Embracing Differences

Diversity, at its most obvious level, concerns differences. While we may all be human, we would be hard-pressed to deny that we are further characterised by a surfeit of differences. Even if we were to restrict our survey to “culture”, which supposedly distinguishes us from other animals, there are so many religions, languages, traditions, values, morals, customs, etc.
While equipping us with attributes that connect us with some people, at the same time, they make us different from others.
Diversity, then, is an ineradicable fact of life. It is rather anomalous, however, that recently, with the increased immigration of Muslims into a generally Christian Europe, there has been a backlash against diversity after a period when the West as a whole had seemed to embrace it. The ascendancy of Donald Trump in the US Presidential race demonstrates that the movement against diversity is rising there as well – and against Muslims in particular.
Interestingly, the definitive text of Islam, the Quran, offers a salutary perspective on the question of differences: “We have made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other.” Differences, therefore, were inscribed in the human condition by the Creator to facilitate recognition. If we were identical in every way, how would we distinguish between each other?
Today, Islam is bearing the brunt for being “exclusionary and assimilationist”. One has to wonder, in light of the above explicit exhortation, whether this may not be a reaction to the pressures of the exclusionary and assimilationist imperatives of the West following the defeat and subsequent colonisation of the Muslim Ottoman Empire after WWI.
During its four hundred years of rule, the Ottoman Empire was an ocean of stability. Unlike their practice of allowing all groups to observe their own cultures and personal laws, the European successors insisted that all groups had to assimilate to the majority (read “victorious”) culture. Uniformity, not diversity, became the standard. In fact, the epitome of this perspective became the motto of the US, the successor and inheritor of the European vision: E Pluribus Unum – out of many, one.
Interestingly, the West backed off from their rejection of diversity and promotion of assimilation starting in the 1960s as they became aware of the dark and violent downside of such policies. Multiculturalism became their watchword, and much goodwill was recovered – which, as stated earlier, the new Islamic dispensations rejected as a subversive tactic.
Very sadly, however, there has been a reversal of the multicultural approach in Europe and the US, making them more like the post-Ottoman Islamic states. In both civilisations, there is a growing xenophobia against “others” who come from different cultures.
In Europe, because many – if not most – of the immigrants are Muslims, the backlash has taken an overtly anti-Islamic flavour. That this rejection of multiculturalism comes close on the heels of several wars waged in various Islamic countries by Western powers raises the suspicion that there is more in the mortar than the pestle.
In Guyana, our diversity is legion, as, apart from the indigenous peoples, we are a nation of “immigrants”, whether brought here voluntarily or otherwise. There was a time when, under colonial domination, we too insisted on total assimilation, but after independence, good sense prevailed. We now actually celebrate our diversity; hence, our public holidays calendar is dotted with commemorations of events from our various cultures.
Our school curriculum also assists in teaching acceptance of diversity by exposing us to the significance of the various beliefs and practices. Fear is always fear of the unknown and is banished by knowledge. We have to be careful that our proclivity to slavishly adopt Western trends does not precipitate any local anxiety about our Muslim brothers and sisters, and vice versa.
In our hundreds of years of coexistence, Islam has not simply added to our diversity; it has enriched our common humanity, not to mention our Guyanese identity.