Rana Bose is an editorial board member of Montreal Serai.

So much has been said and documented about multiculturalism that any further attempts, for or against it, at this point in time, would perhaps add only a few drops of bilious pedantry to an already jaundiced debate.  I am sitting in a Second Cup in a Dubai mall, a stretch away from my hometown of Montreal, and writing this essay. I am here for a while, on an assignment, and finding it awfully difficult to compare and recall images of Quebec and Canadian multiculturalism, while being surrounded by this sea of casual and easy-going diversity floating by me in this part of the world.

I had offered a few informal insights into why this debate was still compelling, but needed some fresh air. One of my colleagues in the Serai editorial board immediately suggested that I do my duty and write it all up. So, here I am, writing some notes and also watching a one–day cricket blitz between India and England at Lords, on the screen. I notice that the England team has at least four people out of eleven, of South Asian ancestry. Curiously enough, one is a Sikh spin bowler, another is a Muslim batsman, one is a Hindu all rounder and the last one—you guessed right-- is a Christian swing bowler. And every time, they get an Indian out or whip a ball over the boundary, hordes of white, Caribbean and Asian English folks jump up and down and cheer like hell.  And on the other hand, when players from the Indian side hit a sixer, there are hordes of people, as well, wrapped in the Indian flag or face painted with the Indian tri-colour that scream and sway from side to side and break into the popular Bollywood hit, Chak de India. My mind immediately scrolls back to the curious possibility that some day four Indians will play in the Canadian baseball team or hockey for the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre. Not! Indians can neither skate (in fact they are vociferously blunt on issues that do not even concern them) nor are they good at chewing wads of tobacco. Are sports a unifier of a multicultural population?  Can sports secularize? Do audiences come together in the genteel sport of cricket, easier than in soccer? After all there are hardly any cricket hoodlums! Something to ponder over.

But! Whazzup with this Inglan, anyway?

I say. I am reminded of a recent ad on TV. An Indian steel magnate, steps out of a limousine and looks up at a building in front of him, in London. It says “East India Company.” He lifts his stick up and says “They ran us for two hundred years. Maybe I will buy this company.”  Some cross-over happening here. Not sure what went historically askew. England is still the land where Enoch Powel, once declared that "rivers of blood" would flow if more immigration was allowed.

Meanwhile, all around me, here in Dubai,  are Russians, Japanese, Chinese, Indians , Pakistanis, Nepalese, Philippinos, French, undecipherable Canadians, very visible Americans, Palestinians, British, North Africans and a sizable chunk of Arabs, men and women in their flowing costumes. There are Sikhs, there are Moslems, and there are lots of Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, Shias, Ismaelis and Sunnis. Pathans, Pushtus, Kazakhs, Armenians, Lebanese, Turks, Greeks and Italians walk by continuously. They are not necessarily tourists. There are even occasional South Americans and I know they are not from nearby Spain. Most of them have made this their home. Maybe temporarily.

The place is full of pubs, jazz lounges, jock bars, discos, cabarets, extravagant sports clubs and comedy clubs. People of every nationality are walking in and out of them. In the Mall, there are men in shorts and women in belly-flaunting miniskirts and then there are women fully borkha’ed or in Gilbabs and men in classy long Jelabas. This place is so multicultural, at least in its imagery, it makes the word irrelevant. The languages spoken in this café are so diverse that it would make India, a country of twenty two official languages and over two hundred dialects, smart in surprise. All signs are bilingual. Arabic and English in equal size.  The local population is only 30%. Yes, the locals are worried. But then, this is not a particularly enfranchised state. A benevolent but feudally inspired, family-run nation-state practices modern statocracy by combining the most advanced forms of finance capitalism and adventurous asset management; they run an explosive bourse that preys on every single other bourse in the world, they encourage an iconoclastic real estate building boom (“tallest, highest, biggest, only” are all in Dubai) with a leisure lifestyle, comparable to none, combined with rigid rules of control over all affairs of the nation.  It is nowhere near being whatever the world would finally settle on, as a definition of a democratic state. But, when you walk the streets and you hang out anywhere, you do not feel stared at, scrutinized and subjected to the censure of other people’s mores. The same Dutch people, who are now reconsidering their liberal welfare state back home and their history of being very accepting of immigration in the past, are here co-mingling with Arabs and Indians like it is the most natural thing to do.

Perhaps some local people do feel scandalized or stupefied, at times by the behavior of others. But, then the Brits and the Irish do not act unruly outside the pubs. Americans are definitely not as loud as they are on airplanes, on the way here. Russians are busy on the beaches, minding their business as they burn their new-found millions and as well their protuberant mid-riffs.  Murders, muggings, bank heists and drug runs are virtually unknown. It’s awfully boring and unexciting, sometimes. Fox news has no sleaze to dispense here. And there are about ten sports channels on cable, never mind the satellite channels.  Some invisible constraint makes people stay away from crime.  And the newspapers (extraordinarily well-produced, world wise and informative-even carrying articles by Chomsky and Klein) freely report on every emotion, possible. Some months ago there was a color spread on the Nepalese Maoists, as if their movement had reached the poster imagery of the Cuban revolution.  But there is no paranoia-bound bopping on the head of other communities for not falling in line with the host community’s mores. Nobody is paranoid about going disparaitre.  There are a lot of folks here making artsy films. Some with borderline risqué topicality. But they do not have the fears that enveloped Lise Payette and Monique Simard, some years ago. There is a concocted multicultural calm here.

Whazzup with this Dubai? I say.  A confident state (or nation), though, does not worry about disappearing.

There is no choice whether to be or not to be. Multicultural, that is, as a society.  Monocultural homogeneity, the secret desire of all die-hard assimilationists and later day “integrationists” is but a fantastic pipe dream in the world we live in. As if to reinforce and bolster the already entrenched views of a certain silent milieu, people of colour are also moving around all over the world, much more than ever before and also multiplying faster too. Yes, as the Canadian comedian (of Indian origins), Russell Peters says, “Watch out! The world is gonna turn brown. ‘Cos we are increasing so fast, that we are gonna hump you, wherever you are! We are brown and we are expanding.” Very simply put, however, the number of non-white people (the major multi-cult of multiculturalism) spreading out all over the world and inter-marrying and cohabiting with others is just way in excess of the number of white, western folks who are adventurous enough to move around and check out the rest of the world.  (Some silly folks may debate this in Hyderabad, by saying that there are now American style suburbs popping up everywhere, where white folks, in Gap Bermudas, are happily employed in Indian companies and watching their Indian gardeners mowing their lawns, as they would be watching their Mexican “illegals” doing the same in Virginia. But that is a miniscule nothing, if you ask me.)  The world is still not flat, Mr. Friedman.  People are simply getting more mobile and proving their worth in any society, if allowed to.  That has nothing to do with “opportunity” and the “market place.” The centre of power has not shifted. The field is not level. It has only been disturbed in a few places where JM Keynes once put a lot of reliance on. It does however have to do with two things. Finding adventurous and cheaper ways to live life for the ever expanding middle classes (which is our capitalist cultural upbringing anyway) and traveling and hanging around anywhere is now made much easier and economical for the same milieu. And when people move, barriers do come down. When people do not want to move, then a fortress mentality serves the local press very well. When people are not “allowed” to move, the world becomes a less tolerant space. Brown people are moving around. White folks are moving less.

When movement is restricted by a national psychosis (in the US, the mythos of patriotism means any feelings against US global policy constitutes an act of terrorism and un-patriotic activity) and fear of the unknown or a camouflaged xenophobia is converted into an issue of heritage preservation, then the society itself suffers. Majority of people in Canada and Quebec are not paranoid or xenophobic. But the majority of people do have a corner in their minds that says that Canada and Quebec’s basic definition must not change. That basic definition is the notion of the two “Founding Fathers.” This is a flawed concept. It is a concoction that is only possible by massacring the heritage of the First Nations.  Now, this has all been said. So what is new then?

In Quebec, where I have now lived for over thirty years, there is a plethora of tail holders of the old regime who still see this mobility as dangerous. If not in an explicit sense, at least by convoluted expressions couched in the verbiage of “loss of national identity”, “national culture” and “loss of democratic values.” Wait a minute! Did I say democratic values? Yes, that is the latest trend in ‘fugee bashing. And it’s coming from the “left.” There is some pessimism coming on board that fears that ethnic diversity weakens the redistribution of wealth. Multiculturalism has always been a way of stage managing cultural diversity by focusing on superficial aspects of cultural identity rather than structural inequalities related to de facto cultural dominance and institutional racism. In the European theatre, post-multicultural society is reportedly suffering some strains. The discussion has been raised that the welfare state is under attack because of immigrant mores. Traditional lefties tend to regroup amongst themselves rather than really familiarize themselves as to why certain communities stick to themselves, when surrounded. There is supposedly an “erosion of trust” when societies become racially diverse as a result of immigration and the ethos of the western welfare state is undermined. Wealth redistribution suffers.  It has repeatedly been proven, however, even in Canadian surveys, that racially diverse neighborhoods are more trusting of their neighbours.  And new immigration has always assisted the welfare state more than a monocultural ethos did.

Judy Rebick, the former publisher of Rabble, during a visit to the recent Quebec Social Forum, enthusiastically noted that “Quebec had already become another country.” She, however, lamented as well---“The most visible absence, however, was from what the Quebecois call the cultural communities. The diversity of Montreal was not at all reflected with the exception of a strong participation from the Latin American community. On the other hand, almost one third of participants came from outside the Montreal area, showing that the Left is strong around the province.”
Well, Latin Americans are a Latin language speaking, predominantly Catholic people. There is close proximity here with Quebec. What Ms. Rebick possibly overlooks is that for a hundred years Indians and Chinese came over and settled in Canada, as working progressive people. They spoke English. That is why the NDP and even the Liberals have such a large contingent of people of Indian, Chinese and Caribbean heritage. I am not suggesting that these are necessarily progressive conglomerations, but at least people from these countries did celebrate their presence in Canada by also engaging in progressive politics. How could they have done the same in Quebec, when their religious practices are equated to hocus-pocus and their language is treated as mumbo-jumbo? Their language root differentials become a barrier and familiarization becomes a very difficult process. Alas, also, Asians and others are just a tad bit darker than Latin Americans. 

Quebec has always played with difference. Even with words. What is Multicultural in Canada, becomes Intercultural in Quebec. What is visible minority in Canada becomes Cultural community in Quebec. Of course there is distinction in all this. When the debate over multiculturalism was becoming stale, Quebec realized that a pluralist society could very well welcome immigrants. But not everyone was comfortable with the idea. So, language was used again as a protectionist barrier, not to protect the language, but simply to put another barrier in favor of the assimilationist philosophy. These musings are no invocation to turn the clock back as far as the language laws go. The same leftists from outside Montreal who are so keen about opposing the American empire are not so keen about making Quebec a friendlier place for non-Catholic people of color. Language is a ruse. It is simply not an issue any longer. If you live in Quebec, you must operate in French. But to use that as an excuse to extrapolate and set up social mores is nothing but a refined extension of what Pat Buchanan had to say about multiculturalism- “an across-the-board assault on our Anglo-American heritage.”

In the final analysis, people must wander around. Travel, if they can. Even in their own province. Indians and Pakistanis are friendlier to each other in Montreal and Dubai, then they are in their own countries. The “cult” of the “multi” must pass on to the secular and diversified imagery is, but, just that. Images and not the real thing. Whether in Dubai or in Montreal.

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