Last week, as I was preparing to write my column on integrating communities in Ireland, a Fine Gael flier slipped through my door. Interestingly, it dealt with the party’s immigration policy, which it described as a ‘Common Sense Approach’.
Speaking on the need to manage immigration through several key measures, such as the appointment of a single minister to manage immigration and integration, the flier also assured immigrants a fair deal. What interested me most, however, was the theme of ‘integration, not multiculturalism’. Of course, it has been spoken and written about widely after Enda Kenny’s famous remarks on the issue.
“Fine Gael believes that Ireland culturally is a Christian and European country and that it should stay that way,” it said. “We believe in interculturalism, not multiculturalism. This means that we believe that immigrants who come into our country have a responsibility to accept our societal and cultural norms… We do not believe in multiculturalism, which promotes the idea that immigrants can come to live permanently in Ireland whilst living as if they were still back in their home country. This approach has failed across Europe.”
I was not sure what to make of this. It was not even close to my own understanding of the integration term. This was akin to a story I had learned in management school, of five blindfolded men being led to an elephant and asked to describe the creature. One felt the huge legs and thought it was a pillar; another felt the tail and thought it resembled a rope; and so on. The way I understood, integration was about peaceful coexistence and mutual enrichment. I even found a similar definition in the American Heritage Dictionary: ‘The bringing of people of different racial or ethnic groups into unrestricted and equal association, as in society or an organisation; desegregation.’
But the Fine Gael use of the term in conjunction with multiculturalism made it appear as though the two were mutually exclusive. In a sense they would be, if various cultural ghettos were formed, with each intolerant of the other. On the other hand, integration could well be defined as successful multiculturalism, which is often called interculturalism, where cultures co-exist and contribute to each other. However, I still could not understand integration as a ‘responsibility of immigrants’ who have entered the Christian country that Ireland is. Taken with the other statements about immigrants not being encouraged to live like they would have in their own countries, it seemed the party wanted the country’s immigrants to shed their identity and culture in exchange for a right to reside in Ireland.
The closest analogy I could think of was my own school life in a convent founded by Irish nuns. Naturally, it was a Christian school, although majority of its students were Hindu. For quite some time, the school followed an ethos that prevented Hindu children from following the demands of their culture, such as wearing a bindi (a dot in the forehead which is one of the foremost symbols of Indian Culture). So while at school I made a sign of the cross and recited my Hail Marys, at home I would by habit make a sign of the cross again and then recite my Hindu prayers donning a colorful bindi.
In both cases, I was in effect communicating with God. But that is not the point I am trying to make. It is the total impracticality of what this kind of integration demands. Thankfully, when I was old enough to question the superficiality of the whole exercise, the school changed its policy to one of secularism where, while the Christian children would go to mass, a Hindu prayer session would be led by the principal who was a Christian nun. This image stayed with me. More importantly, from then on I felt closer to Christianity than I did when it was thrust upon me.
In their simplest form, religion and culture are integral forces. Why then, are they being used to divide and discriminate?
Priya Rajsekar is a freelance writer and director of Naabi Communications Ltd. Send feedback to priya@naabicommunications.com
“Fine Gael believes that Ireland culturally is a Christian and European country and that it should stay that way,” it said. “We believe in interculturalism, not multiculturalism. This means that we believe that immigrants who come into our country have a responsibility to accept our societal and cultural norms… We do not believe in multiculturalism, which promotes the idea that immigrants can come to live permanently in Ireland whilst living as if they were still back in their home country. This approach has failed across Europe.”
I was not sure what to make of this. It was not even close to my own understanding of the integration term. This was akin to a story I had learned in management school, of five blindfolded men being led to an elephant and asked to describe the creature. One felt the huge legs and thought it was a pillar; another felt the tail and thought it resembled a rope; and so on. The way I understood, integration was about peaceful coexistence and mutual enrichment. I even found a similar definition in the American Heritage Dictionary: ‘The bringing of people of different racial or ethnic groups into unrestricted and equal association, as in society or an organisation; desegregation.’
But the Fine Gael use of the term in conjunction with multiculturalism made it appear as though the two were mutually exclusive. In a sense they would be, if various cultural ghettos were formed, with each intolerant of the other. On the other hand, integration could well be defined as successful multiculturalism, which is often called interculturalism, where cultures co-exist and contribute to each other. However, I still could not understand integration as a ‘responsibility of immigrants’ who have entered the Christian country that Ireland is. Taken with the other statements about immigrants not being encouraged to live like they would have in their own countries, it seemed the party wanted the country’s immigrants to shed their identity and culture in exchange for a right to reside in Ireland.
The closest analogy I could think of was my own school life in a convent founded by Irish nuns. Naturally, it was a Christian school, although majority of its students were Hindu. For quite some time, the school followed an ethos that prevented Hindu children from following the demands of their culture, such as wearing a bindi (a dot in the forehead which is one of the foremost symbols of Indian Culture). So while at school I made a sign of the cross and recited my Hail Marys, at home I would by habit make a sign of the cross again and then recite my Hindu prayers donning a colorful bindi.
In both cases, I was in effect communicating with God. But that is not the point I am trying to make. It is the total impracticality of what this kind of integration demands. Thankfully, when I was old enough to question the superficiality of the whole exercise, the school changed its policy to one of secularism where, while the Christian children would go to mass, a Hindu prayer session would be led by the principal who was a Christian nun. This image stayed with me. More importantly, from then on I felt closer to Christianity than I did when it was thrust upon me.
In their simplest form, religion and culture are integral forces. Why then, are they being used to divide and discriminate?
Priya Rajsekar is a freelance writer and director of Naabi Communications Ltd. Send feedback to priya@naabicommunications.com
