German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dropped a silent bomb. “Multikulti, the concept that we are living side by side and are happy about it, does not work,” she said. She is echoing the political climate in Germany that seems to be “committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multi-cultural one”. A study showed that more than 35.6 per cent of those surveyed believed Germany is being “over-run by foreigners” and more than one in 10 called for a “Fuehrer” to run the country with a strong hand.
This is disturbing trend and reminds us of Nazi Germany’s political slogan: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer, which means One people, one nation and one leader.
Jingoism and jobs have become the two sides of the coin. Remember, the job riots in France? Or American President Barak Obama’s call to American companies to look at Buffalo instead of Bangalore for talent, his striking tax incentives for such patriotic gestures and the hiking of H1B visa rates for Indian companies’ offshore pursuits.
Globalisation, according to Thomas Friedman, has helped flatten our world and fade the countries’ borders. It has given an opportunity to multiple talents crisscross our planet, throwing boundary politics to the wind. The goal was larger now, going beyond self and country. This was a healthy trend, till recession dented the resilience. The anomaly of globalisation is taking wings in the form of jingoistic politics. Economic reforms and tax restructuring have become ways to poke the “immigrant” the wrong way.
While India and China are taking giant strides, the economy has dipped significantly in Europe. Jobs are getting scarce, and hence insecurity has crept in. Political leaders across Europe are more or less talking the same language. Spain, Greece, France, Britain or Italy might not have been as blatant as Chancellor Merkel, but have thrown subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle gauntlet at the immigrant population that brought them there because of globalisation. To add to the contamination of the economic waters is the slow-poison of international terrorism.
The pangs of insecurity are probably making the developed nations turn inwards for native talent. But more than that, it is leading to a dangerous trend of political leaders pandering to local sentiments for short-term gains. And they are coming out with insignificant policies like the burqa ban that have no bearing on economic uplift. I am no advocate of the regressive burqa. But the fact is going strong on such measures deflects the attention on serious economic reforms and turns the immigrant into a potential victim.
A narrow economic vision guided by ethnocentricity is the most potent venom that guarantees the demise of humanity first and globalisation later.
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I will play the devils advocate here. Multi-culturalism implies two cultures living together and gradually moving towards each other. That is unlikely to work when each of these cultures ring fence themselves and stay separate. Also, its unlikely to work when two cultures are at opposite ends of a "maturity scale" - Some things are not negotiable and should not be compromised - eg in my country all human beings (male and female) have equal access to basic rights - so if your culture demands differential treatment of the sexes then you are not welcome in my country and I will do everything in my power to prevent you from entering my country! So I will not have women covering their face here (France) OR I would not like you to cremate your dead over a wood pyre in the open (England). I strongly believe that as long as we kowtow to the more regressive aspects of religion, this spread faster than cancer. I fully support Angela Markel for her views. While a lot of anti-immigrant rants have economic origins (Obama !), Angela and Sarkozy have taken a stand from a "my civilized norms" standpoint.
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