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Citizenship in culturally diverse society

Citizen and citizenship are powerful words. They speak of respect, of rights, of dignity We find no pejorative uses. It is a weighty, monumental, humanist word Linda Gordon (The condition of citizenship)
The last ten years have witnessed remarkable upsurge of interest in two topics amongst political philosophers: the rights and the status of ethno-cultural minorities in multi-ethnic society, and a virtues, practices, and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. There are potential tensions between there two concerns. In fact, defenders of minority rights have often been suspicious of appeals to some ideal of good citizenship, which they see as reflecting a demand that minorities should quietly learn to play by the majoritys rules. Conversely, those who wish to promote a more robust conception of civic virtue and democratic citizenship have often been suspicious of appeals to minority rights, which they see as reflecting the sort of political of narrow self-interest that they seek to overcome. There are a number of reasons for the growing interests in citizenship. One reason is related to the rise of the minority rights. Debates over multiculturalism have often been fractious and have put a considerable strain on the norms of civility and good citizenship. Some people feared that the tyranny of political correctness and culture wars has made it difficult for people to participate as citizens; other fear the inevitable backlash that has accompanied the increased presence of visibility of minority groups. But here are several other recent political events and trends throughout the world that point to the importance of citizenship practices. These include increased voter apathy and long-term welfare dependency in the US, the erosion of the welfare state and the failure of environmental policies that rely on voluntary citizen cooperation. This events made it clear that the health and stability of a modern democracy depends, not only on the justice of its institutions, but also on the qualities and attitudes of its citizens: e.g. there sense of identity and how they view potentially competing forms of national, regional, ethnic or religious

identities; their ability to tolerate and work together with others that are different from themselves; their desire to participate in the political process in order to promote the public good and hold political authorities accountable; their willingness to show self-restraint and exercise personal responsibility in their economic demands and impersonal choices that affect their health and the environment; and their sense of justice and commitment to a fair distribution pf resources. Without citizens who posses these qualities the ability of liberal societies to function successfully progressively diminishes.

Diverse citizenship in the wider context of ethnic-conflict management

One natural place to look for answers to our questions about citizenship in diverse societies is in the ethnic-conflict literature. Although the potential tensions between minority rights and philosophers, this problem has been the focus of a very active debate among social scientists engaged in ethnicconflict in nature: looking at actual ways governments-both democratic and non-democratic have tried to manage ethnic conflicts and attempting to give explanations for successes and failures. It may, therefore, be instructive to begin with a survey of the broad range of policy options open to states with inter-ethnic tensions, as viewed through the lens of ethnic-conflict theory.

Ethnic-conflict regulation
1) Methods for eliminating differences: a) genocide b) forced mass-population transfers c) partition and/or secession d) assimilation 2) Methods for managing differences: a) hegemonic control b) territorial autonomy (federalization) c) non-territorial autonomy (power-sharing) d) multicultural integration This typology provides a healthy reminder that there are many methods of ethnic-conflict-resolution, widely used around the world, that fall outside the bounds of contemporary theorizing about minority rights and democratic citizenship.

Different kinds of Minority Groups

There is no single definitive typology of forms of ethno-cultural diversity. However, there are some significant ways of distinguishing kinds of groups that clarify our understanding of the political stakes in a great number of culturally diverse states. The following list provides a rough and preliminary typology of minority groups, focusing on the sorts of ethno-cultural communities: A. National minorities a) stateless nations b) indigenous people B. Immigrant minorities c) with citizenship or rights to become citizens; d) without rights to become citizens(metics); e) refugees; C. Religious people f) isolationist; g) non-isolationist; D. Sui generis groups h) African Americans i) Roma (gypsies) j) Russians in former Soviet states A.

a) Stateless nations-nations without a state in which they are the majority state literally to call their own-exist in all parts of the world. They find themselves sharing states with other nations for variety of reasons. They may have been conquered and annexed by a larger state or empire in the past, ceded from one empire to another ; or united with another kingdom through royal marriage. In a few cases, multination states have arisen from a more or less voluntary agreement between to or more national communities to form a mutually beneficial federation or union. b) Indigenous people also meet the criteria of minority nationhood and exist on all continents. Typically their traditional lands were overseen by settlers and then forcibly, or through treaties, incorporated into states run by outsiders. While other minority nations dream of a status like nationstates with similar economic, social and cultural achievements, indigenous people usually seek something rather different: the ability to maintain certain tradition all ways of life and beliefs while nevertheless participating on their own terms in the modern world. B. Immigrant minorities. A second source of ethno-cultural diversity is immigration, that is, the decision of individuals and families to leave their original homeland and emigrate to another society, often leaving their friends and relatives behind. This decision is typically made for economic reasons although sometimes for political reasons: to move to a freer or more democratic country. c)Immigrants with rights of citizenship these are people who arrive under an immigration policy that gives them the right to become citizens after a relatively short period of time(say, three to five years) subject only to minimal conditions (e.g. learning the official language and knowing something about the countrys history and political institutions). d) Immigrants without rights of citizenships. Some immigrants are never given the opportunity they entered the country illegally ( e.g. many North Africans in Italy), or because they entered as students or guest-workers but have overstayed their initial visas( e.g. many Turks in Germany). They force enormous obstacles to integration-legal, political, economic, social and psychological and so tend to exist at the margins of the larger society. Where such marginalized communities exist, the danger arises of the creation of a permanently disfranchised, alienated and racially defined underclass e) Refugees. In many parts of the world, including Eastern European Africa and Central Asia, most of the immigrants today are refugees seeking asylum, rather than voluntary immigrants wish to participate in the larger society, there are some small immigrant groups that voluntary immigrants admitted under an immigration policy

C. f) Isolationist religious groups. Whereas most immigrants wish to participate in the larger society, there are some small immigrant groups that voluntary marginalization is only likely to be attractive to religious sects whose theology requires them to avoid most contract with the modern world. g) Non illusionist religious groups, Isolationist religious groups are quite rare in the Western world. Much more common are religious communities whose faith differs from either the religion of the majority, or the secular beliefs of the larger society and state institutions. Members of these communities may share the same ethno-cultural background or citizenship-identity as the majority-as in typical of many fundamental Protestants and Catholics in North America.

D. Sui generis groups. There are a number of ethno-cultural groups in the world that do not fit comfortably within any of the categories we have just discussed. For instance the Roma, who, unlike national minorities, have a homeland that is everywhere and nowhere; as well as Russian settlers in countries that seceded from the Soviet Union, and who, unlike typical immigrants, never voluntarily left what they saw as their homeland to begin a new life in another nation. h) African Americans do not fit the voluntarily immigrant pattern, not only because they were brought to America involuntarily as slaves, but also because they were prevented (rather than encouraged) from integrating into the institutions of the majority culture (e.g. through racial segregations, laws against miscegenation, and the teaching of literacy). They came from a variety of African cultures, with different languages and no attempt was made to keep together those with a common ethnic background. On the contrary, people from the same culture (even from the same family) were typically split up once in America. Moreover, before emancipation they were legally prohibited from trying to re-create their own cultural structure (e.g. all forms of black associations, except Christian churches, were illegal). The situation of African Americans, therefore, is virtually unique, although the use of race to define subordinate groups is certainly more common. Given their distinctive situation, it is widely accepted that they will also have distinctive demands which cannot be captured by either the immigrant model of integration or the national minority model of self-government, although they may draw elements from both.

Classifying Ways of Respecting Diversity

As we have seen different sorts of groups have different histories, needs aspirations and identities; and these differences influence the sorts of claims that they tend to make on the state. Of course, at one level we can say that all of these groups are engaged in identity politics, the politics of difference or the politics of recognition. One useful scheme for classifying cultural rights is developed by Jacob Levy. He distinguishes eight general ways that groups within liberal democracies seek respect for their cultural rights include : Exemptions from laws that penalize or burden cultural Assistance to do things the majority(or otherwise privileged groups) can do unassisted

Self-government for national minorities and indigenous communities External rules restricting non-members liberty in order to protect members cultures Internal rules for members conduct that are enforced by ostracism and excommunication Incorporation and enforcement of traditional or religious legal codes within the dominant legal system Special representation groups or their members within government institutions Symbolic recognition of the worth, status or existence of various groups within the larger state community

Identity and Civic Responsibility

1) Civic Responsibility: The inhabitants of any country have a duty to deliberate responsibly among themselves about law and public policy. Each has a duty to play his part in ensuring that those around him-those with whom he lives, in Kants phrase unavoidably side by side come to terms with one another, and set up, to secure peace, resolve conflicts do justice avoid great harms and provide some basis for improving the conditions of life The duty of civic participation. Like many duties, the duty of civic participation is not just a duty to do x but a duty to do x carefully and responsibly. In the case of this duty, the burden of responsibility civic responsibility- has at least two aspects to it: 1. It means participating in a way that does not improperly diminish to prospects for peace or the prospect that the inhabitants will in fact come to terms and setup the necessary frameworks 2. It means participating in a way that pays proper attention to the interests, wishes and opinions of all the inhabitants of the country 2) Identity The idea of identity plays an increasing role in politics. It affects the way people perform their duty of civic participation; and it affects their conception of what it is to perform that duty responsibly.

In The Politics of Recognition identity was linked with the notion of authenticity, the demand for recognition, the idea of difference and the principle equal dignity. Authenticity connotes the idea that each of us should live in a way that is true to himself, not conforming to a way of life simply because it is accepted by others. Recognition is the idea that others should be sensitive to my guest for authenticity. They have a responsibility to interact with me on the basis of who(as far as they can tell) I think I really am; they have a responsibility to respect me as the authentic self I think I am and am striving to be, rather than as the person they think it convenient for me to be. The idea of difference begins with the fact that the sort of being I think I am an deserve to be recognized as may not be the sort of being you think you are and deserve to be recognized as may not be the sort of being you think you are and deserve to be recognized as. From this fact, proponents of difference infer that the requirements of interpersonal respect may not be the same across persons. There may be a difference between what it is for me to respect you and what it is for you to respect me. Accordingly different people may have different rights; we are not entitled to assume that one size fits all. Nevertheless, the principal of equal dignity implies that in some sense everyones identity is entitled to the same respect. There should be no second-class citizens in a liberal democratic

Ethnic Minority Identities in Britain

I shall present here some findings from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities in Britain. Field work covered many topics beside the those of culture identity, including employment, earnings and income, families, housing health and racial harassment. Over 5000 people were interviewed from the following six groups: Caribbeans, Indians, African Asians (people of Asia descent whose families had spent a generation or more in East Africa), Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Chinese. Additionally, nearly 3000 white people were interviewed in order to compare the circumstances of the minority with that of the ethnic majority. Almost all the questions asked in the survey provided indications of how closely people affiliated to their group of origin. It did not explicitly explore ways in which members of the minorities had adopted, modified or contributed to elements of ways of life other groups, including the white British. The minority groups, including those born and raised in Britain, strongly associated with their ethnic and family origins; there was very little erosion of groups identification down the generations. But, while individuals described themselves in multiple and alternative ways, it was quite clear that groups had quite different conceptions of the kind of group identity that was important to them. The important contrast between groups was that religion was prominent in the self-descriptions of Caribbeans. While only 5% of white 16-34 years old said that religion was very important to how they led their lives, nearly a fifth of Caribbeans, more than a third of Indians and African Asians, and two-thirds of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in that age group held that view. Non-white Anglicans are three times more likely than white Anglicans to attend church weekly. Black-led churches are a rare growth-point in contemporary Christianity. Indeed, the presence of the new ethnic minorities is changing the character of

religion in Britain not simply by diversifying it, but by giving it an importance which is out of step with native trends. Ethnic, racial, or religious identification was of course not universal. For example, one in six British-born Caribbean-origin people did not think themselves as being part of an Afro-Caribbean ethnic group: nearly half of all Caribbean children had a white parent, a development which is bound in due course to impact on conceptions of Carribean and black identities. For East African Asians their job was as important an item of self-description as any other. Whilst over a third of Caribbeans and about a quarter of South Asians with to send their children to schools where half the pupils were from their ethnic group, only a tenth of Chinese wished to do so. These identities, various as they are, do not necessarily compete with a sense of Britishness. Half of the Chinese but more than two-thirds of those in the other groups also said that they felt British, and these proportions were, as one might expect, higher amongst young people and those who had been born in Britain. On the other hand, most of the second generation did think of themselves as mostly but not entirely culturally and socially British. They were not comfortable with the idea of British being anything more than a legal title. In particular, they found it difficult to call themselves British because them as British because of their race or cultural background; through hurtful jokes, harassment, this crimination and violence they found their claim to be British was all too often denied.

Language Rights

Culture has been recognized as important because it is the context within which other important individual choices are made. This is the context of the argument that it is the ability to plan ones life, to choose ones commitments and pursuits, that makes life worth for human beings. The difficulty for individuals transferring from one culture or language to another this may be offered as a way of linking language or culture to personal identity. Both play a role in establishing personal characteristics that are relatively deeply ingrained and therefore hard to change. The difficulties of transfer can indeed be diverse and substantial to being with, there is the personal effort involved in learning the new way of life. This is often a lengthy process and frequently and frequently one marked by imperfect achievement. The complexity and subtlety of such comprehensive social practices as language are notorious. The difficulty in mastering them means that in so far as one needs to use new cultural forms to achieve independent objectives using a new language to get a job, or using a new conception of relationship with coworkers to gain acceptance on the job, for example these independent objectives may be impaired. The consequences may include the foreclosure of many

options that one may have wished to pursue, as well as attendant economic and social disadvantage. This, in turn, will have consequences for ones self esteem as one finds oneself relegated to less skilled jobs and marginalized from important currents in social and political life. The cost of cultural transfer are considerably and painfully compounded by including the damage to familial relationships caused by parents, children and grandchildren being integrated to different degrees in a given culture and therefore unable fully to share all of it. It is true for many people the difficulties of transfer suppose a great deal of effort. For others is relatively easy. It is easiest for those whose home culture is not very different from the proposed new culture. Does this mean that, if we could identify those who would be able to make the change easily, we would be justified in making at least these people do so, or at least refusing to accommodate their different practices so that they have an incentive to a adapt to majority practices? One of the costs of transfer that has serious consequences for self-esteem is that very often one is treated as a second-class citizen until one has mastered the new cultural system at a certain level of accomplishment. But this is not a necessary part of the process, merely a lamentable fact about the way most societies welcome newcomers. If we could change this, putting in place a very careful process of integration designed to support the self-esteem of members of the minority as they learn their new culture, would it then be permissible to enforce such a policy rather than designing policy around the ongoing protection of cultural difference? Similarly, the economic consequences of having to master a new culture of language are not inevitable either. If the majority were prepared to make good the economic losses of the adult members of the minority, knowing that their children, raised within the new culture will not suffer this cost, could change be required? The cost to intergenerational family relationships is more complicated, at least for those families including adults who find the obstacles to transfer insurmountable despite societys thread to hang an entire multiculturalism policy on , will not take us very far, Firstly, it suggests that cultural or linguistic continuity has value only for members of intact families, so that we would do no wrong in automatically placing orphaned or abandoned children in homes outside their community of origin. More importantly, since there is no iron law of human nature that says that human beings can only ever master one culture or language at a time and since we know that children can readily absorb more than one, this argument grounds protection for only one generation. If children are taught their parents culture and language and also integrated into those of the majority, there would be a sufficient basis of mutual understanding between parents and children for healthy family relationships. At least, we need a further argument why the intergenerational sharing of world-view must be complete and completely symmetrical to be satisfying (since even within families belonging to a dominant culture there are often important generational differences of world-view). Could we legitimately expect minorities to raise their children bi-culturally and then expect the bicultural children of these families to complete the transfer to the majority to extend the protection of this argument to relationships between grandparents and grandchildren, this simply delays the completed integration process by one generation. Most people value their language not only instrumentally, as a tool, but also intrinsically, as a cultural inheritance and as a marker of identity as a participant in the way of life it represents. Their language is a repository, of the traditions and cultural accomplishments of their community. It is the vehicle through which a community creates a way of life for itself and is intrinsically bound up with that way of life. Participation in these kinds of communal forms of human creativity is an intrinsic part of the value of human life. For the group as a whole, its language is a collective accomplishment. An

individual members use of the language is at once participation in this accomplishment and an expression of belonging to the community that has produced it. Because this participation has an intrinsic value, members of a language community identify with the language they take pride in its use in and in the cultural accomplishment it represents and makes possible. This sort of intrinsic value attributable to particular languages and reflected in the expressive interest in identification with them comes to the fore when two or more linguistic communities are in contact. It is in being conscious of an alternative to ones own linguistic way of life that one begins to identify the latter as a distinct form of human creativity in which one can take pride.

Un/settled Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism a portmanteau term for anything from minority discourse to postcolonial critique, from gay and lesbian studies to Chicano / a fiction has become the most charged sign for describing the scattered social contingencies that characterize contemporary KulturKritik. The multicultural has itself become a floating signifier whose enigma lies less in itself than in the discursive of it to mark social processes where differentiation and condensation seem to happen almost periodically. (Homi Bhabba) Multiculturalism refers to particular discourses or social forms which incorporate marked cultural differences and diverse ethnicities. In this substantive sense, multiculturalism can be named, valued, celebrated and repudiated from many political perspectives. However, constitutive of the political configuration is the colonial formation of the multicultural as a signifying relation. The multicultural is a signifier of the unsettled meanings of the cultural differences in relation to multiculturalism as the signified of the attempt to fix their meanings in national imaginaries. The multicultural always refers contextually to the western and non-western cross-cultural processes invoked in establishing the meanings invested in the racially marked incidence of contested cultural differences. Multiculturalism cannot be eliminated but it can be repressed. Hence it cannot be ignored because if refuses to go away. But it must be feared because it can re-emerge at any time; and consequently it must be condemned because it has the capacity to use what has been and needs to be

settled. Multiculturalism emerged as a result of the realization originally in the USA, and then in Britain, that the melting pot doesnt melt, and that the ethnic and racial divisions get reproduced from generation to generation. Multiculturalism constructs society as composed of a hegemonic homogenous majority, and small unmeltable minorities with their own essentially different communities and cultures which have to be understood, accepted and basically left alone since their differences are compatible with the hegemonic culture in order for the society to have harmonious relations.(Anthios) Multiculturalism was excoriated for having nothing to say about racism and for placing its faith in social transform by people somehow learning to live in each others shoes : The multiculturalism illusion is that the dominant and other half lives, whilst while leaving the structure of power intact. As if power relations could be magically suspended through the direct exchange of experience and ideology dissolve into the thin air of face to force communication.(Cohen) It is certainly the political and education dimensional of multiculturalism, socially unsettled in the ambivalent conditions of post-coloniality, which concentrate the minds of academics, politicians, citizens and immigrants alike. In public discussions multiculturalism is a term used as a code word for race, much in the way that inner-city issues signifies that raw is the topic being referenced. Among many conservatives multiculturalism is a term of derision, deployed to represent a variety if challenges to the traditional European and male orientation of the educational canon. (Kinchelve & Steinberg)

Multicultural Transruptions
As we can see, a particular construction of race and ethnicity and their contestation seems to be integral to the configuration of multiculturalism in the West. Britain is hardly immune to these political ramifications, although it remains to be seen how long British universities will continue to treat the issues raised by post-colonial fall-out of multiculturalism as if they were simply detestable noises from across the Atlantic. Can we continue to ignore the legacy of the colonial formation of Britain, the incomplete process of decolonization which left white racism intact , and the generational impact of the post-war Black and Asian, migration on racially exclusive narcissism if the nation. In combination, these factors have increasingly generated an irrepressible conjunction of racial, ethnic, and cultural dynamics which frequently exerts unexpected unsettling effects on British social institutions. It is no official secret, for example, that : Britain seems to be constantly surprised by the recurrent agency of the Black and Asian people with political challenges and culturally popular movements; or that in every decade since the 1940s deep-seated racism is rediscovered in Britain by the media; or that for many social institutions the prospect of engaging dialogically with the social demands of cultural diversity rather than simply managing its aesthetics in deeply threatening; or that successive generations of diaspora-thinking, western-speaking descendants of colonial migrants and those from former colonies are still entangled in defining the meaning of their place in the nation. Whenever themes like these arrive in British public life they tend to disrupt the normal transmission of every day discourse : normal transmission cannot easily be resumed, it at all, in its racially exclusive forms. This is what underwrites multiculturalism as political structure of feeling in Britain in the post-war period . Although the explicit discourse may now seem an anachronism, the post-colonial contestation and construction of cultural differences which completed the naming of multiculturalism persists, as it always did, fluctuating between butterfly effect and a bombshell, in a disparate range of apparent settlements in the British way

of life. What Britain experienced during the long second half of the twentieth century was a consistent series of unsettled formations in relation to the multicultural. The concept of trans-ruption is in some ways a comparison concept to that of discrepancy. It requires that we understand the logic of what turns a discrepancy into a transruption. The latter describes interrogative phenomena that, although related to what us represented as marginal or incidental or insignificant, that is identifiable discrepancies, nevertheless refuse to be repressed. They resist all efforts to ignore or eliminate them by simply recurring to another time or simply to another place. Transruptions are troubling and unsettling because any acknowledgement of their incidence or significance within a discourse threatens the coherence or validity of that discourse, its concepts or social practices. In one sense there is something more here than a singular interruption or times apparent, a multicultural transruption is constituted by recurrent exposure of discrepancies in the post-cultural settlement. It comprises any series if contestatory cultural and theoretical interventions which, in their impact as cultural differences, unsettle social norms and threaten to dismantle hegemonic concepts and practices. Transruptions transcend or overcome any initiative to dismiss their relevance and continually slice through, cut across and disarticulate the logic discourses that seek to repress, trivialize or silence them. In the absence of effective or satisfactory resolutions, multicultural transruptions are simply recurrent.

Between Cosmopolitanism and the Multiculturalism :

The construction of multiculturalism as an immigrant or ethnic minority interest seems to run counter to the ethics of cosmopolitanism, where heterogeneity implies at some point the dissolution of an essentialist distinction between fixed majorities(broad national community) and permanent minorities (specific groups). The legacy of an unreconstructed British nationalism deforms this cosmopolitan vision precisely because it precludes the contestability if the broad national community as an idea, where is either culturally diverse or it is racially exclusive. It has been suggested by a French thinker, Alain Touraine, though still within the us/them paradigm, that is misleading to think in terms of an absolute radical separation between democratic and ethnic concepts of the nation. Political discourses can be mobilized in terms of that distinction, such that it becomes possible to argue that newcomers to the nation must also become part of a memory, and must then transform it through their presence(Touraine). This implies that participation in the construction of national identity, by those whose histories signify the impact of diaspora formations and/or contemporary implications in cultural entanglements, cannot be accomplished through the imposition of an intangible history lesson which has become a nationalist mythology. Consequently, contrary to the idea of a cosmopolitanism residing above the fray, this suggests that collective memory must be a living memory that is constantly being transformed. by all those residing within its social gestation. Multicultural transruptions have powerful social and epistemological dimensions, which are increasingly deeply unsettling and at the same time resonant with creative and emancipator possibilities of settlement.

Nations and diasporas

Event though the nation was invented perhaps only two hundred years ago, as an invention it has proved to be fairly durable and highly mobile. Its durability is manifested by the way in which it has continue to undermine empires and other forms of political community. Its mobility is shown by the way in which it has spread to cover all parts of the planet. The nation thing was conceptualized as a homogenous indivisible body. Recent critiques if the logic of the national have highlighted its empirical deficiencies (multiplicity of identities); its ethical difficulties(the possibility of genocide and totalitarianism); and its theoretical limits (the impossibility of eradicating difference). These studies have been very important in undermining the logic of the national and suggesting and a multicultural alternative. That is, a normative stance arising out of recognition and celebration of the variety of cultural forms and practices that exist within the body of a nation. The political is founded upon the distinction between friend and enemy. This enemy is a collective enemy. For the friend-enemy distinction to operate, there must be a capacity for combat. This capacity means that within the political there is the possibility of war as a means of negating the enemy. War is a group activity, and since the invention of the nation it is an activity restricted to the national. Since the innovation most political conflicts have token the national form. Either the conflict has been visualized as a conflict between nations or it has assumed the form of the nation. The friend-enemy distinction not only constructs the political but also ensures that the political takes the form of the national. Thus, any attempt to contest the logic of the nation implies a transformation of the political. Diaspora as an anti-nation: Without a form of nationalism it would be difficult to construct a diaspora. The idea that a diaspora is a nationalist phenomenon is, however, not the only way in which this phenomenon is, however, not the only way in which this phenomenon has been described. Diasporas have also been considered as anti-national phenomena. Unlike the nation with its homogeneity and boundedness, diaspora suggests heterogeneity and porousness. Nations define home whereas diaspora is a condition of homelessness; in the nation the territory and people are fused, where as in a diaspora the two are dis-articulated. The diaspora is not the other of the nation simply because it is constructed from the anti-ethical elements of a nation, it is, rather, and anti-nation since it interrupts the closure of the nation. The existence of a diaspora prevents the closure of the nation, since a diaspora is by definition located within another nation. The multi-cultural/Multiculturalism Distinction : multi-cultural is used adjectivally it describes the social characteristics and problems of governance posed by any society in which different cultural communities live together and attempt to build a common life while retaining something of their original identity. By contrast, multiculturalism is a substantive; it references the strategies and policies adopted to govern or mange the problems of diversity and multiplicity which multi-cultural societies throw up. It is usually used in the singular, signifying the distinctive philosophy or doctrine

which underpins multi-cultural strategies. Multi-cultural, however, is by definition plural. There are many kinds of multi-cultural society. The USA, Canada, Britain, France, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, New Zeeland, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria all qualify. They are multi-cultural in significantly different ways. However, they all share one characteristic. They are by definition culturally heterogeneous. The two terms are now so interdependent that it is virtually impossible to distinguish them. However, multiculturalism presents specific difficulties. It stands for a wide range of social articulation, ideals and practices. The problem is that the -ism tends to convert multiculturalism into a practical doctrine and reduces it to a formal singularity. In fact, multiculturalism is not a single doctrine, does not characterize one political strategy and does not represent an already achieved state of affairs. It is not a covert way of endorsing some ideal, utopian state. It describes a variety of political strategies and processes which are everywhere incomplete. Just as there are different multi-cultural societies so there are very different multiculturalisms: -conservative multiculturalism assimilation of difference into the traditions and customs of the majority; -liberal multiculturalism seeks to integrate the different cultural groups as fast as possible into mainstream provided by a universal individual citizenship; pluralist multiculturalism formally enfranchises the differences between groups along cultural lines and accords different group-rights to different communities; commercial multiculturalism assumes that if the diversity of individuals from different communities is recognized in the marketplace, then the problems of cultural difference will be solved through private consumption, without any need for a redistribution of power and resources; corporate multiculturalism seeks to manage minority cultural differences in the interests of the centre; critical or revolutionary multiculturalism foregrounds power, privilege, the hierarchy of oppressions and the movements of resistance; It is possible, in a modern, pluralistic society, to promote common bonds of citizenship while at the same time accommodating and showing respect for ethno-cultural diversity? Citizenship and diversity have been two of the major topics of debate in both democratic politics and political theory over the past decade. Much has been written about the importance of citizenship, civic identities, and civic virtues for the functioning of liberal democracies and also about the need to accommodate the ethno-cultural, linguistic, and religious pluralism that is a fact of life in most modern states. By and large, however, these two topics have been largely discussed in mutual isolation. Much of the writing on the issues of both citizenship and diversity remains rather abstract and general and disconnected from the concrete issues of public policy and institutional design. Citizenship in diverse societies Will Kymlicka Professor of Philosophy at Queens University Wayne Norman holds the Choir in Business Ethics in the Centre for Applied Ethics at the Univ. of British Columbia Un/settled Multiculturalism Barnor Hesse