown and parliament. The UK hit highs of prosperity with her industrial revolution and the acquisition of a profitable empire mainly in Canada, South Africa, India, the Far East and Australasia. She became an economic draw for poorer Commonwealth countries in Africa and the West Indies and in the sub-continent. The first Immigration Act restricting access was in 1962 but large black and Asian communities co-exist and are being integrated. The relative success of this process is demonstrated by the election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London and the appointment of MP Sajid Javid as Home Secretary; both have Pakistan-born parents.

Sadiq Khan, London's Mayor

UK Home Secretary, Sajid Javid

The UK has liberal abortion laws and recognises same-sex marriages – all the buzzwords of our time. The visceral hatred of a hardcore of benighted Scotsmen for the English (hardly ever reciprocated by the phlegmatic English themselves), worked up by the SNP as a matter of policy, is the principal serious blemish on the serenity of the diverse UK. An earlier tendency to encourage ethnic “ghetto” diversity is being reversed as quite tough citizenship tests are introduced focusing on knowledge of the English language and on UK national institutions. Anyway, I feel myself blest to be British..

The USA has a great claim as a melting-pot creating a new being, the all-American classless, democratic good-neighbourly citizen. For over a century this claim was undermined by the ferocious discrimination against black and Hispanic people in America. Successive civil rights legislation and its enforcement have transformed the US to somewhere near the American Dream. There is no doubt more to do in terms of sharing prosperity, improving social security and reducing the violence of life there, but America has long been, and remains, a beacon of hope for the world’s dispossessed and disadvantaged.

Trump, flawed standard-bearer of the American Dream

Finally, in this round-up of the pick of diverse societies comes Canada, incorporating the best of Britain, France and the USA, a vast country successfully steering a contentedly generous route, made possible by wealth and geography. It is impossible to mention everyone, but similar accolades are due to the Benelux, Scandinavian countries and Australasia.

I regret I have not included highly civilised France, but she has failed to integrate her large North African population and the 10.6m votes (33.9%) won by Marine LePen in 2017’s presidential election are evidence of deep-seated hostility to diversity from a significant minority. Yet I may be wrong. To have doubts about diversity is not the same as being racist or xenophobic. A country like France is intensely proud of her culture and terroir and resists radical change to the character of her nation. It is no offence to disparage pop culture, franglais, junk food and venal politicians!

Another far from perfect but often admirable country is India, dazzling in her ethnic diversity, so polyglot there are 21 official languages among the 400+ actually spoken. Amazingly India has remained a functioning democracy since 1948 almost uniquely within Asia. But there is a huge downside; the ancient caste system still casts a shadow over the employment prospects and social mobility of many millions of Hindus and the status of women, especially in respect of marriage, is abject in much of rural and provincial India. Women are routinely physically, socially, sexually and intellectually abused in their native country to India’s shame. An enormous reform is required and cannot be expected quickly within the existing political structures.

Dynamic, modernising but socially backward India

Among the sad failures in Diversity, I must mention Yugoslavia, always an artificial concept, dominated by Serbs and Croats and unable to reconcile Slovenes, Bosnians, Kosovars, Montenegrins and Northern Macedonians whose festering rivalries led to a bloodbath break-up in the 1990s. Another Versailles 1919 construct was Czechoslovakia, peacefully divided again in 1994, as the two nations could not co-exist. Pressure of war has seen multi-ethnic Iraq fracture and ancient communities (many Christian) flee for their lives. Even the mighty Soviet Union saw 15 republics secede and the Russian Federation was left to pick up the pieces and atone for 70 years of murderous Communism.

Diversity, social and communal, is an ideal presently only attained by relatively rich nations. A few countries, like say Iceland or Paraguay, can live in a peacefully homogenous fashion with basically their own kith and kin; yet so far has globalisation gone that people move between countries with astonishing ease. In a few years, Poles have become the largest foreign-born minority (900,000+) in the UK, while other European countries have experienced similar influxes. These pressures make diversity a necessity, but the emotions and habits of mind of the nation-state die hard and there is much there worth retaining. We must keep our values as we adapt to hectic and profound change.

SMD

10.10.18

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2018