The Politically Correct, Multicultural Rocky Picture Show

I am part of a multicultural family. We are Caucasian, Asian and Black. We live in North America, Asia and Europe and we are Christian, Buddhist, atheist and agnostic. We are gay and we are heterosexual, young and old, liberal, conservative and apolitical. Our nationalities are varied. We are Dutch, Canadian, Japanese, Chinese, British, Nigerian, American and Pakistani. We are united as a family.

It works for us because we share the same values as people.

Some countries have tried with varying degrees of success to accommodate a similar approach to multiculturalism. Increasingly, those attempts are failing and the reasons why are fairly easy to figure out.

It is one thing to respect another culture and to accommodate it within the broader society. Too often, in our rush to be all inclusive, we have subverted our own culture to accommodate others. The result is not inclusion but inequality.

We rush into things like multiculturalism without actually taking the time to think through the possible issues and consequences. We’re in such a hurry to appear politically correct that we fail to consider where the problems might be which will result from a significant clash of incompatible cultures.

Many western democracies, for example, are now caught up in absurd debates over the wearing of the hijab by some Muslim women. Just recently, a young girl in our community was prevented from playing in the final of a soccer tournament because she wears a hijab. How absurd is a society that is threatened by an adolescent in a head scarf?

But it has become symbolic of a greater frustration between the culture from which she comes and the original culture of our country. It is a common problem and this young girl like many others, paid the price for the sense of being threatened that arises from our inability and unwillingness to address the issues around cultural conflicts. 

In an attempt to be tolerant, we have become less so because we are struggling with our inevitable inability to blend vastly different cultural values while allowing them to remain distinct and separate. The result is the inevitable clash of cultures that leads to confrontation born in fear, frustration and confusion.

It is due in part because there is more to culture than simply bright costumes and cute folk dances.

In our rush to accommodate some African cultures in our society, for example, we ran headlong into the issue of female genital circumcision.  Our culture considers it barbaric, theirs considers it normal. Clearly, in our culture this is a suppression of both human rights and the rights of individual women and yet, women from those countries who practice genital circumcision don't see it the same way and defend the practice even after they move to a new society where it is not permitted.

Sharia Law and those upon which the justice systems of most western democracies are built, are simply incompatible.  Sharia Law is religion-based and not really a set of laws. It is voluntary but is the basis for much of the various legal codes of many Muslim countries. By contrast, western democracies have evolved a non-religious, secular system of laws that incorporates all aspects of inter-personal relations, including family law. Many cultures, including those who follow Sharia, expect the culture to which they have immigrated, to accommodate their code whether or not it is compatible with the existing code of their new country.

As many countries are now discovering, we run into problems when we allow the politically correct to impose the absurd idea that accommodating the cultural values of others must mean suppressing our own cultural traditions. We defend the hate speech of some cultures while restricting and even charging members of our own culture for basically saying the same thing. Some will accuse me of being Xenophobic or racist simply for writing this post.

Eventually we are confronted with the extreme issues even the politically correct cannot ignore. Things like honour killings which are nothing more than murder justified as a defense of the family honour. We saw that in Canada not long ago when a Mother, Father and son were convicted of murdering the parents’ three daughters and step mother because they were “too modern” and it offended the father’s sense of honour.

England has reversed its original multi-cultural policy and The Netherlands now requires all immigrants to review a documentary on Dutch culture which shows women in bikinis and the Dutch lifestyle. The message is simple. If this offends your cultural heritage, don’t immigrate here. There is nothing wrong with this approach although many of the politically correct consider it racist. 

It isn’t. It’s common sense.

It is an approach that basically says, “This is how we live. You are welcome but if how we live offends you, this is not the country for you.” Too often, we take the approach that we will change our own standards and culture to accommodate those who disagree with it and then wonder what happened to the society we once had.

Canada is a country built on a Judeo/Christian, European culture. It is a highly tolerant country with two official languages and people from countries and cultures around the world. For the most part, it has worked for us but increasingly, it isn’t. Increasingly, cultures are clashing as we bend over backwards to accommodate cultures that refuse to accommodate or integrate into ours.

They demand special consideration and respect for their culture while refusing the same for ours and we, comply in the fear that not to would make us racist.

One of the issues that results from this is that immigrants still hold allegiance to their former country over their new one, primarily because they have not adapted to the new culture in which they now live. Recently, it came to light in Canada, that Iran was attempting to promote efforts among Iranian-Canadians to work for the advancement of Iran.

The original purpose of multi-culturalism was to promote a new beginning for people from other parts of the world, not to provide an opportunity for them to bring their country's issues and problems to ours. We benefit from many of the cultural traditions that come with immigrants from different parts of the globe but there are limits which we have ignored for years.

Like Brad in the following video, when confronted by cultural traditions that are alien to ours, rather than defend and promote our own culture, we ignore what we see and attempt to make it into something it is not with politically correct language that in the end is nothing more than lying to ourselves.

Just one small example of the clash of extremely different cultures

We live in a big world with many cultures and traditions. There is room for all of us and we can even live together in one country but there must be respect for the original culture of the society by both the new citizens and the rest of us. If a westerner immigrates to Saudi Arabia, for example, the Saudis are not going change their culture to accommodate the immigrant because they have correctly identified that it will undermine their society and its culture. They demand that all who immigrate to or visit Saudi Arabia respect their laws and culture. The same is true of most countries in the world.

Not all cultures are compatible, no matter how much we might try or wish otherwise. Political correctness is not going to change that, neither will burying our heads in the sand and avoiding the issue.

We would do well to remember that harmony comes from sharing common cultural values not from trying to make incompatible cultures and values live together in one place no matter how politically correct that may be.

As Brad and Janet discovered, sometimes the difference between cultures is just too great to overcome. Sometimes it is simply better to accept that and to deal with it rather than continuing to undermine our own culture in a deluded attempt to pretend that there is no cultural clash.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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