Integration, Assimilation, and Racism,

I just came back from a weekend in Belgium which even before any major influx of immigrants was a country struggling with the challenges of a multicultural society. The vagaries of European history managed to create a country in Northern Europe which crossed linguistic and cultural boundaries.

It was amazing how French the Walloons were, and how Dutch the Flemish were. The cause cannot be strictly on religious grounds as they are nominally all Catholics due to the fact that they were under either Spanish, Austrian or French rule for almost 300 years.

It can only partially be due to language. Regardless of where you live, the education system in both regions teaches the "local" language in primary school, then the "other" Belgian language followed by the offer of a third language-usually English- in High School.

There are obviously tensions in Belgium, and there are extremists on both sides of the language divide, but generally everyone is able to communicate with one another.

In Belgium's case the initial problems appear to be much more of an economic nature. Initially the French south was much stronger, and now the Flemish north is the more powerful. Over time this might shift again, but it is essentially an intra-Belgian/European spat.

Belgium also has a growing immigrant community, initially from its former Central African colonies, and now also increasingly from North Africa and the Middle-East. Riding on the train we happened to sit next to a woman who overhearing us speaking addressed us in English to give us directions.

She was Nigerian. She spoke Flemish, but preferred English although she had been there for 14 years. She had a Belgium passport. As she explained it, if you are "proper" i.e. worked and were a model citizen getting a passport after 3 years was not that onerous. What was difficult she continued, despite getting the passport, was the color of her skin.

Now I don't know what religion she was-Nigeria is basically 50-50 Christian/Islam- so I can't be certain that religion wasn't one of the barriers she had to overcome. But in her own words, the real problem was that she wasn't white.

I reflected on this. Across Europe there are many discussions about multicultural societies and their effect on the "domestic" culture. The discussion seems to center on language and religion, and of course the economic impact.

I would suggest that in the first instance the official embrace of multiculturalism has hampered the realisation that new immigrants must learn the language of their "host" country. Without that there is no chance of integration.

The second hurdle is the ease by which Islam is cited as a barrier to entering "society" and an explanation as to why some immigrants don't want to be integrated. I believe that when we speak of integration we actually mean assimilation, and I think that over time, in conjunction with language, that the practice of religion can be assimilated.

That leaves Race, the aspect no one wants to address and the one thing you can't change-except through miscegenation- as the real problem to integration/assimilation.