Polemics, Magazine of Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, International opinion articles

The Debate on Multiculturalism From a Panellists Perspective

By Oliver Krumme

"Multiculturalism is dead" - or is it still alive? A debate between two opposing teams formed by the students of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna was brought to the podium in order to revive the old and honourable debating tradition of the Academy with remarkable success.

It was a late Wednesday evening when my colleague Mathew called me and asked me if I wanted take the captains position for one of the two debating groups for an upcoming debate on multiculturalism. I instantly agreed and volunteered for the proposition group of the motion that "Multiculturalism is Dead". This was a great chance to get involved in a hot debate and I began looking forward to it at that very moment.

A debate on a hotly-discussed topic in public used to be an old established tradition of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. The tradition lay dormant for the last two years, before Professor Thomas Row, chair of the Academys History Department, and MAIS-2 Student Mathew Quinn began to revive this old and honoured tradition.

What topics would be broached remained a broader question. The approach had to be prescient, interesting and most of all: debatable. With significant assistance from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the decision was made. Whilst at the assembly of the youth organization of the Christian Democratic Union in mid-October 2010, that multi-culturalism has utterly failed, the topic seemed readily interesting and remarkably ripe to debate.

Derived directly from widely discussed statement in press and media, the DA Debate topic was decided and the official debate motion was formulated: This House believes that Multiculturalism is Dead!

But who would be the brave souls to take up the topic at hand, those who were willing to participate in this debate and confront this topic directly? One group had to take the proposition that multiculturalism was dead, a second group taking the opposition, saying that multiculturalism was not dead.

For me as newly assigned group captain, that was a completely new concept. Having never participated in a formal debate, I started by setting up regular meetings with my group members, to figure out how we were to going to plan our position. Since my team consisting of my honourable colleagues Catherine Long (USA), Michaela Hornak (Austria), Vadim van Audenhove (Belgium) and myself (Germany) had to take the proposition of the debate arguing that multiculturalism was indeed dead we were aware that this was not going to be an easy task. The opposition team, formed by Katharina Norden (Austria), Saleha Waqar (Pakistan), and Benedict Dent-Pooley (United Kingdom), seemed to be in the more comfortable position.

Nevertheless, we were determined to make a good argument on our difficult proposition. So we did research on the topic, read through several articles and asked ourselves, how we could build up a decent argument? The deeper we delved into the literature and argumentation, the more we were convinced of our position.

Most of us had not yet participated in such a debate format before, so our tension and anxiety increased with the approaching day of the debate. When debate day arrived on a Friday evening, we were determined to make our point. We expected the other team to attack and to ridicule our position. It was much easier for them to defend multiculturalism than for us to declare it not only dead, but stone dead, to be sure.

The battle on the debate podium, facing an audience of more than 50 students, was a difficult task indeed: attack by the proposition, cross-examination by the opposition, followed by the counter-attack by the opposition, and then counter-cross-examination by the proposition. Two hours of arguing, followed by a final discussion with the audience on their thoughts of multi-culturalism. Several examples had been brought to the floor, examples in which multiculturalism exists, does not exist, failed or is on the brink of failing.

Canada was an example that has been repeatedly used by the audience as an example where multiculturalism seems to work. On the other hand, this example is questionable since the migration history to Canada shares great similarities to that of the US, and the US is an example where multi-culturalism is widely and critically discussed.

A student brought Slovakia as an example where multi-culturalism doesn't work, posing the question, that if multiculturalism doesn't work in a small country like Slovakia, how is it then supposed to work in a bigger country with a high migration share?

Additionally, Japanese Brazilians were mentioned as examples of what constitute an attempt at a multi-cultural society in Japan. It was emphasized that these same Japanese Brazilians, upon re-entry into Japan after repatriation, have been struggling mightily to be integrated into Japanese society, a clue for failed integration and failed multicultural approaches.

In the end, the ballot and the audience had spoken: the opposition to the motion won the debate. According to the verdict, the audience had decided that multiculturalism was indeed not dead. Okay, my team didn't win the ballot of the debate. But that was not our main goal. We wanted to make a good argument and, according to the feedback we got later on, we did!

But the question of whether multiculturalism is dead or not remains unsolved. Even if it were dead, we couldn't really answer the question ofwhat to do with the corpse. Since multiculturalism is a political slogan and a utopian construct, it is hard to bury a subjective notion; an idea. And if it was alive, as the very slim majority of the students had decided, we couldnt find a decent example where it functioned well.

However, the discussion on this topic continues among the students and it is safe to consider this ongoing debate a success of the revived DA debating tradition.

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