I think it has drawn out both the positives and negatives of both of these approaches. Certainly in the UK, we do not have any great expertise in how to work under a human rights framework. We are beginning to develop that but even if it is influenced and led properly I could see it taking at least 2 or 3 generations to embed itself.
It's so interesting that the core values in France accept universality as the way to go, and I think this must make a large difference to the successes of the approach (with there still being the potential downsides as you've pointed out). The core values in the UK are to embrace difference (at least within those familiar with equality discourse) and to allow communities to keep their identities.
The aim is to foster good relations so that communities live side by side, and 'integrating' into society as communities that live harmoniously. ie the diversity is good mantra.
If we tried to bring in the principle of universality tomorrow, it would jar so much with the values we are used to working with that it would further marginalise ethnic groups.
There is a lot of resent and racism at a local level because native 'communities' see themselves being invaded by foreign 'communities' - especially around the issues of migrant workers, refugees etc. If we left these people to it, telling them to integrate, it wouldn't happen because those are not the core values of British people in the way that they are for French people.
Very interesting. Ad astra per aspera
Also : what happen when the Deaf, or orthodox muslim, or rich white, communities reject you ? If you have no community, do you get your voice heard ? Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
But I agree with you. I would far rather just be seen as me. As an individual, as different to everybody else, and for people to get to know me without making assumptions because I am deaf or a woman or white.
With communities, we are talking about what identity that people buy into (or have ascribed to them). I don't consider myself to have a 'white' identity therefore I do not belong to a white community. I consider myself to be Welsh but I identify with my country in that respect, it being my home and the place I live and work and feel proud to be part of. I consider my local area to be my community - that includes all the white people, the black people, the Welsh people, the British people, the Somalians, the Poles, the Italians, the wide mix of other people who live in this area. I don't have any issue with people being proud of their national origin or identity.
I've discussed before how exclusive the Deaf community is, and indeed how exclusive any community can be based around identity and rules of who is in and who is out. I don't find this constructive in any way for those in or out of that community. And this 'tribal' thing as you point out is the real problem in preventing integration because those identities are expressed in such a way as to create divisions. In these cases, groups do not wish to interact with society around them or make any contribution to society - but still expect to have their demands met. I don't consider this to be acceptable, but racism in the UK reinforces the attitudes of these groups to remain exclusive. Ad astra per aspera
It seems to me a pretty logical consequence. If services cater to the "Deaf community", then the Deaf community will exist ; and once it exists, it will expel people out, all communities do that.
And if the State recognises publicly the importance of catering to communities, of contact with communities leader, then the same communities see themselves reinforced. This isn't about being proud of one's origin ; this is about the social network people create and maintain.
If most members of a community have most of their network inside their communities, they see their opportunities diminished because they do no have access to the wider social capabilities of their country ; and diminished social capital is an important reason for inequalities, and indeed the glass ceiling. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I've been on the receiving end of 'tribal' community exclusiveness enough to not be surprised by it. But there are some examples where I do think it is important to allow people to retain a sense of identity and belonging. I am about as mainstream/integrated as a deaf person can get but I don't 'belong' anywhere and I feel that acutely at times. There is a need for d/Deaf people to be represented and to have their needs met because I would have absolutely no access to society otherwise because service providers just don't think about deaf people. they think about audio based stuff because that is how they work. That excludes me.
The downside of integrating individuals and removing community identity is that 'integrated' individuals become isolated. Still different enough from the rest to get marked out but then not having contact with anyone else who is similar. I survived that approach but many do not and become lost to having any useful function in society.
linca:
If most members of a community have most of their network inside their communities, they see their opportunities diminished because they do no have access to the wider social capabilities of their country ; and diminished social capital is an important reason for inequalities, and indeed the glass ceiling.
Really good point and I agree, but I can't see how we can easily instill that attitude in the UK. Not that it shouldn't be an aim, but it is very difficult to get from where we are now to that vision of people mixing fully within society.
Also when I talk about service provision a lot of resources are put in to try to encourage these closed communities to be more involved and integrated in wider society. But I don't think there has been enough of a consistent, sustained effort at supporting integration in the UK, so people keep reverting back to their communities because they are not safe or experience racism or discrimination outside of those communities.
Whenever there have been regeneration schemes or interventions of any kind that seek to break up (or to have a side effect of breaking up) ghettos or to integrate communities, there is so much backlash that it doesn't often succeed. Majority and minority communities themselves want to stay as they are. Hence we are talking about the need for very persuasive and strong leadership to create change here. Ad astra per aspera
As I've already said, I don't think the case of ethnic communities and disabled are identical. Obviously, the disabled's particular needs need to be catered for ; but I believe the ideal solution is to avoid catering to the Deaf rather than to the deaf. The ideal solution would be that everybody would also speak sign language, that kind of things, but we're obviously far from such a well-educated society... (just a question that popped in my mind ; is there some kind of Deaf cinema/video with people speaking in sign language ?)
Community identity is supposed to be replaced by the larger, State-based identity ; and indeed individuals are not supposed to lose their own identity completely, ideally, only their children would, over time. (And I'm not advocating for kidnapping aboriginal children either, just to make that clear ; that's a clear limit of the concept).
Eventually skin color would become similar to being red-headed ; once discrimination subsides, need for meeting people with similar marks would disappear. Of course, it works less well with deaf people. But still, I believe the ideal solution would be an integrationist approach, with services provided to deaf people within the service provided to the rest of the population. No to deaf-only schools, but more schools with classes with an interpreter, and those classes with interpreters not only made up of deaf people. You probably have better ideas on how to make this work...
Really good point and I agree, but I can't see how we can easily instill that attitude in the UK. Not that it shouldn't be an aim, but it is very difficult to get from where we are now to that vision of people mixing fully within society. Also when I talk about service provision a lot of resources are put in to try to encourage these closed communities to be more involved and integrated in wider society. But I don't think there has been enough of a consistent, sustained effort at supporting integration in the UK, so people keep reverting back to their communities because they are not safe or experience racism or discrimination outside of those communities.
I am repeating myself, but I believe the French way of not accepting the notion of ethnic communities help on that point. Once the service providers accept the notion of catering to ethnic groups, the cat is out of the bag, so to say. The concept is thus widely accepted in UK society ; eg in France a fairly large share of the population rejects out of hand the concept of race, which I believe isn't as true in the UK (and I don't mean accepting the concept of race implies racism. I have noticed that now that I live in Paris, and have regularly worked with people of Arab origin, and married one, I have ceased to identify people as being "of Arab origins". It would only dawn on me when hearing the name of the person ; a visual process that I had when I was a teen has more or less disappeared.)
Leadership is not alone in applying a human rights based approach. I think the UK faces a particular problem ; it is itself based upon four communities that make the notion of "communities" inherent to the UK state.
A condition for the French approach is that the regional identities which use to be quite strong in the 19th century ended, with at times quite violent suppression - it may not have been able to work if there were still real Britons, Occitans, etc... in France. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
