Letter to my radio station: Good bye, au revoir, arrivederci.

Dear radio station,

I am leaving you. I know you don't really care, because you probably have hundreds and thousands of fans. But I'm sick and tired of your constant repetitions and redundancies. How about you give me some 'diversity'? It's not that I don't like Beyonce. But listening to her latest song (which incidentally, was produced by the same owner that owns you, my dear radio station) 30 times a day feels a bit like brainwashing. Maybe it wouldn't hurt you, dear radio station, to tap a bit into the wealth of music that's being created out there, outside the studios of your owner. Maybe, just maybe, you'll find that there's actually rhythm and emotions that do not need to be in English - or whatever your 'official' language is.

I'm dreaming, I know. Who on earth wants to hear Stromae when Adam Lambert is playing on American Idol? And why would you ever trade the daring Lady Gaga for Manu Chao (yeah, yeah, I know, it's distracting that he keeps on switching from one language to another)... Hey, it make more sense to hum "my hump, my hump, my hump" than "we no speak americano"...

So, my dear radio station, I'm leaving you. I'll come visit you once in a while, mostly in the morning when you pretend to give me the 'news'. But for the rest of the day, I'm switching over to my own list of songs. It's still Anglophone, I know. But I'm working on it every day, collecting more of the sounds that make me wanna dance. I'm kind of sick of all the crap you throw at me. Good bye, au revoir, arrivederci...

Consuming Diversity

One of things I like when visiting a metropolis is its diversity: you can have lunch in Chinatown and dinner in Little Italy. Everywhere you walk, diversity surrounds you. I qualify as a 'diversity-seeker', a person who actively looks for diversity.

But what exactly do I do with this diversity? And how does this inclination of seeking diversity translate in terms of social engagement, social practices and social ties?

Well, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, diversity-seeking may translate into ... well, consumption of diversity. But from consumption to engagement with difference it's a big step, one that involves challenging your own routines and values, re-adjusting your own expectations and practices, and striving to open yourself up instead of closing yourself down to difference.

Blokland and van Eijk (2009) have studied the residents of a small neighborhood in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), asking some pre-determined questions on their attitude to and engagement with diversity. The neighborhood in question is an ethnically diverse one, recently transitioning from being perceived as a 'bad' neighborhood to being perceived as a 'cool' one, with small shops and fancy restaurants.

Although the study itself remains limited by the pre-determined set of questions that were asked of people (we do not know how people themselves made sense of their own position in those neighborhoods and their own relation to diversity), it is interesting to see that what diversity-seeking often translates into is consumption:

Diversity-seekers frequented restaurants, bars and shops more intensely than other residents, but did not show more (or less) social or political engagement with local neighbourhood affairs than other residents.

The article itself is responding to Richard Florida's now famous discussion of the rise of a new middle-class, the creative class, roughly defined by its involvement in creative industries. The creative class, Florida contends, is more inclined to be tolerant and to seek diversity in their residential locations. But exactly what does 'seeking diversity' means remains an open question: just because one eats Chinese food and drinks Greek ouzo doesn't necessarily make that person more willing to question hi/er belief system and daily practices. Blokland and van Eijk (2009) echo this when they conclude that

a taste for diversity means little to social network diversity. As far as diversity is brought into the practice of daily life, using cmmercial neighborhood facilities is all that diversity -seekers do more... even for those who, whether middle-class or not, come into a mixed neighborhood with openness to diversity, this openness does not translate in more diverse networks (p. 327).

As I said, there are limitations to this study. In fairness, it sheds little light on how people actually relate to diversity, beyond statistically correlating their demographic data with their answers to some pre-determined questions that the authors take as measuring diversity in our lives. In my building, there are at least three or four recognizable ethnic groups. I do not socialize with my neighbors simply because the way I come to make friends involves an intellectual rapprochement, and it's hard to have that interaction with one's neighbors out of various reasons (including the Western attitude towards sharing an urban space). Yet, the study does bring forward an interesting observation: that consumption of diversity does not equal living with diversity.

Photo credits
Puroticorico

References: Blokland, Talja and van Eijk, Gwen(2009) 'Do People Who Like Diversity Practice Diversity in Neighbourhood Life? Neighbourhood Use and the Social Networks of 'Diversity-Seekers' in a Mixed Neighbourhood in the Netherlands', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36: 2, 313 — 332

The need to classify

We classify. Maybe because we want to master the world around us, by putting order into it. Maybe because our brains work with a tree-like structure, placing things into categories and drawing branch like relations between them. We classify, and in this process we buy into the order of things*: we accommodate things within a pre-determined system of beliefs and interests that underlies every classificatory order.

No classification is innocent.

- I'm going to a concert tonight. There's a famous piano-player from Canada playing.
- What's her name?
- Sarah Cheung.
- Oh, she's Asian then.
- She's quite famous in Canada.
- Yes, of Asian origins. Cheung does not sound ... well, how shall i put it, Canadian.
- It may not sound Western.
- Yeah, that's what I meant.

Canadian, Asian, Western... we need to put people in categories. It's not enough to say what a person does or where a person now lives. To properly place that person in our nicely fitting systems of categories, we need to find out "where is s/he coming from". As if, by ticking the little box of birth-place and/ or ethnic group, all of a sudden there's order. And we can breath out, relax and hear the rest of the conversation.

*The Order of Things is the title of one of Michel Foucault's books, dealing with the relation between power and knowledge.

Personal Globalization

Warning: The following notes smell like middle-class, I-have-it-all, I-can-afford-to-be-cosmopolitan bragging... not my intention, but the smell persists...

The other day, a friend from Romania asked her network on Facebook to vote for a band in Germany. She's dating one of the members of the band, who's also from Turkey. Funny things is, me and this friend met in Turkey... the Westernized, touristic part of Turkey where people go to forget their frustrations and enjoy life by the sea, sipping on a margarita. That part of Turkey where's water in abundance and where everything is white and neat, just like the tourists... What stayed most with me however was the overwhelming feeling I had stepping into the Istanbul bazaar... Istanbul

Istanbul: There was this person I knew from Istanbul whom I actually met in the subway in Budapest. I was talking to a friend of mine who happened to be from Greece, and just like in a comedy of errors, this guy thought we were talking about him. The friendship between a person from Athens and one from Istanbul, as unlikely as it sounds to some ears, was actually a natural... Friendship

Friendship: So was the friendship between this person from Athens and a person from Skopje. Hey, who would have every thought... There's nothing more powerful in destroying ethnic stereotypes and nationalisms than friendships. The three of us formed a trio, always together - also known as "The Triplets"... Triplets

Triplets: Having triplets is no easy job, but for my friends it looks like a piece of cake. You'd think having three kids at once would transform the mom into a perpetual slave to diapers and baby food. Not this mom... She's just amazing, travelling almost every month to Strasbourg and Bruxelles. Hey, the European Union itself is asking for her! So she goes to beautiful Bruxelles, to mingle with all of those politicians and bureaucrats we only get to see on TV... When we visited Bruxelles, my mom told me: "Look, we are now running around in the backyard of Europe". Not quite a 'backyard', but still a huge, white (here comes whiteness again...) meeting place. A place where my former colleague, who so happens to be from Bulgaria, shops for fine chocolates and gateau aux abricots... Bulgaria

Bulgaria: I owe a huge debt to a person from Bulgaria, who once had faith in me and told me "you can do it". So did a person from Hungary and two from Norway: they gave me courage and skillfully guided me through the jungle of social theory. Theory and morality. Just and unjust wars. Social responsibility and peace. Peace

Peace: Peace is exactly what my friend from Kenya hopes and lives for. But when you work in a conflict area, thousands of miles away from your own family, peace seems like a rich-people privilege... My friend tells surreal stories about kidnappings, gun-attacks and violence. And I can only listen, a world away, hoping somehow nothing will touch my friend and the world will get a better place.... Cheers to bourgeois ignorance... I once had a roommate from that area. I remember she had never seen snow in her life before we were in Norway. But then again, neither did my friend from Athens - though it so happens that after we saw snow in Budapest, Athens all of a sudden started getting snow... Blame it on the climate change. Climate change

Climate change: My friend from Costa Rica keeps a calendar of the days left til the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change. It's a one-person fight: every day, he reminds all his friends of the summit and of climate change. Every day, he asks us to think about what each and every one of us could do to change things. It's like a daily mantra we came to expect: tell us something about climate change. And it works for us, his friends... Friends

Friends: My friends are spread all over the world. And if I'm to add my acquiantances to my network of friends, I get to cover quite a lot... From Asia to Europe, from Australia to North America, from Africa to ... well, what's left? Hm, no friends from the two Poles, though I can still brag with some friends who live above the Polar Circle...

Be polite, or we'll know exactly which group you belong to...

I went to a see a play the other day. Though marketed as a comedy, the play was in fact quite heavy: troubled relationships, troubled lives and the past haunting the present, delivered to the audience in a funny wrapping. And the thirty-something people in the audience laughed here and there, whenever appropriate. Except one. One person laughed at the... er... wrong times?

You know the type: usually in the middle of the room, this person has obviously got it all wrong. They never laugh when everyone else is laughing; they laugh on their own, as loud as they can, enjoying themselves, oblivious to the annoyance they bring upon you...

What's wrong with them, why don't they get it?

But it's so easy to get annoyed with other people, to see the wrongs in them... If only they would follow the rules... the norms... the conventions...

Because, in the end, that's all it comes down to: rules, norms and conventions. Social rules around what is appropriate behavior during a play. Social cues to be read in the play, in the actors' behavior. Social conventions defining what counts as funny, appropriate, acceptable. And laughing on your own, finding your own relationship to a play and to its meaning, that's just not 'legitimate' with us: you have to laugh when the others are laughing, and you have to clap when the others are clapping...

Have you noticed that nobody - and I mean Nobody! - throws rotten tomatoes at actors anymore? Or that nobody shouts at them "You suck! Find another job!" (only Simon Cowell still has that privilege...)? Oh, that would be funny... I fantasized about that during quite a few performances... but I would never have the courage to break the social rules of legitimate behavior. I missed my chance with some hundred years... ah, the time when audiences chatted during a play (gosh, imagine the disorder!) or when they "hooted and jeered" (Gossett, p. 174).

The unwritten yet powerful rules of politeness and legitimate behavior. We can't do without them (really, don't start throwing rotten tomatoes at people you don't like, ok?). Yet they also hide away the real lines of separation under the veil of 'appropriate behavior'. Separation along class lines or majority/minority lines, when the you just 'know' from a person's reaction that s/he's not 'well-mannered' or 'from here'.

Norms, rules, conventions, symbols, words, ways of talking - all of these form for Pierre Bourdieu the 'symbolic capital' through which we communicate. The currency we use to obtain other people's endorsement, support or even love. They position us in the social hierarchy. Our use of them reveals us as 'insiders' or 'outsiders', as 'powerful' or 'power-hungry'.

"To speak is to appropriate one or other of the expressive styles already constituted in and through usage, and objectively marked by their position in a hierarchy of styles which expresses the hierarchy of corresponding social groups" (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 54)

And it is not only speech - the choice of words, the way you construct a sentence, a.s.o - but also gestures, postures, proximities; we rely on them to communicate with others. They position us in particular nodes of power structures; and we use them as guides in interpreting other people, in positioning them within the social hierarchy.

In fairness, this time I actually enjoyed this lonely audience member's laughter. But most of the times, I resent it. It's hard to move beyond the resentment: it's way easier to study the social norms and their power dimensions than it is to actually live with them. But I suspect the hardship comes from the rather rigid boundary social groups have constructed around them. Any tresspassing of the boundary, of the 'common sense' and 'social expectations' is troubling and distressing. And it's always easier to point to the "Other" as an "Other", than to be suspicious of your own labelling of people.

References:
Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press
Gossett, P. (2006) Divas and Scholars: Perfoming Italian Opera. University of Chicago Press

Multicultural and multinational groups

In a recent article, Caron and Laforest (2009) argue that in spite of multiculturalism being more and more on the public agenda, Stephen Harper's understanding of multicultural Canada seems to be molded on the monistic nation-state ideal. The authors introduce the distinction between multicultural and multinational states, where multicultural refers to acknowledging various (ethnic) cultures within the same state, while multinational refers to acknolwedging various national cultures within the same state. So what's the difference between ethnic groups and nations? Following Will Kymlicka's discussion, national cultures are:

associated with substate/minority nationalisms, that is "a regionally concentrated group that conceives of itself as a nation within a larger state (like Scotland in Great Britain or Catalonia in Spain) and mobilizes behind nationalist political parties to achieve recognition of its nationhood, either in the form of an indepdent state or through territorial autonomy within the larger state"." (p. 28).

What interests me in this discussion, as always, is how the nation is being defined, who defines it and on whose behalf.

1. How the nation is being defined: First, I always had this huge problem with the idea of a 'regionally concentrated group' - Exactly what does that mean? To take Quebec only, the population in this region includes various ethnic groups. How are we to think of these people, as eternally an 'Other' to the 'proper' inhabitants of the region? Or maybe it's just my vision: maybe the Quebec nation is not one premised on ethnic differences, but on something else - but then what legitimizes this claim for being a 'group'? What are those features that make people a group/ a nation, in this case? What are the reasons/ values/ features for drawing the line of inclusion in/ exclusion from the 'nation'?

2. Who defines the nation/ group? Is it academics? Is it politicians? Based on what do they draw the boundaries of inclusion/ exclusion? I find it interesting that it is this macro talk, this big-picture-big-labels type of discourse that effectively erases those who do not mobilize behind the national agenda, those who (although members of the ethnic group) might not necessarily care too much or bother with such things or- why not - oppose the whole nationalist apparatus. All of this diversity of opinions, of views disappears - we no longer see it. We see the 'group' mobilizing for 'national' recognition.

3. On whose behalf? I think the inclusion/ exclusion mechanism works to create the subjects of this nation: if you are not part of the 'nation', then you are probably not interpellated by it - and therefore you are not part of it. It is a very circular process within which we are being forced to recognize ourselves - to think of ourselves- as members of the group, and thus we feel compelled by its political agendas.

* * *

That people and leaders may find a powerful ally in nationalism to legitimize their claims, requests or simply their recognition is quite obvious. Yet, just because something is empowering, it doesn't mean that it is morally unproblematic. Or that it derives from some intrinsic features of the group (as opposed, say, to being constructed by political and economic interests). I'm finding I have the same resistance to the ideology of 'race' and 'gender': the more one strives for the recognition of her legitimacy on the basis of one's difference, the more one exposes herself to being objectified by that difference. And this increases the gap between 'Us' and "Them", between our ethics/ morality and theirs, between our interests/ values/ cultures and theirs.

I wonder how you, reader, see this?


References: Caron, J.F., Laforest, G. (2009) "Canada and Multinational Federalism: From the Spirit of 1982 to Stephen Harper's Open Federalism," Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 15(1): 27-55

Stereotypes on the Radio

Just listened to one of those highly stereotyped and utterly embarrassing radio moments. Each morning, the radio station I tune in pays the bills of listeners who sent them the respective bills. Today, they picked up a woman with a 'strange' name. Well, strange according to an English-speaking environment because it sounded Russian. So, the anchors keep on rambling about the name; they're not able to pronounce it, so they masquerade what sounds to them as a Russian accent. And they have a very good time with this: hey, it's not everyday you get to make fun of a Russian name.

Now, here's the irony: the lady calls in. "Oh, you have a Russian name" the achors are quick to confirm their stereotypes, anticipating some fun in the air with the name. But, surprise, surprise, the lady answers in a perfect English: "Yes, it is" and she goes on minding her own business. "At least we got the accent right", the anchors reply.

Duh?!? Well, in fact, they didn't; but that's another issue. The point is that, in spite of living in a multicultural society (hey, it's North America!), there still is a mainstream expectation that if your name sounds 'different' (read not Anglo-Saxon), you're not from 'here'. I've blogged in the past about the relation between 'language' and 'dialects' and 'accents' - a relation specific to the age of nationalism, where language becomes homogenized, swallows all other similar languages under the label 'dialects' and, thanks to an intellectual elite, becomes canonical, with a set of 'proper' speaking/ writing rules. It is against this background that accents become problematic (even if it seems they are just funny), as they betray the speaker as an "other", an "alien" in the corpus of the nation.

Photo credits: aloshbennett

Heritage, multiculturalism and religion

It so happens that I've just finished reading the impressive reader Representing the Nation: Histories, heritage and museums* when I came across an interesting article squeezed on the first page of the newspaper: "Heritage department takes aim at religious radicals". In a true stereotyped fashion, I thought to myself: I wonder if this is about Islam, once again. After all, as a Westerner, I have come to expect that any Western voice talking about religious radicals is talking about Islam - unless the person in question is a feminist, then my stereotype says s/he probably refers to anti-abortion extreme right Christians.

Lo and behold, I was right. Still pondering Broken Mystic's discussion of Rudy Giuliani's islamophobic remarks, I started reading the article in question: The Canadian federal government, in an attempt to make multiculturalism meet modern demands, has identified religious fundamentalism (especially among youth) as its main enemy.

To see how my brain works, the first thing I thought about was the series of articles on the trial of the alleged terrorist conspiracy by a bunch of youngsters in Toronto. The youngsters were identified as radical Muslism (somehow ignorant of their own religion and Westernized - they loved going to Tim Hortons - to the point that their radicalism was treated by the media as a bad joke).

I was not an ardent follower of the case, so I had to google it; but this says a lot about how our synapses work, fostered by our media consumption. Interestingly, the book I just finished makes the connection between the role of heritage in the nation-state and its intersections with media consumption and public education. Speaking about museums in India, Arjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge see heritage as sites where "spectacle, discipline, and state power become interlinked with questions of entertainment, education, and control" (p. 418). And that is exactly how I would interpret my own connections and reading of the article in question.

Six paragraphs later, the article - and the Heritage department - spells it out: "The slides point out that Islam is, by far, the greatest gorwing religion in Canada..." blah blah blah. I know the drill without reading the rest. But I continue, and true enough, it's about the 'clash of cultures' and how immigrants need to be integrated and religious extremism combated. No more mentioning of Islam, but scholars of critical discourse analysis have long learned that the implicit argument is equally - if not more - important.

"People are not merely legal citizens of a nation - writes Jessica Evans in the book mentioned above - in an important sense a nation is also a symbolic community which creates powerful - and often pathological - allegiance to a cultural ideal" (1991: 1)

Multiculturalism works as an ideal, a discourse of Canadian nationalism. But what is the particular image of what being Canadian means? In this case, we are reminded that immigrants can be Canadian, in a legal sense: they can become citizens, but do they become 'nationals'? The multiculturalism of Canadian society is a difference we love to state, to showcase. But when it comes to living with it, the Department of Heritages spells it out quite clearly: "shifting demographics mean the government must 'adjust multiculturalism programming' in order to 'advance core Canadian values'"

Stuart Hall argued that "The capacity to live with difference is, in my view, the coming question of the twenty-first century" (1991: 42). And I think he's absolutely right. Yet, so far, we lived with difference by asking it to become less threatening by Westernizing and commodifying itself. And we lived with difference by assuming culture is something of the soul, something metaphysical which marks us profoundly and inexorably. It's hard to think of difference in this paradigm.

Reference: Boswell, D., Evans, J. (1999) Representing the Nation: A Reader. Histories, Heritage and Museums. Routledge & The Open University
Photo credits: PhotoFusion

On Being Cosmopolitan

I've always liked being a 'citizen of the world'. It simply made sense to me that one should be able to go wherever one pleases and call home wherever one chooses, and that this should be the end of it. I subscribed to ubi bene ibi patria.

I guess I felt strongly about this precisely because I was born in a place where one could not just pack and go wherever one wished. Experiences of humiliating lines at embassies and consulates, instances of realizing you are absolutely powerless in front of the bureaucrat behind the glass, moments of simply not understanding why you going somewhere else was such a big deal.

A recent article* by Craig Calhoun brought me back to thinking about feeling cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitanism - the discourse around cosmopolitan places, choices and lifestyles - is not as simple as it looks: it is not a matter of choice, but a matter of having that choice. As Calhoun puts it: "it obscures the issues of inequality that make ethnically unmarked national identities accessible mainly to elites, and make an easy sense of being a citizen of the world contingent on having the right passports, credit cards, and cultural credentials" (2008: 437).

As much as I like cosmopolitanism, I have to agree with Calhoun: it is not a matter of choice. It is a matter of passports, of the institutions regulating our lives and seting the parameters within which we are able to make our choices. It is wishful thinking more than lived reality. And that's why it stirs so much anger: it speaks of a world in which we are equal. But we know for a fact that we are not. We know that not all passports are equal, not to mention that not all people are equal. We know that we need money to go somewhere - and that for some, the cost of a train ticket (not to mention a plane ticket) is simply beyond one's possibilities.

So is cosmpolitanism something like white racism? Where you wonder why people still get bugged by racism, when you yourself are not (and hey, you are white by the way, and have never been part of the margins)? Is it a new form of mainstream dystopia (or myopia for that matter)? I confess I still like cosmpolitanism as an idea, even if I realize it is not a reality. I like the potential of imagining a world where identity and location are not intrinsically linked. But I doubt it is possible.

* Calhoun, C. (2008) "Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism," Nations and Nationalism 14(3): 427-448
Photo credits: Mishel Churkin

Banal, Inconspicuous Racism...

What is it you see in this picture? Pick your choice:
A). A bunch of Chinese
B). A bunch of Asians
C). A bunch of people

If you answered A or B, you have a problem. A banal, inconspicuous problem. You see race before people. You take race to be something that defines people. Which, in a banal and inconspicuous manner, does make you a racist.

The other day, I was reading this blog post about dealing with racist stereotypes and prejudices within your own social network. Should one react to them? Should you confront your friends and acquaintances? Should you just avoid the discussion and pretend you didn't get the racism? I even left a comment on the blog, feeling like one who has been there and found the balance...

Well, I was wrong (and I hate to admit it). There is no balance. I've forgotten how difficult it is to live in a world where people judge other people based on their skin color or shape of the eyes. And how difficult it might be to react, out of many reasons (age, social status, social ties and so on). I simply left the room as soon as I could with that bitter feeling that change is next to impossible, to say the least.

The discussion started innocently, as most racist discussions do, with a story about a trip by bus.

Oh, there are so many Chinese taking the bus... Yes, many indeed, but if you think this is many, then go to Vancouver... There are almost only Chinese there... So many you (the White voice, my note) feel like a minority there... Yes, they are everywhere... And they go everywhere... They'll soon be everywhere...

I confess I didn't react. The people involved in the conversation are intellectuals, with a rich cultural experience, who traveled the world and back. The people involved in this conversation know exactly how I would react, or where I stand on this type of inconspicuously disguised racism. I know I should have reacted.

The same people are however enraged when they themselves are placed into groups and homogenized. They take offence when they are stereotyped and labeled and when they experience the status of being a minority (hard status for a white person!). Yet the logic doesn't seem to be the same when encountering other people. People are almost always perceived through what is taken to be the sign of difference: the skin, the physical traits, the ethnicity, the nationality.

I remember a girl once saying "I will never date a Russian". Why, I asked naively. "Because he would be Russian", came the self-explanatory answer. In his 1995 book entitled Banal Nationalism, Michael Billig discusses the concept arguing that we recreate daily and in a banal manner the ideas that the world is naturally divided into nations defined by particular ethno-cultural-psychological traits and that individuals are primarily defined by their belonging to their nation. The argument is pliable to racism as well. Yes, some of us might live in places proclaiming themselves to be multicultural and tolerant, but it is the daily recreation of racism, nationalism, homophobia and intolerance that needs to be seen, investigated and addressed.

Photo Credits: ernoldino

The success of Canadian multiculturalism...

Michael Adams has a new book on what he calls the success of Canadian multiculturalism. In a news story on TV a few days ago (I was unable to find the exact reference), he explained his ideas as to why this type of multiculturalism is successful. Will Kymlicka, another big name when it comes to promoting the success of the Canadian multicultural model, praised Adams in a Globe and Mail article:

...Adams sees Canada as a model for the world, particularly in contrast to our American neighbour, where cultural conservatism and racial antagonism have created a society that is both more conformist and less solidaristic.

I feel quite ambivalent about Adams arguments, out of many reasons.

First of all, I find this whole discussion about the 'Canadian multicultural' model quite nationalistic in itself. The idea that Canadians are tolerant and welcome diversity (although everybody pretends there's nothing out there that makes someone truly Canadian) is very self-satisfying in a world of political correctness - and in particular in relation to Canada's Big Brother (and I am not trying to reinforce other stereotypes here about the relation between the two countries).

But while people might say they are tolerant when asked, looking at their practices might tell a different story. There is a China Town, an Italian Town, a Greek street etc. in almost all big Canadian cities. There is the odd survey showing we do not want people of a different ethnic background as our neighbors. And of course, there is the daily reality of immigrants trying to get work which is quite different from the picture portrayed by Adams.

There is one point on which I agree with Adams though: multiculturalism is a reality in Canada - but also allover urban spaces. It is an URBAN reality for those cities which are doing well. And it is also a politically correct discourse to which there is a certain WILL in Canada - as well as in other countries. But this will is fragile, and all it takes is an extremist leader to play upon the feelings of frustration arising from living a multicultural world with a xenophobic and nationalist mindset. It is not the multiculturalism legal framework that makes the 'Canadian model' - after all, legal frameworks talking about diversity and multiculturalism exist in other places, for instance the Council of Europe.

And then again, another disagreement with Adams... In the news story mentioned above, Adams made the argument that we want immigrants to come to Canada, not to reconstruct their countries here. Aware of the trap, he was quick to add that this doesn't mean that we reject other values, but that we reject values incompatible with liberal democracies (such as patriarchy). But to what extent can we incorporate other values? And to what extent the vision of Canada which pre-exists immigrants requires them to conform to the 'Canadian values'? People may say there are no such things as a corpus of Canadian values. But then any immigrant looking for a job will probably disagree. One of the main thing immigrants are required to do is to learn the Canadian lifestyle, to learn how to exhibit it in public spaces and how to mimic it in order to be seen as eligible workforce.

Truth be said, I do not disagree with many of these values myself. And I have learned through my own multicultural experiences that it is really hard to accept other lifestyles on an equal footing with yours (whatever that may be). Living diversity in a harmonious way requires a change inside us, which would imply the gradual destruction and reconstruction of hierarchies of values and categorization systems. It requires a will, but also a change in our bodies (I still cannot cope with hot foods...). But where does the will come from? And how stable is this will? I have many doubts.

Photo credits: Michael Adams website