Welcome to SUNS 2008!

Committee: Human Rights

Topic: Multiculturalism vs. Integration

Director: Paulina Ordieres Vega

 

What does this committee stand for?

 

Human Rights means every basic rights and freedoms each person have; this include every political and civil rights, like the right of liberty, liberty of expression, the right of having a good living, work, and the right of education.

 

The United Nations Human Rights Council job is to investigate every human right violation that is committed to any person. Forty Seven of one hundred ninety one members that are in the United Nations attend this committee, each one serve for about six years and for any disgusting abuse they may commit to anybody’s human rights, their membership may be suspended. Many independent experts are detained by the council to investigate every human rights abuse to provide the council with reports.

 

One of the biggest questions that many societies face today is how to deal with a multicultural society. We can see now many different religions and cultures from many different countries together in many places of the world. There is a new debate in many countries to put into action an exact degree of “integration” between the immigrants and the people of a country.

 

Multiculturalism refers to an idea of a society that’s strong enough to take together many different cultures, and can get a rich culture from its diversity, but the trouble of multiculturalism is the center to many political worries that European countries have since 1945. It covers many different problems; however it changes according to the political situations and it shows all the worries about the immigrants that settled in Western Europe.

 

After the communism fell apart, the recovery of ethnic nationalism in the East created many questions of the change of power from a central national government to a regional base, associate state groups and a promise of them sharing the power at the centre. They had to deal with the growing numbers of refugees and shelter seekers that arrived in Western Europe. The recent attacks of the terrorists in the United States and the report of American power in the world had been disturbed with dangers made by immigrant groups.

 

France is a multicultural society but this has been argued many times by the Jacobin tradition which has been against the right to be different, pluralism and group rights. On the other hand, ideological multiculturalism has begun to make inroads into the French form of citizenship through the political change of migrant groups, especially at the local level. Ideological multiculturalism is the only way they have to keep a very strong identity, open to every new change of globalization, migration flows, diversity and plural allegiances to nations and states.

 

In France, like in most democracies, the increase of claims for difference means that the republican form of incorporation has no other alternative but to talk about multiculturalism. There were many conflicts in 2005 that spread throughout France and placed the guilt mainly to a culturally prejudiced civilization that has rejected the children and grandchildren of North African immigrants. In general, when immigrants compare their situation in their adopted country to the life they left back, most of the times they find that things are better, even if they are discriminated. And if things don’t improve, they often have the option of returning back home.

 

People must improve these situations; immigrants must be treated the same way as citizens are treated. If they leave their country is because of a very strong reason so if they come to other country, they should be treated with respect and dignity so they won’t have to face again the problems they had in their country.

 

Canada is a nation that has embraced multiculturalism officially. Canadian multiculturalism is the idea that all citizens are equal, no matter the place they come from, culture, etc. Multiculturalism assures to all citizens that they can keep their identities, can be satisfied in their heritage and have a sense of belonging.  Acceptance gives the citizens a feeling of security and self-confidence, making them more open to diverse cultures. The Canadian practice has shown that multiculturalism encourages ethnic and cultural harmony and cross-cultural tolerance and discourages hate, discrimination and violence.

 

Through multiculturalism, Canada recognizes the potential of all Canadians, encouraging them to incorporate into their society and take an active part in its social, cultural, economic and political relationships.

 

Since the rise in international migration, all advanced societies have tried to manage with culturally different minorities in order to bring about social order and establish good societies. A public policy for leading multicultural societies is to grant citizenship to immigrants.

Japan is a typical example of an East Asian country that has become a multicultural society with an extensive number of immigrants and has developed a citizenship policy for immigrants in some areas such as residential status, foreign registration, social benefits and sometimes voting in local elections. However, an “internal multicultural logic”, which implies that the government responds to the ethno-cultural diversity society emphasized by researchers on multiculturalism, is not the Japanese Government’s main reason to advance citizenship policy. Rather, an “external logic” from outside the society, especially international pressure, changes governmental behavior about citizenship policies for immigrants.

 

Skeptics of the ideology often debate whether the multicultural ideal of co-existing cultures that interrelate and influence one another, and yet remain distinct, is sustainable, paradoxical or even desirable when housed by a single nation one that, in the case of some European nations, would previously have been synonymous with a distinctive cultural identity of its own.

Multiculturalism was adopted as an authorized policy, in several western nations from the 1970s and forward, for reasons that varied from country to country.

 

Government multicultural policies may include:

 

Effort of different codes of law on members of each ethnic group (Malaysia enforces Shar'ia law, but only for a particular ethnic group)

Support for minority festivals, holidays, and celebrations

Acceptance of traditional and religious dress in schools, the military, and society in general.

Support for music and arts from minority cultures.

Government support for newspapers, television, and radio in minority languages.

Programs to encourage minority representation in politics, Science, Engineering and Technology, Mathematics, education, and the work force in general.

Recognition of multiple citizenship (the multiple citizenship itself usually results from the nationality laws of another country).

 

 

Integration requires acceptance of a country’s laws, of human rights such as the freedom of speech, and the basic democratic rights, but does not require the suppression of all cultural differences or group identities; it is a two side way, in which settled communities have to accept the newcomers and at the same time the immigrants know they have to change to adjust to the rules of the country they are arriving to.

 

Over the past 15 years, the European integration project has followed a complex agenda, which has included various hard line populist movements with goals opposed to the idea of a harmonious European Union; headed by figures such as Jean-Marie Le Pen, the controversial leader of France´s National Front Party, these extreme movements have become very influential and political worrying .

 

It is true that distinctions are vanishing in the world; but new are forming at the same time, and regularly those who can affirm as a fact that the world is becoming more organized can affirm as the same fact that it is becoming more complicated. Both are true in limited ways and neither absolutely. As for whether the world would be better served by more or less difference, which, too, depends on the nature of the characteristic. And none of these distinctions can be considered in isolation.

 

In the UK, some specific groups of ethnic minorities are the victims of poverty, which is condemning a considerable amount of young adults, women, children, and many others to social exclusion.

Many people from ethnic minority communities speak languages other than English in their home, associate only with other people from their own communities and work hard with low pay in family-run businesses which do not require significant social contact with other communities.

 

Social contact that is available to individuals outside the close circle of family and friends is often culturally inappropriate and always requires a good level of English-speaking. As a result, ethnic minority people often have only limited access to mainstream services and are often unaware of their rights in this area.

 

Even the jobs, which do exist, may be denied for many. Low skills levels - or the absence of the right skills - are not the only barriers. Poor health, the absence of affordable childcare facilities or transport, the poor experience in the UK labor market, not having a British citizenship, and many other things, all of them deny people from refugee and minority ethnic communities to access employment and the chance of a better lifestyle. Poverty and exclusion must not be the price to pay for economic growth and well-being. Today, social exclusion is no longer a problem in Europe: it is a painful and dramatic reality for millions of people.

 

Here there are some pros and some cons on this subject; this will help you determine the controversy of this subject:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Questions that you should ask or solve in the debate…

· Can immigrants be well integrated in a country without leaving their culture behind?

· What can immigrants do to better help themselves while being in another country?

· Does your country have different ethnic groups?

· Does your country have different religions?

· Does your country have different Languages?

· How many immigrants come to your country every year?

· Are immigrants eligible for citizenship? How difficult is this process?

 

 

 

Jacobins Tradition:  The term Jacobins had been used to all promulgators of revolutionary ideas, in modern France, this term refers to the model of a national Republic, with the power strong in the general government, at the rate of local or regional governments.

 

 

Bibliography

 

http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/spechr.htm#rights

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw50/statements/CSW%20HLP%20Maruja%20MB%20Asis.pdf

http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2775&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2779&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2780&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism#Adoption_of_multiculturalism_as_national_policy

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/prin022/00036686.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights#Human_Rights_Council

http://www.simcoe.com/article/41588

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin_(politics)

http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/cre/diversity/wordsandmeanings/essay9.html

http://the-stewardship.org/research/world-integration.htm

http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2006/050106.htm

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/paris_riots/

 

This is inexperienced and presumes, proudly, that we have moved beyond the point where we are at risk from enemies. As the rise in radicalism, and its support from our own citizen’s show, we have been too liberal and too soft. We have forgotten why nation is important and why we all need to feel a communal belonging and affinity with the basic values of our society.