Amartya Sen goes multiculti

Reading Le Monde yesterdat, you will bounce in the first page with an article of Amartya Sen. Going along our times, Sen is not writing on economy, but on multiculturalism.

It might very well be that the tone will make you wish that Dr Sen would remain writing on economy. A bit surprisingly, a big part of the article is used in recognizing the progressive policy of the United Kingdom, starting with the rather bizarre statement that then commonwealth was, per definition, a multicultural entity. No mention of the empire policy here, and the tragedies that colonialism brought upon us all (the israel/palestina conflict not being the minor of many other). But Ok. It might be interesting to know that the policy of Great Britain was more progressive than the policy of Germany or France, at least back at colonial times. The interesting point that Sen makes, actually, is on what he calls two tragic confusions in multicultural theory.

If we are to follow Sen first argument, the multiculturalism is confused between what he calls cultural conservatism and cultural freedom. His example is that being born into a particular community is not related to cultural independence, if a choice at all, it is a passive choice. And the other way around, deciding to live according to a traditional set of values can very well be an expression of active freedom.

The second argument that Sen makes is that religion is but one dimension of the cultural identity of an individual. Even though the membership to a particular credo is well related with cultural attitudes, there are many other affiliations or memberships that are similarly equivalent, professional or political affiliations, to mention two.

Surely we can track here the mainlines of Sen thinking. If we are to read back, the relevant points that Sen rises are about freedom. But hey, the last time I check, multiculturalism was much more important in recognizing the existence of diversity. Reading Taylor's “Multiculturalism : examining the politics of recognition”, multiculturalism has been born as strive to recognize “the other” and acts in consequence. But well. Times change, and we multicultis are in such a disrepute today, that bringing freedom into the discussion is actually desirable. Because surely so, the points of Sen underscore the anti-multiculti movement that we experiment so frequently in today's politics.

So taking a look at the two issues that Sen raises, lets apply the second to groenlinks current dogma. Or perhaps more interestingly, groenlinks current campaigns. It is beyond doubt to me that today in politic netherlands, the world multiculti and islam are very related to each other. Rightly so Sen warns us. An individual is more than his religion. So the question, actually for you to answer is: when we groenlinksers talk about multiculturalism... are we talking about a diversity of allegations that individuals have, like football team, music, place of holidays, choice of school for own children, hobbies, professions... or are we talking about being muslim today in NL?

And taking a look at the first point that Sen raises, we are forced to rephrase, at least, our concept of integration. Because it is said (rightly so, in my opinion) that to be born an immigrant is not as important as the choice of values that one might later in life take. And even more to the extreme, even becoming conservative might be a progressive choice, if we understand that the point is not so much what choice do you make, but to have the possibility of having the choice at all.

It is my opinion that in this second point groenlinks fares better. You could argue that most of multiculti issues raised in groenlinks are actually muslim issues. We could argue about it. But for me is clear that groenlinks, stronger now, has make a choice in favor of independence over cultural stagnation. We do talk about the possibility that has to remain open, for the individual to make his own decisions. Even if i still do not like the word, I am again and again informed that emancipation, in the dictionary of groenlinks, translates as development, as blooming.

So tja... now that Sen has gone multiculti and given that he raised interesting points for groenlinks, actually I would like to know how would he fare Vrijheid Eerlijk Delen, and the economy vision that is there sketched. But that will have to wait for some other column.