Multiculturalism is still an option

By now there are probably ninety nine ways in which politically motivated western ideologues claim multiculturalism is dead. At the simplest level this judgment is tagged on to problems between Muslim immigrants in Europe and North America and the host communities. At a more sophisticated level, it is linked to an unbridgeable gap between Islam and the Western civilisation. Much ingenuity is shown in deliberately falsifying Muslim tradition and history and in concealing the real motives that drive western policies towards the Islamic world.

An article by the author Lawrence Harrison reproduced in this newspaper (February 29) approvingly cites the audacious view that the two great disasters of the Bush presidency - Iraq and immigration - were both "rooted in a multicultural view". Multiculturalism, the article argues, rests on a frail foundation namely the notion "that no culture is better or worse than any other - it is merely different". The Bush administration, we are told, staked huge human, financial, diplomatic, and prestige resources in proving that values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society. After perfunctory references to some selected "cultures" the article concludes that "all cultures are not equal when it comes to promoting progress, and very few can match Anglo-Protestantism in this respect". This is the usual cue to revive a hierarchical view of human societies that once justified colonialism and now subtly informs the work of the apologists of past empires.

The Iraq fiasco had briefly put the neo-conservatives of the United States on the defensive. They are currently engaged in extending their shelf life by finding a new semantics to justify their disastrous military adventures. There is no regret at the murder and mayhem in the Middle East. What is arguably needed is a new "tough-mindedness" in reasserting the moral imperative of the American global mission.

Only fallacy

The rest of the world may by now have understood why the US went into Iraq and Afghanistan but what is important for these convalescent neo-conservatives is to keep insisting that it was done to bring liberty and freedom to the region. The only fallacy in the enterprise was to under-estimate the Muslim cussedness in embracing the glorious Anglo-Protestant values. The Muslims have simply been ungrateful about the blood and treasure expended by the West in this altruistic civilising mission.

Meanwhile this crusading zeal continues to produce some ugly manifestations. In the US a bizarre attempt is made to break the Barrack Obama momentum by disseminating his picture in a Somali costume with dark hints that Islam lurks somewhere in his genes. In post-colonial post-modern Europe a small Muslim population is portrayed as threatening freedom of speech. There must be a thousand ways of protecting this proud heritage but Denmark's Jyllands-Posten does it by pictorially caricaturing the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Two years later in February 2008, Danish newspapers reprinted the blasphemous cartoons to reassure themselves that they are still free. In Holland the utterly puerile Hirst and an even more puerile film-maker desperately seek 30 minutes of fame by seeking to telecast a particularly stupid film about the Prophet (PBUH).

Freedom is obviously a selective concept as Muslims encounter greater obstacles in building mosques and other communal amenities in Europe. French courts stop licences for mosques in Montreuil and Marseille. Like freedom, diversity too is selective; Muslims are being reminded that their teenagers threaten social peace and the integrity of European civilisation by wearing headscarves to their schools.

Provocative actions such as the caricatures are invariably accompanied by predictions that the Muslim street would erupt in violent rage and thus validate the fundamental thesis that the new wars of choice in the Middle East are necessary to defeat Islamo-fascism. The Muslims must understand the deep crisis in the Western world itself. The triumphal assumptions made at the end of the Cold War have become untenable much too quickly.

In trying to de-link the Muslim rage from history the Western intellectual is simply serving the political aims of the Western power elites that also ignore the more enlightened opinions of at least half of their own people. They dismiss multiculturalism by claiming that Islam is intrinsically violent and retrogressive. Despite President George W. Bush's oft repeated allegation that Muslims are seeking to create a global caliphate, the world of Islam must remember that it is the West that needs to camouflage its neo-imperial ambitions. It will not be long before this anachronistic wave peters out. The Muslims must gladly accept the responsibility of promoting greater harmony amongst civilisations and, therefore, never succumb to reactive extremism.

The Arabs created the most splendid multicultural society in Spain before it was destroyed partly by bigotry in their own ranks and partly by the vengeful vision of the Christian zealots who invented the Inquisition. Multiculturalism does not need a burial; it needs the oxygen of a tolerant Islam, the Islam of a Prophet (PBUH) of universal peace. He is caricatured by elements in the West that are steeped in ignorance and racial hatred. Islam teaches its followers to fight such darkness with the light of the Messenger. They need not fight darkness with darkness.

Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former ambassador and foreign secretary of Pakistan.