Pluralism - Conference Programme Session 4

Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers

Session 4: Nation and Nationalism
Chair: Terhemba Shija

Immigration and Nationalist Resistance
Richard Sigurdson
Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

There is an inevitable tension between the ideology and practice of nationalism and the processes and policies of immigration. Nationalists are suspicious of outsiders and hostile towards foreign influence. Immigration obviously involves the injection of new and different persons, practices and cultural attitudes into the body politic of receiving nations. Nationalism continues to be the most powerful ideological force in the world, shaping politics in the Global North and South. Yet immigration is everywhere a reality. There are scarcely any nation-states in the world today, save perhaps for North Korea, that are not “immigration nations” of some sort.
How then do nationalists react to the practices and policies of immigration and to the process of immigrant integration in the modern nation-state? What sort of immigration policies could be acceptable to nationalists?
This paper canvasses four of the most common public political philosophies that provide bases for immigration policies in contemporary nation-states with an eye to analyzing the relative levels of acceptance and resistance from nationalists and the consequences for public policy of this dynamic. These include: (1) the practice of restricting or limiting immigration as much as possible, excluding those who can not be said to be part of the “nation” for whom the nation-state nominally exists; (2) the practice of accepting migrants strictly on labour market grounds, preferably for limited periods and without the extension of formal citizenship rights; (3) the practice of accepting immigrants, offering full protection for civil rights for foreign-born entrants, but only on the grounds that outsiders become assimilated to the culture and practice of the host nation; and (4) the practice of accepting immigrants from a wide spectrum of cultures, providing both formal individual rights along with group rights, and adopting some version of a multiculturalism policy.
The paper will argue that the immigration policies that are the least acceptable from both a moral and practical standpoint tend to be the most acceptable for nationalists, and vice versa. Nationalism thus provides one of the most significant obstacles to those wishing to construct a pluralistic and inclusive citizenship regime.

The Retreat from Multiculturalism: The Australian Experience
Farida Tilbury
Sociology and Community Development, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia

This paper explores the retreat from multiculturalism in Australia, in policy, practice and rhetoric. Australia has, since the early 1970s, prided itself on building a multicultural nation of migrants from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. In the last few years, however, under the leadership of a conservative government and in light of international events, there has been a clear movement away from multiculturalism (even its weak or symbolic versions) towards monoculturalism by Australia’s politicians. This has been mirrored by rising xenophobia (in this case, fear of the ‘stranger within’) among the population. The paper examines the manner in which cultural homogeneity and assimilation has come back onto the policy agenda, particularly through discourses of national fragmentation, identity loss, values challenges, and risk. The citizenship debate (Australia has tightened its citizenship requirements in terms of language, knowledge of ‘Australian values’, and length of residence) will be a particular focus, however other evidence, including anti-terrorism initiatives, the Cronulla riots and asylum seeker debates will also be discussed. Data from a number of related research projects will be used to illustrate the arguments, namely a study of the government’s ‘citizenship’ website; analysis of politicians’ speeches regarding multiculturalism; and data from studies of refugee communities in Western Australia. A number of fundamental questions will be addressed - how is current political discourse attempting to realign the nation as an ‘imagined community’; what are the 'Australian values' being articulated by politicians and others; how are migrants and particular groups of migrants being positioned by these discourses; and how are dissenting voices challenging the dominant discourses.

Download Conference Paper -

English Language in a Nationistic State: The Crisis of National Integration in Nigeria
Ifeoma Obauasi
School of General Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria

The socio-linguistic picture of Nigeria, as a developing nation with so much economic, political, human resources and potentials is handicapped by her geo-linguistic landscape with regard to national integration. It is known that this country has over 450 different registered languages within this geo-polity. Nigeria is therefore a politico-geographical linguistic lump begging for unity and the good will of the citizenry. Can the various ethnic groups and diverse cultural groups establish common understanding by means of any possible inter-and intra ethnic communications and media? It is a fact that ethnic diversities are often in line with isoglosses; this paper projects such existence as basically antagonistic in the interests of national integration. Obviously, language is one of the most enduring artifacts of a people’s culture, and unless a people is forced by any system of dominance or conquest, their language can always determine the people’s social physics and history.
On the grounds of the above, there is an obvious crisis between the potencies of nationalism and the act of nationism. Nationalism, here, is a type of credo that advocates the interest of the state above that of any person or group of persons. Nationalism calls for the assertion of a common identity above any other ethnic inclinations and loyalties. But nationism is an opposing factor to nationalism serving as an instrument of exclusion, marginalisation, dominance and minority attribution. Based on the above conflict situation in Nigeria, English language, though a colonial code of linguistic conduct, serves as an instrument that unites rather than divides. The modest proposal of this paper is therefore, the projection of English language teaching and learning as an option that creates linguistic disposition for national development, integration and better projection into the global world. In spite of these, the dividends of democratization call for national language policies that would not neglect the local language development.

Download Conference Paper -

Pluralist Citizenship at the End of Empire, or How Did Ottoman Muslims and Christians Belong to the Nascent Bulgarian Nation-state?
Anna Mirkova
Department of the History and Theory of Culture, Sofia University, Bulgaria

This paper discusses the anchoring of citizenship in western liberal ideas of pluralism and economic growth in the context of the nation-state. I explore a case study of transition from Ottoman imperial to Bulgarian national statehood (1878-1908). Pluralistic citizenship, for local Muslims and Christians, entailed equal political participation and agricultural reform intended to promote prosperity. Yet the official and grassroots efforts to apply these ideals frequently led to religious exclusion and tensions. Especially struggles to assert individual landownership over common land or land deserted by Muslim refugees caused heated public debates and a host of administrative measures that increasingly devalued Muslim ownership and, consequently, citizenship. In fact, the enshrining of individual, national property in law, public policy, and economic development models fed not only inter-religious tensions, but also hindered pluralistic participation in politics and society. By the turn of the 20th century various Muslim and Christian groups resorted to exclusivist national rhetoric and modes of social association in order to seek redress for injustices. Pluralist critiques of the nascent Bulgarian state did exist, but proved to be marginal due to their failure to dissociate pluralism from imperialism, i.e. pluralist citizenship from Ottoman domination. By 1908, when Bulgarian independence from the Ottoman Empire was internationally recognized, the “bifurcated” Bulgarian citizen was already in place, setting the stage for future policies targeting alternately the assimilation and exclusion of Muslims.