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Is Multiculturalism doomed?Multiculturalism is a public policy approach for managing cultural diversity in a multiethnic society, officially stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country's borders.As a policy, multiculturalism emphasizes the unique characteristics of different cultures, especially as they relate to one another in receiving nations. The word was first used in 1957 to describe Switzerland, but came into common currency in Canada in the late 1960s. It quickly spread to other English-speaking countries. There have been many criticisms of official multiculturalism from both the left and right. Criticisms come from a variety of perspectives, including the democratic, feminist, capitalist, nationalist, chauvinist, separatist, racialist and xenophobic. Below are three articles illustrating the problem in the Netherlands – each has a relevance to the UK. Sex, lies and Muslim migrants ‘Kinship’ still the key in Arab development aid Dutch must engage ‘political Islam' See also Sex before marriage is forbidden for young Muslims, but how does this work in a country like the Netherlands where attitudes to sex are different?  Dutch
teacher giving sex education to Muslim youths in Amsterdam's Red
Light District
Even before the death of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, Islam and integration was a controversial topic. Van Gogh was known for his critical stance on fundamentalist Islam and was murdered for it. His film Submission depicts the violence women experience in Islamic culture. Young women are under the most pressure and those who break strict moral codes are sometimes punished by their families and communities. New efforts are being made to understand the long-standing taboos surrounding Islam and sex. Ingeborg Beugel, for instance, has devoted a six-part documentary to the issue. The idea for it stemmed from an incident at her daughter's school. The girl came home outraged one day after she and her friends were called a 'whore' and a 'slut' by Turkish and Moroccan boys, as Ingeborg explains: "She began to talk like a racist, saying these guys should 'go home' if they don't accept young girls like me to have sex before marriage. I thought: 'everyone is talking about how our integration has failed and everyone is talking about language problems but I think the real obstacle for integration is these different attitudes towards sexual morals and different attitudes between men and women.'"
Double standards Ingeborg learnt about the double standards that exist among Muslim men and women, particularly on the issue of virginity. Boys talked to her openly about their sexual encounters, usually with girls from different ethnic backgrounds. But they expected to marry a Muslim virgin. Meanwhile, Ingeborg discovered that Muslim girls with experience with sex were too terrified to speak on camera in case their family and community found out. "The biggest thing I learnt was the structure of lies these girls live with. I met a Moroccan woman who is 32 years old, and who's lived in secrecy with a Dutch guy for four years. Then Mama comes to visit them and the poor couple have to clean the apartment so there will be no trace of the man when Mama comes. The girl told me that in her culture anything you say to your parents that is not true but out of respect is not lying and I thought 'wow! I never knew that.'" 22-year-old Jihad wants to marry a Muslim boy. She says he doesn't need to be Moroccan but it'll be much easier with her family if he was. "To tell you the truth I find them much cuter and he'll be able to communicate with my parents." Male virginity Her friend Malika agrees. She's 23 and hopes for a career in the media. "I'd prefer a Muslim guy, though it does make it pretty hard for us to assimilate because if I do marry a Moroccan, our children will be Moroccan people living in Holland. That's not a bad thing but you have to be able to deal with it."
The girls are still both virgins but accept the different standards for boys. "They aren't told as much and often find out later that virginity for them is also stated in the Koran." Malika would be disappointed not to find a virgin but acknowledges they're few and far between. Jihad thinks it's important that if he wasn't, he'd have regrets. "If he did, he'd be my man!" Many Moroccan mothers prevent their daughters marrying Dutch men even if they have converted to Islam. Ingeborg found this to be one of the core problems behind integration in Holland and thinks it is the primary issue the politicians should address. She spoke to many mothers around her own age: "One 47-year-old Turkish women told me Turkish boys were better than Dutch boys, but for me the ultimate integration is love, marriage, making children together. If that is stopped then, yeah, we have an integration problem. I can't believe this hasn't been really recognised before now." Great impact Ingeborg's documentary series has triggered a discussion in the Netherlands. The chief of police in The Hague has ordered the whole series to be shown to his corps. Many schools want to use it as teaching material. It has also triggered an explosion of interest on message boards on Moroccan-Dutch websites. Ingeborg says: "If you've caused a stir and people are talking about it then that's a dream for a film maker."
Meanwhile, Jihad and Malika have been asked to act as advisors to a new website launched by the Rutgers Nisso Group, the Dutch centre for sex education. The site offers advice and information specifically to ethnic minorities living in the Netherlands, most of them Muslim. "Because many parents don't talk about sex there's a need for basic information, says Jihad. "On the website, you can ask any question about sex, discuss your relationship and there are also professionals on hand to deal with specific problems." Malika adds, "Another issue is arranged marriage, it's not a Muslim thing, it's just a cultural thing and has to be your own choice. We deal with a lot of taboos but you can use a nickname, be totally anonymous and dare to talk." Virtual freedom Ingeborg is a fan of the new RN website, launched on Valentine's Day, just days before the showing of the first episode of her documentary. 'It must be heaven for these girls; it must be freedom because they cannot talk to anyone. There's still a lot to be done but we've taken a step. The real change will happen when their parents are dead." Jihad believes slow changes have already begun. "We're the second generation and we talk openly about sex, so I say 'Just leave the first generation.'" Malika has decided to be open with her kids; "I would like my children to be able to ask me anything they like about sex." Fiona
Campbell 11-04-2006
In the West, aid to developing nations is often thought to come only from European countries and a few others such as the United States. But this picture isn't quite accurate, because Arab nations also contribute to development aid in their own way. This week, those nations are meeting for the third time in Dubai for a conference on humanitarian aid. In comparison to the West, development aid from Arab countries is a relatively new phenomenon, although nations such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia showed their generosity to less wealthy nations as long ago as the 1970s and into the 1980s. These were golden years for the oil-rich nations, and - through this aid - less developed countries were able to share in some of the resulting wealth. Big spenders Research carried out by Eric Neumayer of the London School of Economics and Political Science has shown that Arabic donor nations devoted an average of 3.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to this form of aid in the 1970s. In the same period, Western nations were spending no more than 0.33 percent of their GDP on foreign aid. Eric Neumayer says much of Arab aid actually went to other Arab countries: "Kinship was an important argument to give aid. So the donor countries gave their money to their 'poor brothers and sisters'. But it's not just about altruism. Keep in mind that these Arab poor countries looked towards Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait with a lot of envy and suspicion: 'They are so rich and we are so poor because they have oil. Shouldn't they share that with us?' A lot of this aid is a way for the richer countries to buy off this criticism and this envy, if you like."During the 1980s and particularly in the 1990s, aid from Arab nations dropped dramatically to less than 0.30 percent of GDP, and Mr Neumayer says that trend still continues. Meanwhile, 'kinship' is still the main criteria when it comes to a country qualifying for Arab aid, although African nations and some Asian countries with large Muslim populations can also count on receiving assistance. Big projects Eric Neumayer says the money they receive is generally earmarked for large infrastructure projects, such as road construction. Western aid, on the other hand, is generally targeted more at boosting healthcare and education in the recipient nations. And these are not the only differences. Arab aid is, for example, more difficult to keep tabs on: "It becomes very difficult at times to find out exactly how much money is given and to whom it's given. A lot of the aid flow is not transparent, not open, not declared - and that's because it's used for political purposes."Eric Neumayer adds that this is also the reason why Arab countries don't want much to do with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), because the Western donor countries which make up the organisation have adopted rules regarding things such as transparency which Arab countries don't wish to follow. No cooperation However, Mr Neumayer also says that Western countries tend to underestimate the role played by aid from Arab nations, and he thinks it's a shame that the two groups of donors no longer cooperate in that respect. For example, greater coordination of the aid given to the Palestinian Authority could help resolve a great number of problems: "At the moment, there is a lack of cooperation when it comes to the Palestinian Authority. The question with the new Hamas government is: how will those aid flows continue? It is pretty clear that the Arab countries are not going to stop their aid. What will the Western donors do? How will that have an effect on what the Arab donors do? All of these issues would be much easier to resolve if the two main sources of giving aid talked and cooperated more with each other." Pieternel
Gruppen 11-04-2006
The Dutch authorities must work to establish good relations with the political aspects of Islam. That is the conclusion of a report by the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). The report, which was presented this week to Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot, has been released at a time when the EU is also dealing with the problem of a Palestinian government led by Hamas. In recent years, a climate of fear and suspicion between the Muslim world and the west has led to distorted mutual perceptions. In this atmosphere, Islamic politics are often equated with the views and behaviour of anti-democratic and violent fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden. The WRR report argues that this image is unfair. Within Islam there are many more and varied political views. Fundamentalists Of course there are fundamentalists such as the Taliban and the followers of al-Qaeda, who advocate a literal interpretation of the Qu'ran and reject democracy and human rights. But Islamic politics also includes progressive movements and thinkers who emphasise the spirit rather than the letter of the Qu'ran and who often seek to justify democracy and human rights on the basis of Islam. The report also draws attention to the fact that, over the years, many Islamic activist movements have gone through a process of moderation. Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who - in the 1970s - was still calling for a radical overthrow of the secular state. Today they act as normal political parties willing to cooperate with others within the limits of a democratic system. Pure Islam This is not really new. But Dr Wendy Asbeek, one of the authors of the report, thinks that these facts need to be explained in the Netherlands today: "In the Dutch media, we regularly hear opinion makers and experts claim that fundamentalist Islam is the only 'pure Islam'. This calls for a counter-discourse that shows the diversity and especially the dynamics of political Islam. "What are the consequences of this analysis for Dutch government policies? The report calls for nothing less than a "paradigm shift". The Dutch authorities and also the EU must learn to view political aspects of Islam as a potential ally in their efforts to advance democracy and human rights in the Muslim world. Hamas The release of the report is timely because at the moment the Dutch government and the EU are wrestling with the question of how to deal with the Islamic movement Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections in January. Wendy Asbeek: "The report will surely contribute to making cooperation with Hamas debatable. It is important to approach such movements pragmatically and to judge them on their deeds. We should have the courage to enter into dialogue." Thus far, European efforts to foster democracy in the Middle East have often been based on supporting non-religious, secular movements. According to the report, this policy has failed because such movements lack popular support. Progressive Islamic movements do enjoy popular support and therefore constitute much more attractive partners. For many Muslims, democratic reforms are much easier to accept if they are formulated from within their own religion and culture. Weakened It is not unlikely, however, that if western support is forthcoming to progressive Islamic movements - it will weaken the popular support that made them so attractive in the first place. The authors of the report are aware of this danger. Wendy Asbeek: "The possibilities are limited. Besides direct support, it is also possible to help create conditions under which progressive Islam can flourish. But at the end of the day, democratisation has to come from within these countries." Michel
Hoebink 11-04-2006
See also Fundamentalism is not necessarily terrorism Dutch Experience of Islamic Extremism Special forces of the Netherlands On Islamic Intolerance The terrorist lodestar Islamic Understanding of Christianity by Soloman Nigosian |
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