Multiculturalism: The Ghettoization of Ethnic minorities

One recent Friday, I attended an Iranian-Canadian event in Toronto where I was, perhaps, the only non-White, non-Iranian among the 1000 immaculately turned out guests. When I asked friends on the table why there were no Black, Chinese or Arabs at the event, I drew blank stares of bewilderment. Unsaid, but easily understood in the silence was the answer, "why would a Chinese Canadian or an Indian Canadian be interested in an Iranian event?"

So, I pushed the envelope further and asked: "If you feel a Black or Chinese Canadian would not understand Iranian issues, why do you feel White Canadians would? Are they better disposed to grasp international issues than say, an Arab Canadian?, I asked.

The interesting part of the evening was that reaction of a White Canadian member of provincial parliament, who shared our table. She was quite taken aback at my candour and admitted, "I had not noticed the absence of these communities until you pointed it out."

Of course, this celebration of ghettoization is not the exclusive preserve of Iranian Canadians; other communities have mastered their own marginalization with equal enthusiasm, if not more.

Earlier in the week, I attended a Tamil Canadian event, where too, the
situation was the same. Only Tamil Canadians and White Canadians were
invited. No Arabs, no Iranians, no Chinese were among the audience; my
presence being the anomaly. When I raised the same issue with my Tamil
hosts, they, to their credit, were far more willing to accept the fact that they had overlooked the issue out of neglect.

This strange relationship of Canada's ethnics with the dominant community,raises the question: Is this segregation a legacy of our colonial past, the rise of identity poltics, or the direct result of institutional multiculturalism?

Why is it that whenever the Chinese or Pakistani or any other ethnic
minority organizes events, the only other community invited to participate is the dominant white community?

Canada’s ethno-cultural communities, who celebrated the advent of
multiculturalism in the 60s, are today increasingly cynical about it.

One of the people who have addressed this issue is Canada's prominent and fiery constitutional lawyer, Rocco Galati. In a frank article published in the Italian Chamber of Commerce magazine, Partners, and later on ZNet magazine, Rocco Galati blasted the institution of multiculturalism, calling it "the bone thrown to us dogs by the English and French masters."

Galati, who recently married prominent Pakistani-Canadian lawyer, Amina Sherazee, slammed multiculturalism suggesting it benefited a "very small number of multiculturalism brothels, which extol the virtues of this nonsense for their own limited financial gain to the detriment of the equality and dignity of the rest of us.
These cultural collaborators who spread their wallets, sometimes unaware of the damage, are completely ignorant of the history of “multiculturalism” is a recent, post WWII phenomenon, continues on."

In the article that appeared last spring, Rocco Galati wrote that the
attempt to introduce Sharia in Canada was also one of the bones thrown to us dogs by the English and French masters. He wrote:
"With the bone comes the super myth that multiculturalism equals mutual tolerance. A closer examination is that it is a mutual and exclusive ghettoization, which is now moving towards blatant institutional segregation through such things as Sharia Courts, a private “multicultural alternative” to the “public” Courts. What is “public” is Anglo and Franco, what is “private,” in the name of “multiculturalism/” is everything else splintered and denigrated on race, religion and language."

In his devastating critique of multiculturalism, Galati who hails from Sicily and grew up street-wise in Toronto, says the word “multiculturalism” evokes images of a sausage-fest in Toronto's “Little Italy” district or a Souvlaki-fest on the City's “Greek Town,” or Kebab-fests on Gerrard Street’s India Town, or any of the other food-fests, dance-fests, and bikini contests, on selected steamy summer days.

But, he writes, while you eat to the sub-standard musical bands, and their even worse tunes, you should not entertain any legal, cultural, or political notions of “multiculturalism,” since they do not exist.

Slamming the institution that has made minorities their own worst enemies,Galati say “multiculturalism” sees the cultural descendants of Caesar, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, Meucci, Marconi and Fermi relegated to serving sausage in Little Italy while the cultural descendants of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, are permitted to serve the Souvlaki in Greek Town, and the Indo and Arab races, who gave us, amongst other things the zero, mathematics, and our entire western cultural legacy back in the Middle Ages, by translating from Arabic what we had burnt and lost in Latin and Greek, are in turn busy fending off the envelope of “terrorism.”

Galati says the marginalization of ethnic minorities does not stop there. He writes that the "superior races" of Canada are also distorting and falsifying history. He writes:
"Thus the likes of Cristoforo Colombo, Giovanni Cabotto are anglicized into the “John Cabots” of ethnically cleansed Canadian history. A Da Vinci exhibit, at Montreal’s premier museum was entitled, “Selected works of Leonard De Vince.” Vancouver archivists, in the 1930s, changed Spanish and Portuguese names and references into English in homage to Lord Vancouver.Canadians, notwithstanding resolutions #269 on September 25th, 2001, passed the US Congress, recognizing Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone, years before Bell, still go on with Graham Bell in the greatest Canadian contest as the inventor of the telephone. The list goes on."

Galati summarises his misgivings about multiculturalism by quoting Martin Luther King:" When you segregate a people, you inevitably discriminate against that people." He concludes by saying, "What we have in Canada is multisegregation de facto, and regrettably de jure."

Rocco Galati’s cynicism may offend some, but there is no doubt that not only have the dominant communities of Canada successfully segregated us into our sometimes prosperous ghettoes, they have had near full cooperation by leaders of these communities. No wonder, whether it is Iranians or Tamils,they, like all other ethnic communities, feel they need to only relate to the mainstream community, not share their issues with fellow citizens from other racial minorities.

In this era of identity politics, where people are being pushed into
religious and racial silos, multiculturalism can very easily provide fertile soil for nurturing our primitiveness, rather than celebrating reason and our common humanity.

Nobel Prize winning author Amartya Sen, who as a child had to flee Pakistan for India to escape Hindu-Muslim carnage in 1947, has touched on this subject in his new book, Identity and Violence. The Illusion of Destiny.

Sen suggests, we as human beings cannot be classified simply into racial or religious compartments, arguing that we are all what we make of ourselves,not simply what we inherit from our parents. He writes: “Our shared humanity gets savagely challenged when the manifold divisions in the world are unified into one allegedly dominant system of classification—in terms of religion, or community, or culture, or nation, or civilization…”

It is time for ethnic minorities to take the next step forward in building a civic society based on respect, dignity and social justice. It is time for Indo-Canadians to interact with Arab Canadians, not only at nomination and leadership bid meetings of prominent white politicians, but simply to get to know each other as fellow Canadians. It is time for Iranian Canadians to attend the Harry Jerome Awards for Black Canadians. That will be a multiculturalism that will be true to its spirit. Otherwise, we risk creating a fragmented nation, divided into 21st century tribes, segregated into silos, easily manipulated. While I value diversity, I am tired of celebrating it. What I truly wish to celebrate is our common humanity, not our tribal loyalties and affinities.
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A shorter version of this article was first printed in the Toronto Star

Tarek Fatah is host of the weekly Saturday Night TV show, The Muslim Chronicle, now in it tenth year. Born in Pakistan, Tarek was a student leader during the tumultuous days of the late 60s, twice being imprisoned by successive military governments. He started his career as a journalist in 1970 as a reporter with the Karachi SUN and then went on to be an investigative reporter with Pakistan Television until 1977, when another military coup forced him out of the country.

Tarek and his family have called Canada home since 1987 where he has been active in poltics with the left wing NDP, having run for provincial parliament and having served on the staff of the Premier of Ontario from 1991-95 and later with the Leader of the NDP from 1996-1999.

He is a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and has been published in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Canada's National Post and TIME Magazine. Tarek is married to his university sweetheart for 32 years and they have two daughters; Natasha and Nazia.