Criticisms of multiculturalism

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See also multiculturalism

There have been many criticisms of official multiculturalism from both the left and right. Criticizing the policies can be difficult, however, because they can quickly lead to accusations of racism and xenophobia, and some groups that oppose multiculturalism are in fact racist and xenophobic.

Diane Ravitch argues that the celebration of multicultural diversity in America is used to mask hostility toward the mainstream. This is usually expressed in practices which deprecate European or American culture. Thus defeating, in a sense, the expressed intention to value all cultures.

One of the dangers of pursuing multiculturist social policies is that social integration and cultural assimilation can be held back. This can potentially encourage economic disparities and an exclusion of minority groups from mainstream politics. The political commentator Matthew Parris has questioned whether the pursuit of particularist multiculturalism is not apartheid by another name.

In Canada the most noted Canadian critics of multiculturalism are Neil Bissoondath and Reginald Bibby. The Trinidad born Bissoondath in his Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada argues that official multiculturalism limits the freedom of minority members by confining them to cultural and geographic ghettos. He also argues that cultures are far too complex and must be transmitted through close family and kin relations. To him the government view of cultures as being about festivals and cuisine is a crude oversimplification that leads to easy stereotyping.

Bibby in his Mosaic Madness: Pluralism Without a Cause argues that official multiculturalism is a divisive force that is reducing national solidarity and unity.


References

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