An astounding success

You may think multiculturalism is a failure when large numbers of immigrants arrive in your country, fail to adapt properly, and cause trouble. Usually, problems attract attention, not the things that turn out right. We live today and hardly think of how the world will be in a hundred years. Our time horizon, if we think ahead at all, is perhaps a few years or maybe decades, not centuries. Overall, multiculturalism has been one of the greatest successes in history. Today, in only a handful of countries, more than 85% of the population belongs to a single ethnic group. The alternative to making multiculturalism work is civil war and the displacement of people.

Successful empires in the past allowed people from diverse cultures to coexist peacefully under a single government. These were multicultural states. Cultures don’t change overnight, so for an empire to achieve political stability, it had to allow subjugated peoples to retain their customs and religions as long as they didn’t threaten the political and social order. Multiculturalism is thus a tool of the emperor, and like the One Ring to Rule Them All from The Lord of the Rings. A successful multicultural emperor was Cyrus the Great, who ruled around 550 BC and respected various faiths and traditions in his empire. He helped the Jews return to their homeland and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

If the empire lasted long enough, the nations in it integrated into a common culture. The Roman Empire is a good example. Conquered peoples could keep their gods, languages and customs as long as they respected the Roman authorities. Greek culture spread in the east, and Roman culture spread in the west. Several later Roman emperors came from the provinces such as France, Africa or Arabia. After the empire collapsed, the conquered peoples, like the Gauls, didn’t reappear as independent nations.¹ The Chinese standardised their writing using pictures, allowing people to read each other’s writings despite having different languages. That helped to form a lasting national identity.

The case of Bosnia exemplifies the strengths and vulnerabilities of multiculturalism. For over 500 years, Roman Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians lived relatively peacefully together in three successive multicultural states: the Ottoman Empire, Austria, and Yugoslavia. In the 1990s, identity politics turned them into Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Serbs, and they began murdering each other in a civil war. Religion became the divisive factor, as they shared an ethnicity, history, culture and language. Any distinction can divide us and lead to civil war. The Soviet Union was also a multicultural empire, but it didn’t last. After it collapsed, a series of nationalist wars broke out.

Multicultural empires, such as the Roman Empire, allowed for gradual assimilation. It led towards greater unity. Over time, the number of cultures declined as smaller groups merged into larger ones. There have been temporary reversions as empires collapsed. Still, the long-term trend is unmistakable. The world gradually became more integrated. Nowadays, the world is closely interconnected, and a global culture may emerge. There will still be subcultures, thus regional differences and groups of people sharing common interests, such as pop artists, soccer clubs, or costumes and dances.

Identity politics changed multiculturalism. Rather than peaceful coexistence under one administration and acceptance of the social order, modern multiculturalism is about respect for other cultures and accommodating them. That slows down the unification process. And closed groups that don’t integrate into society pose a problem. In the past, the Jews were often that group. Today, it is often the Muslims. Muslims and Christians may learn to live together like Protestants and Catholics learned to do, but the latter only came to agree on that issue after centuries of religious wars. So if people in Western Europe think that it is better not to have Muslims around, they have a reason for that.

Us and them

Us and them
And after all, we’re only ordinary men
Me and you

Pink Floyd, Us and them

We divide humanity between us and them. We are the good people, while the others are the evil ones who act oddly, look different, have funny accents and wear peculiar outfits. People differ in skin colour, religion, sexual preferences, or other qualities. We find it taxing to deal with these differences. Even when you think you are open-minded, you hate those narrow-minded bigots and racists who are not like you. Welcome to human nature. We are xenophobic creatures. Evolution did that to us. Fear of the unknown can protect us from harm, such as diseases or eating poisonous plants. It can be a powerful emotion because human violence has always been one of the top causes of death. However, having peace with others comes with tremendous windfalls, allowing us to overcome these feelings.

Discrimination doesn’t always come from xenophobia. We are social animals who cooperate in groups. That requires a shared understanding of our rules and methods for handling various situations. That is our culture. These things make the group work. Otherwise, there is confusion, discomfort and conflict. Imagine you like to barbecue in a neighbourhood with militant animal rights activists. That is a recipe for trouble. And so, we prefer the company of like-minded individuals. Those who do not fit in can tell personal stories about bullying, physical violence and exclusion.

If your culture is dominant, you enjoy advantages you may not realise you have. Societies in Western Europe and the United States may be multicultural, but Western culture is dominant. Western culture has had such a profound impact on the world that it has become the dominant culture. We live in a European world, and if you doubt it, even the proud nationalist Chinese base their nation on European Marxism rather than Chinese Confucianism. The scientific method is a superior way of gaining knowledge, but sadly, there is no such method to gain wisdom. White privilege is growing up inside the dominant culture. It is often not about discrimination but having the proper upbringing to succeed.

Similar privileges exist everywhere for members of the dominant cultures. Being Chinese is an advantage in China. In Western multicultural societies, everyone is equal before the law, at least in theory. People from other ethnic groups also have opportunities. Jews and Asians do relatively well, often outperforming whites. It suggests that white privilege is less critical than upbringing and support from your family and community.

Our civilisation is on the verge of collapse due to excessive resource consumption and unchecked technology. The West has long led in science and capitalism. Blaming the West is not helpful. Competition drove this development. It is an iron law that those with greater means and better technology tend to prevail. Without capitalist greed, we wouldn’t have seen this dramatic change. Had the Chinese or the Africans started this, history would have been equally brutal and unfair, and we would still have ended up where we are now.

Competition is a mindless process that ultimately leads to destruction. Being anti-West, anti-capitalist, or anti-science doesn’t address that underlying issue. The most effective and efficient will win until the ecological or technological catastrophe materialises. Even then, they will win unless we end that competition. There is competition between businesses and between states, which goes hand in hand. Ending it means establishing a single world order where business decisions are subject to political choices. As long as we are at the mercy of the merchants, they determine what happens. And as long as we have no single government, there will be wars. And even when economic efficiency doesn’t drive our choices, there can be enough for everyone.

The world is interconnected

In September 2023, a flood killed over 10,000 people in Libya. Global warming may have contributed to this disaster. So did the overthrow of the Libyan regime with the help of NATO in 2011. During the ensuing civil war, critical infrastructure, such as dams, became neglected. No one voted for this intervention. Who is to blame? To some degree, it is you and I driving cars. On the day Tripoli fell, the New York Times headlined ‘The Scramble for Access to Libya’s Oil Wealth Begins.’ And exhaust gases contribute to global warming. Everything is interconnected, so change doesn’t come easily. And there are unintended consequences, so when you try to improve things, you might make them worse.

That also applies to multicultural societies. Those who promoted them were often quite naive. Cultural differences are a source of trouble, and identity politics can lead to civil war. However, it will be impossible to halt the further integration of the world. Cultural exchange is a two-way process. Chinese, Muslims, Native Americans and others are probably not thrilled by the cultural enrichment the West has brought them, either. To a Muslim, a mosque looks much better than a McDonald’s restaurant. Culture is not always related to ethnicity. In many countries, a growing divide emerges between urban and rural populations.

With colonisation came slavery and exploitation. And others are proud of their heritage. However, the multicultural societies that have emerged in the West may be the closest to what the future world society will look like. These societies provide a learning experience. The institutions developed in the West often emerged under the pressure of competition. One of the reasons the Industrial Revolution began in England was its well-developed financial markets, which included a central bank. Nearly every country has a central bank. It is a historical accident that modernisation started in Europe, and then competition began to drive innovation and the copying and improving of inventions. It allowed Europe to conquer the world and drag the world into this process.

We are stuck with each other, for better or worse. Border walls and pushbacks are not permanent solutions. And exchanging platitudes about diversity or the greatness of our cultural heritages will not help us to meet the challenges we face. The process that Europe initiated, which could have started elsewhere but did not, has grown out of control and is about to consume us. We need a new set of values, and we can only accept diversity as long as it doesn’t cause harm to others. There are tough, politically incorrect conclusions to draw. To begin with, working hard to get ahead often comes down to stealing scarce resources from the poor and future generations.

The consumerist culture promoted by capitalism is one of the world’s most pressing problems. It doesn’t help to criticise Western culture for it, as the future requires a global society with shared values. And environmentalism hardly exists outside the West. It is a paradox. Environmentalism developed as a reaction to capitalist consumerism in a Hegelian dialectic. If you go to Asian countries like Thailand or Vietnam, you find massive amounts of plastic dumped in nature. Pundits attribute it to the phase of development, as these countries are not yet high-income countries. But there is no lack of excuses disguised as explanations. Instead of looking for causes, we should recognise our contribution to these issues and help solve them.

Change begins with our attitudes. It is better to define what our values and conduct should be and reason from there before demanding that minorities adapt. You don’t want people to adapt to a death cult centred around the ethics of the merchant, which is no ethics at all. All our precious values come into question, and everything we once believed in may crumble to dust. We need to adapt. It can be harsh and painful, a cultural identity crisis, which could be like dying spiritually and being born again. And then, there will be a new dawn, and life will be better than it otherwise would have been. Like Jesus said, there is only a place for sheep in God’s kingdom. Goats are unruly, and you can’t herd eight billion of them. I can’t promise you bliss, but you may soon find yourself living in God’s paradise.

Latest revision: 5 July 2025

Featured image: One Ring to Rule Them All. Xander (2007). Public Domain.

1. A Brief History Of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvil Secker.