Unlike Europe, the debate about multiculturalism in Asia revolves around the question of how postcolonial states rife with ethno-nationalist debates and conflicts centered around the questions of language, ethnicity, and religious identities can become cohesive multicultural nations
Asia and its maritime countries have been historically multicultural. This is evident from its landmark cities, religious and cultural sites, and trade routes such as the Silk Road and the sea trade from China via India to Arabia, Europe, and Africa. We learn about this from pre-modern Greek, Chinese, Arab, and European travellers who were Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians, and visited Asia and Africa by land and sea routes.
These travellers have left behind writings informing about multicultural and multi-religious Asia. Among them are the Greek Megasthenes (302-298 BCE); the Chinese Faxian (337-422 BCE), the Arab al-Masudi (957 CE); the Persian al-Biruni (1024-1030CE); the Moorish/North African Ibn Batuta (1333-1347 CE); the Venetians (Italians) Marco Polo (1292-1294 CE) and Nicolo Conti (1420-1421 CE); and the Russian merchant Athanasius Nikitin (1470-1474 CE).
The historical cosmopolitan aspect of multicultural Asia is exhibited in the mystic synthesis of its religious traditions, intermixed languages, cuisines, and intercultural patterns of life which formed the basis of the region’s dynamics until the coming of the colonial age when Asia was separated along ethno-religious lines for the first time. This replaced languages, religions, and cultures by ethnicity as markers of local identities similar to race in Europe.
Debates Of Multiculturalisms
The post-colonial and the current globalizing eras were marked by territorial wars and, the rise of ethno-nationalisms which have transmuted into volatile religious nationalistic conflicts that employ religions as political ideologies for ‘othering’ and discriminating against those who do not belong to the majority ethno-religious groups. The political ideologizing of religions diverges from their original objective to universally alleviate the suffering of humanity in different ways around the world. This new development is one of the side effects of the modern age’s materialist epistemology and ontology of violence, threatening multicultural living and peace around the world.
The global rise of religious nationalists is a new stage in the conflict between religious fundamentalists and secularists. This began with the 1960s European religious crisis, which has now become global. This phenomenon has been described as the failure of multiculturalism. It is threatening the survival of religious minorities around the world by raising unfounded fears of the small numbers and triggering revengeful anger. It is an outcome of the modern age expelling religion from the public sphere and its vengeful return led by religious fanatics who engage in the politics of religious populism.
The post-colonial era also saw the migration of Asian and African labour to the West as ‘guest workers’ who would one day eventually return to their home countries. The arrival of the guest workers changed the profile of the European nations, which were hitherto mono-racial, mono-cultural, and mono-religious. It has impacted the social, cultural, and religious makeup of the European and American demographic profiles and their socio-cultural-religious landscape. It has raised the challenge of how to assimilate and integrate the guests into European and American lands.
The guest workers did not return to their home countries, and new non-European generations of Asians and Africans were born in the West. They practice the non-Christian religions of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and African religions, etc.
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The Cold War and the post-Cold War era along with the wars in the Middle East, the rise of communistically-capitalist China, and religious extremists in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia put further multicultural pressures and challenges to the Western nations. It led to the emergence of five types of responses. First, the liberal multiculturalism. Second, the rightist nationalists opposed to multiculturalism. Third, the religious conservatives opposed the presence of non-Christian religions and their symbolisms in the public sphere. Fourth, the religious accommodationists who support interfaith coexistence. Fifth, the ultra-secularists who dislike the presence of religions in the public sphere.
The end of the Cold War, the collapse of communism, and the wars in the Middle East such as the two Iraq wars of 1990 and 2003, the rise of al-Qaida, the Taliban, and ISIS, the collapse of the Arab Spring, the wars in Afghanistan along with the anti-Tamil separatist war in Sri Lanka and Africa involving regional and global powers have caused political and economic havoc and migrations of the war refugees and the displaced people to the West.
This has raised the ‘Muslim Question’ leading to the rise of the anti-migration European ultra-nationalists and anti-Semitism in the UK, Hungry, Poland, Austria, and Brazil. These developments, the fast rise of materialist Communist-turned-materialist-Capitalist China raise important challenges to multiculturalism—the politics of recognition that will accord respect for human dignity, non-discrimination, and respect for human rights globally.
Different views about multiculturalism have emerged in the West in the aftermath of the critical developments for Europe’s future. Some have proclaimed its death while others propose the development of policies that will foster multicultural or intercultural citizenship, social renewal, or through regulation and limits of accommodating national minorities. The European debate about multiculturalism between its supporters and detractors continues unresolved.
Multiculturalism In Asia
Unlike Europe, the debate about multiculturalism in Asia revolves around how postcolonial states rife with ethno-nationalist debates and conflicts centered around the questions of language, ethnicity, and religious identities can become cohesive multicultural nations. Nearly all Asian countries are embroiled in conflicts centered around invented politico-ethnic identities such as the Sunni-Shia sectarianism in the Middle East and the rise of Hindu and Buddhist ethnoreligious nationalists in India, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka
Multiculturalism in Asia faces the challenge of of accommodating ethno-cultural-religious differences in post-colonial countries in states in the face of disrespecting constitutions which make the minorities exposed to violence. How to establish models of democracies that recognize multicultural differences rooted in the diversity of languages, ethnicities, and religions amid rising religiopolitical nationalist calls for the dismantling of the parliamentary systems, which in their view, benefit the minorities more than the majorities?
The globalizing age is an age of the crisis of identity marked by increasing xenophobia, ethnoreligious exclusivism, conflicts, and wars challenging the building of a multicultural world. This development constrains respect for basic human freedoms and the diversity of peoples and values as natural facts and not threats.
The rise of religious fundamentalisms coupled with nationalisms in the form of religious exclusivism in Southeast Asia is a formidable challenge facing the construction of a cohesive ASEAN socio-cultural community that is ethnically diverse, multilingual, and multi-religious, and which will lift the quality of life of its peoples through cooperative activities that are people-oriented, people-centred, environmentally friendly, and geared towards the promotion of sustainable development to face new and emerging challenges in ASEAN.
The hitherto Asian cultural coexistence often cited as its hallmark is under tremendous pressure for survival amidst the growth and spread of unfounded intercultural biases and prejudices propagandized through cultural ignorance and misinformation. It raises urgent concerns for national security and for sustaining peaceful coexistence.
The piece is a slightly edited introduction of Imtiyaz Yusuf to a volume of papers presented at a conference titled ‘Multiculturalism in Asia – Peace and Harmony’ at CRS International Center for Buddhist-Muslim Understanding, College of Religious Studies, Mahidol University, Salaya, Thailand in August 2016. Yusuf is a non-resident research fellow at Shenandoah University’s Center for Contemporary Islamic World. He specialises in religion and social sciences, comparative religion with a focus on Muslim-Buddhist relations and dialogue.
