Traditional minorities’ potential role in the debate on multiculturalism is overlooked. This learning piece is presented by ECMI Director Dr. Tove Malloy at this very moment in Budapest.
Traditional European minorities have been steeped in diversity politics for centuries. However, in the debate on multiculturalism, traditional minorities are often left out because the received wisdom in Europe seems to equate multiculturalism with immigration and lately mainly with Muslim communities.
This is the background to the paper that Dr. Malloy is presenting and discussing at the Conference on Democracy and Human Rights 2012. It discusses the contribution that traditional minorities have made to making multiculturalism work.
Traditional minorities could inform integration debate
For traditional minorities the diversity challenges of 21st century are not unfamiliar. They have been practitioners within diversity politics for centuries and at many levels, the personal, the communal, and the public space. It is the latter that is the focus of Dr. Malloy’s paper. Some of the arrangements that exist for traditional minorities in Europe could perhaps inform the debate on integration of immigrants.
The point is that there is a dimension of diversity in Europe which has developed a feasible approach to multiculturalism thus debunking the argument that multiculturalism has limits.
Dr. Malloy’s paper will be made available as soon as possible.
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Similar ideas reported by Flensborg Avis (in Danish): Grænseforeninger åbner øjne.
