In Finland, many of the opponents of the pro-immigrant supporters have often clarified that they are not racists but ‘immigrant-critics' – people who by their own words react with healthy criticism to migration. That is undoubtedly true in a sense that as known, almost everything in our universe follows the normal distribution. Most of the people could be settled in the middle of the axis when the racists illustrate the other end and the pro-immigrant supporters, often in public discussion called as 'suvakit' in Finnish, the other. So to say, those who presents everything from the median to the racist end of the axis illustrates the 50 shades of anti-multiculturalism including a large group of immigrant-critics. A new flavour in the immigrant discussion is aroused populism. The populism arises, when for example asylum
seekers are only seen as a cost. Populists often appeal to their followers that for instance taking care of asylums or funding humanitarian crisis in a state-level is away from taking of the elders or creating new jobs to citizens, and so on. That kind of discussion is absolute without a truth, but it easily appeals to people's feelings. (Keskinen, Rastas & Tuori 2009: 12–
14)
Part of the immigrant-criticism is the criticism of multiculturalism itself, and to how the cultural differences are ‘Disneyficated' in public discussion. Multiculturalism and pro-immigrant supporters tend to overemphasise cultures' authentic and unique sides, which is unquestionably a bit misleading. First, not all cultural traditions, such as forced marriage, are worth to protect. Secondly, there is a tendency to support inoffensive and safe traditions as music or cuisine that are enjoyably consumable for members of larger society. It is even said that instead of being ‘cultural liberator’, multiculturalism has become a ‘cultural straightjacket', despite its noble intentions (Kymlicka 2015: 210). (Vertovec & Wessendorf 2010: 34)
Additionally, the pessimists claim that certain lifestyles and values are simply incompatible to usher into Western liberal democracies. One important example is, that despite the separation of Church and state through bitter religious wars in Europe and the acceptance of secularism, the difference between private and public domain is challenged fundamentally by theocratic ideas that deny any domain differences between governance of the state, provision of the education and private worship. The public domain is formed by the elements such as the institutions of law, the politics and the economy (Guibernau & Rex 2010: 221). Today, behind this new wave of theocratic ideas are notably – but not only – Muslims. It is acid to possible integration to the new host society, that most of the Muslims reject in the first place the whole idea of these two domains. They would possibly argue that unquestionably Islam is the whole way of life for them. (Cohen 1997: 195, Rex 1996: 237)
Multiculturalism has also been criticised by feminists, who are afraid that supporting cultural diversity has a potential to increase gender inequality. A particular concern has aroused towards the discrimination of girls and women in the private domain of life. However, the feminist criticism has raised at least as loud counter criticism, where the criticizers have argued that by the feminist point of view, women are seen as co-opted, if not downright
‘brainwashed’ individuals. (Shachar 2007: 118–119)
I understand the concerns of feminists that without challenging our and others’ cultural traditions, norms and values, there is a risk that we merge unwanted and unequal patterns to our society. It could be described as ‘anti-Disneyfication' of cultures, where we, in the name of multiculturalism close our eyes from cultural traditions, norms and values that are unsupportable and even inhumane. It is not racism or anti-multiculturalism to say that there are parts of cultures that are unwelcome and cannot be practised in Western democracies.
However, we need to be careful not to treat an either-your-culture-or-your-rights-dilemma, where either the state or the group must gain an absolute power to resolve all phases of family law dispute. That kind of action would only roll back girls’ and women’s possibilities.
Instead, we need to encourage different parties to public dialogue. (Shachar 2007: 140, 142) Additional vibes to the issues presented above bring the Essentialist point of view that lifestyles, and therefore cultures are never homogenous and should not be treated like that. In the hands of humans, the borders of cultures blur, accelerated due to globalisation, but also, because we all have our unique fingerprint which reshapes the reality through our perceptions.
(Mason 2007: 229–230)
How liberal democracies work depends on how well the citizens accept liberal democratic norms, values and principles. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect immigrants to accept these norms and values. However, often in public discussion there is a mislead disposition that the majority of the citizens already possess the attitudes that are needed for a liberal democracy to work properly. That is not always the case. The liberal democratic principles call for the inclusion of immigrants, and that requires attitudes, values and norms developed by the majority of citizens that often do not exhibit, at least to the necessary degree. Without saying, it is double standardish to presume actions from the immigrants that the majority of the citizens disobey. (Carens 2015: 257)
Integration of ethnic minorities is not essential only for the people themselves, but for the ability to function of the whole welfare state. The likelihood that increasing ethno-racial diversity will form ethno-racial cleavages that may erode the welfare system, is not determined straightly by the level of immigrants or by the multicultural policies per se.
Instead, it depends first and foremost on the state of immigrant's economic and political
integration, which inevitably brings us to such factors as the immigrant selection processes.
(Myles & St-Arnaud 2006: 353)
Yet, the case is not always about immigrant willingness to integrate themselves. John Rex (1996: 43–44) raises an important point that the privileged position of Christianity in liberal western democracies makes integration a lot harder. That is because even though, as an example, the Muslims have a full legal right to practice their religion in their host country, they in fact often have to argue and protect this right. Thus, Rex keeps arguing that only countries like the United States and France, where the church is fully separated from the state could be real multiculturalist societies. In the end, he does admit that Sweden and Great Britain for example, have successfully adopted multiculturalist policies, and additionally found a functioning consortium between religion and multiculturalism. However, Rex has a point by arguing that in an ideal version of a multiculturalist society, the religion is stripped down in the way that the public domain enables citizen's right to worship, but any religious tentacles will not extend to governance. Still, I cannot be without reminding that in Europe it has been exactly in France from where the strongest anti-Muslim speech has born, and where even the girls and the women wearing a burqa in schools and workplaces have been a target of a hate speech. (Rex 1996: 61–62)
This chapter has focused on the criticism of multiculturalism from two different starting points. First of all, I introduced the counter-voices in Finnish public discussion. As mentioned, in Finland the discussion has focused a lot to define the different roles of debaters instead of settling down to the theme itself. For the ‘Immigrant-critics' it is central to speak about ‘the common-sense' and blame the opponents, the suvakit as fools with ‘Utopian dreams' who form a danger to the society. From the local point of view, I turned to present the highlights of anti-multiculturalism in the global context. As I brought out, the international research has aroused few central aspects of the criticism, which all bind the multiculturalism and cultural diversity tightly together. The aspects throw us deep to the ethical roots of multiculturalism, which I will focus on the next chapter. The vital outcome of this chapter is that when we move to the empirical case study of this thesis, the different multiculturalist attitudes that we will find are embodiments of these shades of criticism presented here.