Cultural majority rights : has multiculturalism been turned upside down?

Abstract

The new rhetoric of cultural majority rights differs from the unreflective self-assertion of national majorities in the pre-multicultural period when cultural majority dominance was justified – if this was ever called for – in terms of a quasi-natural prerogative of those who had successfully built a nation-state and thus considered themselves as owning it. Contemporary cultural majority rights discourses are instead characterized by the invocation of cultural threats, alienation, victimization and discrimination suffered by national majorities. They thus borrow from multiculturalism not only an epistemology of group essentialism but also normative justifications for state protection. The double source of alleged oppression of majorities are liberal political elites promoting multicultural and cosmopolitan ideologies, and groups of various kinds, be they immigrants importing foreign cultures and values, indigenous and racial minorities whose claims for recognition tarnish the nation’s historical legacies, or critical movements in academia that censure free speech advocating majority identities and values. This rhetoric turns multiculturalism upside down (by applying justifications for minority rights to cultural majorities) and against itself (by invoking majority rights as a reason for curbing minority rights). Such a volte-face calls not only for a rebuttal but also for critical self-examination by those who have defended multiculturalism as a natural extension of liberal ideas. My rebuttal will argue that the notion of cultural majority rights is empirically implausible and conceptually incoherent. My empirical objection is that, in Western societies, the construction of national majorities has been changing over time and these are today too deeply divided with regard to their cultural identities and attitudes to be considered as distinct groups that could be the bearers of collective rights. Conceptually, from the perspective of democratic theory, it is important to reject the idea that national majority privileges can be established through legitimate majority decisions. In well-functioning liberal democracies, decisions to protect specific aspects of a public culture are not taken on behalf of national majorities but on behalf of all citizens, and majorities supporting such decisions are formed by ever-changing coalitions. My critical self-examination of normative theories of multiculturalism will suggest that these should abandon some of the ‘culturalist’ baggage they have been carrying with them and rely instead more straightforwardly on the liberal and democratic core values of freedom, equality and self-government. These values serve to justify cultural freedom rights for everybody, special cultural rights for minorities, and powers and duties to establish a pluralistic public culture that includes all citizens. I claim that this covers all cultural rights that can be defended on the basis of liberal and democratic principles. There is no space left for special rights of cultural majorities.