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Liberalism and the Politicization of Ethnicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2015

Will Kymlicka
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Extract

Most liberal democracies exhibit cultural pluralism, that is, citizens of the same country belong to various cultural communities, and so speak different languages, read different literatures, practice different customs. Most contemporary liberal political philosophy, on the other hand, assumes that countries are “nation-states”. Citizens of the same state are assumed to share a common nationality, speak the same language, develop the same culture. My concern in this paper is with how liberals have adapted their principles to deal with cultural pluralism.

Type
Research Article
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Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 4 , Issue 2: Collective Rights , July 1991 , pp. 239 - 256
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Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1991

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References

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26. supra, note 25 at 80–81.

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34. Ibid. at 245,248.

35. As Thomas Berger notes, “The American media penetrates Canadian life so completely, we have a tendency sometimes to think that our own issues of race relations must be defined in the same way as they are in the United States. Thus many of our legal scholars and political scientists think only in terms of replicating American experience. In 1969, the Government of Canada adopted a policy of integration and assimilation for Canada’s Native population that was based on American policy, developed in the 1960’s, towards blacks” [“Towards the Regime of Tolerance” in Brooks, S. ed., Political Thought in Canada: Contemporary Perspectives (Toronto: Irwin Publisher, 1984) 83 at 94].Google Scholar

36. This shared commitment to anglo-conformity is obscured by the misleading contrast between the American “melting-pot” and the Canadian “ethnic mosaic”. While “ethnic mosaic” carries the ideological connotation of respect for the integrity of ethnic cultures, in practice it simply meant that immigrants to Canada had a choice of two dominant cultures to assimilate to. But while Canada is bi-national, the “uneasy tolerance which French and English were to show towards each other was not extended to foreigners who resisted assimilation or were believed to be unassimilable” [Porter, J. The Measure of Canadian Society (Toronto: Gage, 1979) at 154].Google Scholar Conversely, the “melting pot” referred primarily to the biological fusing of various ethnic groups through intermarriage, not the fusing of their cultural practices. As Theodore Roosevelt explained, “the representatives of many old-world races are being fused together into a new type”, but “the crucible in which all the new types are melted into one was shaped from 1776 to 1789, and our nationality was definitely fixed in all its essentials by the men of Washington’s day.” [Theodore Roosevelt quoted in Gordon, M. Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964) at 121–22.Google Scholar

37. Supra, note 5 at 99. For an important exception to this earlier American liberal support for angloconformity, see Boume, R. “Transnational America” inGoogle Scholar Resek, C. ed., War and the Intellectuals: Essays by Randolph S: Bourne, 1915–1919 (New York: Harper and Row. 1964). See also Horace Kallen’s critique of the way his fellow American liberals supported “Americanization” policies [Culture and Democracy in the United States (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924) at 145–47].Google Scholar

38. Supra, note 5 at 276–77. References to this work are in parentheses in the text.

39. Of course, there will be some cultural groups which do not fit neatly into either the “national minority” or the “voluntary immigrant” camp. For example, the Doukhobours immigrated to Canada, not voluntarily as individuals, but en masse, precisely in order to preserve their culture, since they were being persecuted in Russia. Other groups (e.g. the Hutterites and Ukrainians) came voluntarily, but on the explicit promise from Canadian immigration officials that they would be able to retain their culture and social structures. In neither case can they be said to have freely chosen to relinquish the rights that go with membership in their cultural community. The special tax arrangements for Hutterite colonies show that our legal system recognizes that some cultural groups do not fit neatly into the categories of national minority or voluntary immigrant group, and so require some intermediate status. See Paltiel, K.Z. “Group Rights in the Canadian Constitution and Aboriginal Claims to Self-Determination” inGoogle Scholar Jackson, R.J. ed., Contemporary Canadian Politics: Readings and Notes (Scarborough: Prentice- Hall. 1987) at 28.Google Scholar

40. Evelyn Kallen, however, argues that ethnic groups in a polyethnic society have a right to public support [“Ethnicity and Collective Rights in Canada” in Driedger, L. ed., Ethnic Canada (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1987) at 325–31.Google Scholar

41. It is also not an argument against existing “multiculturalism“ policies, so long as these are not seen as matters of national rights or collective autonomy. Glazer, however, thinks that the risks of coercion and divisiveness are so great that even modest forms of support for polyethnicity are bad policy (supra, note 5 at 124).

42. This parallels the fate of the Métis, whose national rights were recognized when Manitoba entered Confederation, then taken away when English settlers became the majority in the province. See Weinstein, J. Aboriginal Self-Determination off a Land Base (Kingston: Institute for Intergovernmental Relations, 1986) at 46–47.Google Scholar

43. American blacks do not fit either the new world ethnicity pattern or the national minority pattern. The did not choose to leave their original cultures, and they were not allowed to preserve those cultures, or create a national community, within the United States. As a result, their claims for group rights have centered more on compensatory justice than national rights.

44. Glazer. supra, note 4 at 98.

45. Ibid. at 100.

46. Glazer, N. Affirmative Discrimination: Ethnic Inequality and Public Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1975) at 220.Google Scholar

47. Supra, note 3 at 6–7. Subsequent references to this work are in parentheses in the text. Cf. Walzer, M. “States and Minorities” inGoogle Scholar Fried, C. ed., Minorities: Community and Identity (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1983) 224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. This recalls Thurgood Marshall ’s claim that Indians want colour-blind laws but “they just have not had the judgment or the wherewithal to bring lawsuits ” [in Friedman, L. ed., Argument: The Oral Argument Before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (New York: Chelsea House, 1969) at 50].Google Scholar

49. Walzer, M. Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983) at 29.Google Scholar

50. Ibid. at 151.

51. American delegates to the U.N. manifest the same tendency to switch between emphasizing and ignoring the difference between immigrant groups and national minorities when opposing the international protection of minority rights. See Sohn, supra, note 27 at 272. 279; McKean, W. Equality and Discrimination Under International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983) at 70–71, 142–43.Google Scholar

52. I provide a framework for the evaluation of minority rights claims, focusing on the rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada in supra, note 14, cc. 7–9. Robert Yalden invokes a similar perspective in developing a liberal approach to the Quebec sign-law case in “Liberalism and Language in Quebec: Bill 101, the Courts and Bill 178” (1989) 47 University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review (Supplement) 973.

53. I defend this view in Kymlicka, W. “Liberalism and Communitarianism” (1988) 18 Canadian Journal of Philosophy 181.Google Scholar