NI 422 - May, 2009

Multiculturalism

A note from the editor

Multiculturalism. Is it working?

When designer Alan Hughes first pitched the cover that you now see on the front of this edition, I went, ‘Oh no...’ This kind of image is often used as a shorthand to pose questions of integration and identity.

So up I got on my high horse, lecturing anyone who would listen about such essentialism. I felt uncomfortable that this woman was being reduced to her burkha, at the conflict of values suggested (‘Islam and the West’ – two grand monoliths!), at the singling out, yet again, of supposed Muslim identities when problems of cultural interaction are deeper and wider. There’s a debate on women’s clothing and choice raging in our Letters page at the moment and this seemed like an unhappy reflection of that, too.

For me, identity and beliefs are about choice, taking on board the things to which I feel an affinity. But when the media goes into overdrive over ‘home-grown terror’ and ‘culture clashes’, I wonder about all those people identified immediately as being members of one group or another, and the limitations of such identity. Choice and reasoning seem to jump right out the window.

But others in the NI co-operative felt differently. They felt the image went to the heart of people’s concerns about culturally diverse societies, concerns to which they might find some answers in the edition you hold in your hands. The provocation of the image, if such it was, could be answered by the nuance of the text. One more tricky decision was how to convey the issues surrounding faith schools. It would have been easy to run yet another piece analyzing and attacking their place in secular democracies. But I hadn’t really heard much from people who had been to such schools and when I interviewed Laura McAllister, she put up a robust defence. Whether I agreed with her was not the point; her personal experience animated the discussion.

Getting to know the ‘Other’ is essential to making cultural diversity work to social advantage. Our Special Feature this month highlights peace initiatives among our most iconic ‘Others’ – Israelis and Palestinians. Despite everything that is stacked against them, civilians are picking up the common thread of their shared humanity. In the end that’s what it ought to be about.

Dinyar Godrej for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

Mass outpouring: supporters hold images of Pim Fortuyn aloft on the streets of Rotterdam while waiting to attend his lying in state ceremony, May 2002.

Jerry Lampen / REUTERS

NI 422 - May, 2009

Multiculturalism

A note from the editor

Multiculturalism. Is it working?

The big story

With Dinyar Godrej, whose personal journey as an immigrant reveals some of the faultlines of multiculturalism, making the case for looking beneath the smokescreen of ‘culture clash’.

Features

A divided society needs new answers and new identities, argues Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

Canadian multiculturalism is in rude health and has licked the kinds of problems that crop up in other countries. Haroon Siddiqui explains how.

Faith schools get a bashing even from committed multiculturalists. We talk to one supporter who currently teaches English at a secular school in Australia.

Shoma Chaudhury on the hate mongers intent on tearing up the very idea of India.

Class or culture – which has caused Mauritius the most upset? Lindsey Collen looks back.

Strategies for social cohesion

Members of citizens’ groups for peace that attempt to bridge the Israeli-Palestinian divide talk with Hadani Ditmars about why working together brings its own rewards.

Blogs

Socialism is no match for plastic cups!

Currents

Protesters raise the stakes as strikes sweep the French Caribbean

Montreal police out of line and in the courts

No reprieve for gay community living with 30 years of sharia law

Regulars

Catherine Scott and Jo Barrett call on the international community to honour its obligations.

A country profile of South Korea.

A Bangladeshi boy is inspired by a French footballer in Shahadat Parvez’s photograph.

A corporate piñata, by Polyp.

NATO is shrouded in military secrecy, but what we do know is bad enough.

Bolivian feminist Saturnina Quispe Choque talks to Nadia Hausfather.

Film, Book & Music Reviews

This is the first Iraqi film about the American-led invasion. Written and directed by Mohamed Al-Daradji.

An album loaded with the instrumentation - fiddle, steel guitar, banjo and mandolin - of American roots music.

Short Writings from Zimbabwe, edited by Jane Morris.

Like the best, most haunting bolero, Havana Fever is liable to linger in the mind well after its final phrases.

A collection of stories about childhood from a stellar cast of authors from around the world, with all royalties going to Save the Children. Edited by Richard Zimler and Rasa Sekulovic.

Subtitled '18 Songs for Music Lovers', Easy Come, Easy Go is a double album containing a wide choice of songs: from Brian Eno's 'How Many Worlds' to Dolly Parton's 'Down from Dover'

This is a rallying cry that shows the way in which people in many parts of the world are resisting seed privatization through actions big and small.

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