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by Mphuthumi Ntabeni

G21 Staff Writer

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G21 AFRICA - Multicultural Barbarism: Mphuthumi Ntabeni speaks to what he sees as the flaws of diversity chic.

Mphuthumi Ntabeni

East London, SOUTH AFRICA - It may be true that the world in general is less racist than it was decades ago, but we've fallen under another perverted passion of unfettered hatred prattling as patriotism or cultural identity. There's just as much hate in the world now as there ever was. The difference is that now it's marshalled against easy targets, the new monsters like terrorists, homophobes, paedophiles, rapists, racists, and so on.

Globalisation comes with feelings of alienation and displacement in those people who feel left out or culturally threatened, causing the rise of hatred in our societies. Another cause is the pervasive paradox that exists in celebrating difference in the name of valuing individuality preached by the new priests of multiculturism. This new doctrine of multiculuralsim does not promote tolerance but unwittingly stirs up a process of g roup affiliation and intergroup rivalry. Australia, Sidney in particular, has been reaping the consequences of this in the form of racial violence on its streets in recent weeks.

Countries like England, France and Australia are currently under the grip of having to deal with the pressure consequent to economic migration, which is explicitly exposing cultural differences in their multiracial societies. The result is a socially mandated loathing of 'the other' concealed in the hate for the new monsters, like terrorists, even suspected terrorists, who've become subject to shooting by British police.

What the bland idea of multiculturalism does not acknowledge is that human beings tend to think of themselves as group members as much as they think of themselves as individuals. People like to label themselves by a group identity that inevitably includes an element of hostility towards the members of other groups, and an element of promoting the virtue of one's own against the vice of others.

If you tell people to celebrate their difference in the name of valuing their individuality before the idea of tolerance is instilled on their minds, you're actually stirring up the process of group affiliation, inter-group rivalry and escalating intolerance. Western societies are not as advanced as they would like to believe themselves. There is still the lack, somewhere behind their subconscious minds, where the primitive darkness of prejudice hides.

The primitive darkness is not always subconscious - as demonstrated by some states in the U.S.A. who stubbornly adhere to the death penalty. The death penalty cheapens life, and not only brutalises those who have to carry it out but also brings the society that practises it to the barbaric level of those they condemn to death. It has no place in a civilised society.

The soundbites of bland universalists, like "diversity" and "solidarity", fail to acknowledge that diversity and solidarity are mutually exclusive when undifferentiated.

Ignoring the truly explosive dimension of society for an ideal (multiculturism) puts a society in a false state, hence the unconvincing consternation, bordering on shock, of Western leaders each time racially motivated incidencts occur. Is it not peculiar that those who are supposed to be inheritors of the rational Enlightenment, who call themselves progressives, are now smuggling barbarism under the banner of protecting their culture, as seen in Sidney?

Celebrating undifferentiated diversity is an unwitting way of implementing a policy of divide and rule, resulting in acrimonious politicisation, aggressive conservatism and the pure opportunism of fundamentalists and supremacists.

Our communities, especially when made up of multiple cultures, are still too fractured. Things like the French and Sidney riots demonstrate this stark reality.

What these riots tell us is that there's a vast difference between multifaceted culture and multiculturalism, which none of our societies has reached yet. We must first master the courage to honestly face up to what divides us before we start celebrating our multiculturalism. Issues of social justice, racism and deprivation need urgent attention before handling complex issues like multiculturalism.

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Mr. Ntabeni is also a correspondent for the Daily Dispatch of South Africa.