“Diversity is our strength” has been a popular slogan in Canada for many years.
Is it true?
Afghanistan stands as the ultimate model of ethnic diversity. “Afghanistan's 2004 Constitution cited Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkman, Baluch, Pashaie, Nuristani, Aymaq, Arab, Qirghiz, Qizilbash, Gujur, and Brahwui ethnicities; Afghanistan has dozens of other small ethnic groups.” (CIA World Fact Book)
Another diverse nation was the old Yugoslavia, with roughly comparable populations of Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenes, Albanians, Hungarians, Montenegrins and Macedonians.
Another was the old Austro-Hungarian Empire; one might also cite the Balkans generally.
Iraq is diverse: Sunni and Shia Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis, Turkmen, Assyrians, Mandaeans.
In all these examples, diversity does not seem to have been their strength. Instead, it hindered development, made these places relatively ungovernable, and led to bloodshed. Diversity was and is their weakness.
Diversity is a strength only in the context of more fundamental unity. America has been successful, because it had a powerful mainstream, and the motto was e pluribus unum. Immigrants intentionally shed their home culture by coming. Other, successfully diverse countries, like Singapore, India, or the UK, feature one overwhelmingly dominant ethnic group and culture. And even they have had their problems: Singapore was thrown out of Malaysia for being too Chinese, India underwent the holocaust of partition, and there is ongoing trouble Kalistani Sikhs and Tamil Tigers; and the UK underwent the Irish wars of separation and, as recently as the nineties, the Ulster troubles.
Unity is strength; diversity is good for choice of restaurants.
Multiculturalism, as an official policy, is suicidal.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
