Chepiga O.I.

Senior Lecturer, Kostanay state university named after A. Baytursynov

Kazakhstan, Kostanay

Multiculturalism and integration’s problems

The problem of coexistence of cultural diversity in the age of globalization becomes more critical. Objective processes caused by open borders and a relatively free movement of migrant workers, require the new rules of the interaction of social actors. Migrants are bearers of certain cultural values and norms. Assimilating to a new socio-cultural environment, they live their own life in all major cities and metropolitan areas, forming their own community on religious, cultural or ethnic base. One of the possible solutions of the ethno-cultural diversity management is offered by a policy of multiculturalism, as a response to the increase of world’s issues related to ethnic migration, conflicts, which have become topical in recent years.

Migration’s processes encompass a growing number of states in the world today. That caused the problem of ethno-cultural interaction of multiethnic society. The study of this problem allows reveal the most innovative trends and modern approaches to the harmonization of cultural relations.

This ideology is realized more than four decades in Canada, Australia, the United States and other countries. Not accidentally well-known sociologist from Harvard N. Glazer stated in 1977.: "We have all become multiculturalists."

For the first time Canada officially proclaimed a policy of multiculturalism as a characteristic of social policy in terms of ethno-cultural, racial and religious diversity of the country. In 1971, it has consolidated the status of official political ideology, that was an indirect recognition of the futility of tough assimilation policy. Despite conflicting opinions about the origins of multiculturalism, we can quite definitely say that it was a reaction to the growing social and political importance of racial, ethnic and diaspore groups. The problem of multiculturalism is open discourse with a variety of estimates and judgments now. According to political scientist Jürgen Habermas, the main feature of multiculturalism is "... the equal existence of various forms of cultural life.". In other words, multiculturalism means preservation of cultural identity in a multinational state. The policy of multiculturalism can be both passive and active. In the first case it involves tolerance to cultural diversity, in the second - the active support and encouragement of this variety.

American liberal historian and publicist R. Bernstein observed that "multiculturalism" definitely is the notion of uncertainty. " The transition from theory to practice of the implementation of the policy of multiculturalism was quite continuous. The most important problem of multiculturalism was the question: how to ensure the proper functioning of a democratic society, that becomes more heterogeneous concerning racial, ethnic, cultural and religious terms? In Europe, the proposed policy is the recognition of immigrants without regard to ethnic and racial criteria. Aliens are estimated as traditional society, which as a result of multicultural dialogue, must adapt to the developed societies. But assimilation, as a rule, does not occur, social problems to be solved appear. In this situation conflicts affect not only interpersonal relations, but also relations between social groups.

Immigrants, as opposed to the European population, are ready to engage in a semi-skilled labour. Part of immigrants is not seeking work, hoping to live on benefits and use social guarantees, which are available on the Status of Refugees. Moreover they do not only express a desire for integration into the host society, but also display an outright ideological aggression. In such circumstances, the West could not blow cold to the situation that gives rise to ethnic conflicts, destroys social cohesion and threatens the foundations of its existence.

In the 1970s, during the radical transformation of the economy of the West countries demand for unskilled labor was sharply reduced, many workers have become unemployed, that by-turn increased competition in the labor market and create additional tension in the social sphere. With increasing level of labor migration from other cultures it began to emerge phenomena such as racism, ethnic hostility, discrimination, which received not only economic but also socio-cultural meanings. Serious cultural differences between local and outsiders became full apparent. It becomes evident that migration is often carried out painful and not always yields positive results. They began to talk in Western Europe countries about the failure of the ideology of multiculturalism after the riots motivated by ethnic and racial enmity and hatred, which recently increased in the cities of Germany, France, Great Britain.

Researcher Kuropyatnik notes that "... the German population has experienced a shock because of the perspective of multiculturalism ...". So, the image of the everyday humdrum of life of people in Germany was gradually destroyed, that was developed over several centuries, the usual conditions of existence of such a pedantic nation were changing beyond past recognition in leaps and bounds. Distrust and dissatisfaction of the host society against members of ethnic minorities (class jobs, the non-acceptance of customs and traditions, different views about ethics and morality), who did not seek to integrate according to the principles of tolerance and political correctness in the European society escalated into protests of the local population. Famous scientist, political scientist A. Fursov notes that "... It is German Chancellor Angela Merkel who gave the first attack to multiculturalism, speaking at a meeting of the youth organization of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Potsdam in October 2010. The Head of government demanded from immigrants to learn German and integrate into German society. " In the sequel, the leaders of Great Britain and France took a similar position in relation to ethnic minorities. Researcher L.V. Russkich writes that after the above mentioned statement of Angela Merkel about the absolute failure of multiculturalism, its opponents have started to talk about the inconsistency of this policy officially that was previously considered politically incorrect. After Angela Merkel, in 2011 British Prime Minister David Cameron has openly talked about the absence of other identity of young Muslim except correlating themselves with their ethnic community, and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted that the attempt to live together and appreciate each other perfectly failed. The representatives of the Council of Europe, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands made similar statements. In recent years, migration flows rush in securing Europe due to its successful social policy. Germany is one of the most open countries in Western Europe in relation to emigration, State accepts that it is an immigrant country. According to the Federal Agency of Statistics data, more than 15 millions citizens who are living in Germany today are migrants. In the environment, for example, of Middle Eastern migrants parasitical attitudes dominate.

For example, in Germany there are Turkish families, that are already living only on social benefits in their third generation, and at the same time they do not recognize the social, ethical rules of the State which supported them. Correspondents of "Expert" magazine Mirzayan G. and Sumlenniy S. state that "... according to surveys, more than 40% of Turks who are living in Germany do not recognize Chancellor Angela Merkel as" their own Chancellor. " But tens of thousands of Turks gathered at the stadium in Cologne, to welcome the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan to Germany... ". Such neglect to receiving party with a strong demonstration of disrespect for the state that created conditions for a more comfortable living than in their homeland, is inherent to the Turks. Such behavior of migrants caused discontent among the majority of German citizens. Errors of European policy in relation immigration led to the fact finally that instead of an inflow of skilled resources in the countries of the European Union applicants for social security benefits began to arrive.

Political scientist, philosopher Habermas notes, "Unlike America European nations are relatively homogeneous. Their history almost never have legends about strangers’ acceptance or assimilation of immigrants. Therefore, coming of a lot of people of other color and other traditions, of other religions to Europe causes concern, especially because it takes place against the backdrop of the collapse of the European states. Today we live in a pluralistic societies that are increasingly moving away from the format of the nation-state based on cultural homogeneity of the population ". However, as was suggested by Habermas, the only alternative to full assimilation policy today is the way to a multicultural society. In this case, the analyst notes the contradictory ideas of multiculturalism as individuals have to compromise for achievement of public consent, abandoning their ideals and agreeing with the views of citizens, who often have completely opposite views.

In today's world, the policy of multiculturalism is represented in various aspects: on the one hand, as the cultural diversity of a State, on the other hand, as an instrument of social policy of multiethnic state. Multiculturalism is a complex and ambiguous phenomenon that requires deliberate ethnic policy. According to the Russian scientist, historian A. Kuznetsov, multiculturalism and ethnic policies are not implemented in a vacuum, not in isolation, both from the existing overall socio-political context, and from each other, because they are influenced by this environment and can have an impact on it. People of different ethnicity have to learn to live side by side with each other, while interacting, rather than abandoning their cultural identity.

Thus, ensuring of the peaceful coexistence of groups of people with diverse history, culture and identity in a common society can not be achieved on the basis of the general principles of mutual tolerance. In each definite case, there should be a differentiated approach to solving of problems that arise in a multicultural society, that takes into account the interests of various ethnic and cultural minorities. One of the possible aspects of the management of ethno-cultural state in our opinion, is an implementation of the principles of multicultural policy, that are shifting its focus from a theoretical model of multiculturalism to the priority of interaction of different cultures in practice.