Nationalism vs. Multiculturalism - Reflecting the Norway Massacre

A Much-Needed Balance

             Every time I ride the public transportation, I can see many foreign people with different skin colors. Whenever I look into TV or newspaper, I can see a news concerning immigrants from south eastern Asia. Looking around, we can clearly see that various social issues concerning foreign incomers are increasing as more foreigners, especially from southeastern Asia, are coming into Korea. Though their numbers were insignificant at first, the population of immigrants has become too large to ignore. We now stand on a crossroad about what position we will take towards all these foreigners who are coming in to our society day by day. We may take the nationalistic position or the multiculturalism position. This decision may seem unimportant, but if chosen thoughtlessly, it can turn out disastrous. An incident in Norway conveyed that message in a very cruel way.

             On June 22, 2011, two sequential terrorist attacks, resulting 78 casualties in whole, shocked the world. First attack happened in Oslo, an explosion where all the government buildings were concentrated. Though many windows were shattered, there were only 8 casualties. Second attack was held in Utoya Island, where a political summer camp organized by the Labor Party was being held. The terrorist ruthlessly shot the participants and killed 69 men and women. What was more shocking was the motive of the criminal’s action. He had planned the massacre in order to save Norway and Western Europe from multiculturalism and Islam. Given that the criminal was a far-right and Christian extremist, we can understand that. However, we cannot overlook the question whether the one-sided multiculturalism policy that the criminal had discontent is the best answer.

             Multiculturalism, the idea that criminal was so against on, is appreciation, acceptance, or promotion of multiple cultures. This ideology accepts wide variety of cultures, religions, races, etc, promoting the interaction and communication between different cultures. When applied to the policies, it focuses its primary goal on treating people from other cultures as equal to us and giving the same opportunity to foreigners. On the contrast, nationalism exalts mother country above all others, disregarding any other cultures. If this ideology is applied to the policies, nationalism discriminate people from other cultural, religious, or racial branch in jobs, education, insurances, etc. For example, majority of immigrants from southeastern Asia works as hard as Korean workers but still gets fewer wages than Korean workers. When approached this way, multiculturalism may seem to be a much better way. However, one-way multiculturalism can turn out worse than we think.

             There are few serious problems regarding multiculturalism policy. First major problem is about the rights of the immigrants. It is very important to respect and protect those rights. However, when those rights are thought to be protected just because it’s an ethical thins to do, problems start to happen; immigrants start to shamelessly demand rights that are not entirely theirs. For example, there was incident where illegal and short-lived immigrants demanded permanent residency, using the “immigrant rights protection” policy as a shield. Second problem is the crimes caused by the immigrants. Many of them are faced with hardships early in their immigration because of the different social value and environments. Many can’t find their way into the society. Failing to blend into the society, numerous immigrants tend to get frustrated and commit crimes like drug trade or assaults, increasing the crime rate and causing social unrest. In addition, ever-increasing illegal immigrants are a problem too. Although there are immigrants go through proper procedure to live in another nation, many people tend to immigrate in illegally, mostly due to their financial hardships. Various companies hire these illegal immigrants for cheap price. This may look beneficial to both the firm and the immigrants. However, if continued in long term, this may be fatal to the country’s industry.

             Although it seems decent, multiculturalism has its own serious problems if it’s looked through carefully. French president, Nicolas Sarkozy said “We were so worried about the identity of the immigrants that we were too negligent towards our own.” This clearly emphasizes the problem of one-way multiculturalism. Just blindly caring for immigrants will result unwanted outcomes pointed out in the previous paragraph. However, choosing nationalistic policy isn’t our best option either. We are living in a globalizing society, where world is getting smaller and smaller. There is no way to just remain isolated and exclude other cultures with a nationalistic idea in our mind. Thus, we need a balance between the two positions: nationalism, and multiculturalism. What happened in Norway is inhumane, but this message conveying the necessity of balance can’t be overlooked. Of course, it will be extremely difficult for us to put out a balanced policy. Nevertheless, this balance must be reached in order for our nation to survive in the 21th century – this is a dilemma which is inevitable. We must face it NOW.