This is an excerpt from Critical Epistemologies of Global Politics (2017). The full book is free to download from E-International Relations.

In the Western world — i.e., Western European states and those it established through settler colonialism like Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand[1] — the standard claim is that we only need to go back about forty-five years to discover multiculturalism’s founding moment (Wayland 1997; Wong & Guo 2011; Bevelander and Taras 2012). Facing the growing threat of secession on the part of the French-speaking population concentrated in Québec, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau stood in Parliament to announce official multiculturalism on 8 October 1971. He said that ‘the government will support and encourage the various cultures and ethnic groups that give structure and vitality to our society. They will be encouraged to share their cultural expression and values with other Canadians and so contribute to a richer life for us all’ (Trudeau 1971: 8545–8546).

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Today, multicultural policies exist in nearly every Western state. While Canada continues to lead the pack in terms of greater public recognition, tolerance, and support for religious and cultural diversity among immigrants, national minorities, and Indigenous peoples,[2] only a few examples, like the treatment of immigrants and religious minorities in Denmark and Switzerland or national minorities in Greece, are considered non-multicultural.[3] And while leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former British Prime Minister David Cameron have recently spoken of multiculturalism’s failure (Malik 2015), multicultural policy experts argue that only a few states like the Netherlands have backtracked as others have changed little or even promoted greater multiculturalism despite the claims of various heads of government (Banting & Kymlicka 2012; Taras 2012). Populist rhetoric clearly receives more attention than the daily grind of policy development and implementation, though some signs do suggest that multiculturalist policies are not always delivering on their promises of peace, tolerance, and shared feelings of belonging. From the burning of holy sites in places like the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden to popular gains being made by xenophobic political parties, conflict and intolerance by a growing minority persists regardless of whether one believes the solution is more multiculturalism (faulting the government or majority population) or less multiculturalism (faulting ‘minorities’) — or, as I will try to explore, a somewhat different multicultural approach that draws on the positive lessons that can be gained from experiences beyond the West understood as both a place and as an epistemic position (as others in this volume more explicitly discuss).

This is done with a focus on Azerbaijan, a highly diverse state with a rich, complex, and difficult history located — according to notable historian Tadeusz Świętochowski (1994) — at the ‘crossroads’ or (to use the predominant term found in this volume) in the borderland between Europe and Asia. In contrast to Europe’s emerging scepticism, Azerbaijan is enthusiastically embracing multiculturalism and highlighting its support for religious and cultural diversity, directly and indirectly challenging Westerners to (re)consider its nature and importance. From the 2008 launch of the ‘Baku Process’ to declaring 2016 ‘The Year of Multiculturalism,’ Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev regularly shares his belief that Azerbaijan is ‘not only a geographic bridge between East and West, but also a cultural bridge. For centuries, representatives of religions, cultures lived in peace and dignity in Azerbaijan … Religious tolerance, multiculturalism were always present here. There was no word multiculturalism, but the ideas were always present’ (Aliyev 2016). Azerbaijan, he contends, is one of the world’s great centres of multiculturalism.[4]

Despite having a generally negative image in the West, at least according to various Western-centric indices rating economic liberalism, corruption, democracy, and so on, Azerbaijan’s foray into the wider conversation should be welcomed for two reasons, both hinted at by President Aliyev. The first is historical, and focuses on the ways in which a shared community’s history, for better or worse, must inform a multicultural present and future. Though Western states are certainly not alone in this regard, their particularly troublesome history of imperialism and colonialism suggests they have had less than stellar records in terms of their treatment of religious-spiritual difference, national minorities, and Indigenous peoples, which goes some way in explaining why they selectively emphasize recent history as if it could be abstracted from the much longer timeline. It will be argued that failing to give history its due — i.e., recognizing even the tumultuous and divisive aspects of a collective past and taking the difficult yet crucial steps towards addressing it — explains many of Western multiculturalism’s contemporary challenges. For President Aliyev’s claim that ‘there was no word multiculturalism, but the ideas were always present’ to have meaning and force, history and the treatment of history must be closely examined for the lessons they might provide us today.

The second reason could be described as geographical. Though not simply tied to the more commonly associated notion of place, but drawing in some of the ‘border thinking’ elaborated upon by many of this volume’s contributors, it suggests that much can be learned from recognizing that multiculturalism is not simply an idea from the West to be improved in the West and exported to the East; rather, we might be better served by, again echoing President Aliyev, building a ‘bridge between East and West’ or, to paraphrase Walter Mignolo, dwelling in the borderland between the two.

Both dimensions are important parts of any fulsome investigation covering the mutual lessons to be learned at ‘the crossroads.’ Though the two aspects cannot and should not be separated, this chapter’s relatively short foray into the subject focuses more on the former aspect by comparing how Canada and Azerbaijan approach their histories related to their respective multicultural projects of today. The underlying aim is to challenge the perception that multiculturalism is a universal or singular set of ideas to be exported from West to East, as leading Western scholars over-emphasize.[5] Instead, I explore the possibility that we should not simply try to promote and strengthen multiculturalism in the East or in the West, but between East and West by building bridges of tolerance and inclusion between places as well as ideas, values, cultures, and religions through learning rather than dismissive judgement.[6] In this spirit, the conclusion focuses on what Canada can learn from Azerbaijan on the relationship between multiculturalism and history despite the popular view that Canada comes across as offering more to learn in this and other areas. Indeed, it seems to me that this possibility still exists because of this popular view and the blind spot it creates.

Canadian Multiculturalism: Rejections of the Past

Western multiculturalism — more commonly referred to in more neutral, universal, and even authoritative terms as ‘liberal multiculturalism’ or simply ‘multiculturalism’ — tends to entrench itself by making claims against the past. Like many political-philosophical creeds deeply associated with modernity and the Enlightenment, it strives to free modern (European) subjects from the imperialist and colonialist sins of their forefathers by demarcating clear historical and conceptual breaks between assimilation and tolerance; genocide and inclusion; tyranny and democracy; ignorance and reason. On such an understanding, multiculturalism represents one of the more recent developments that tries to close the curtains on the Middle Ages and realize ever-improving universal Enlightenment values of liberty, equality, and tolerance. At the same time, it also tries to cope with notable excesses of the Enlightenment that led to religious persecution to defend science, the murdering of Indigenous peoples in the name of racial superiority, and the assimilation of national minorities as part of building modern, unified nation-states. To the extent that Western multiculturalism has played a role in discrediting such acts, it should be praised as an improvement over the unprecedented bloodshed of the last two hundred years. On the other hand, all this bloodshed and its lasting legacies cannot now simply be swept under the rug as if it never happened, as if it does not have serious lingering impacts.

When Canada acts on a difficult past, it typically aims to bury it rather than express it. Consider the first of two official state apologies by Prime Minister Stephen Harper about a decade ago. In 2008, he apologized for atrocities committed in Indigenous residential schools run by the state typically in partnership with Christian organisations from the nineteenth century until the last one closed in 1996. Serious problems plagued the apology stemming from what Matt James (2013: 37) calls ‘neoliberal heritage redress’ whereby the state

seek[s] actively to construct popular understandings of injustice in ways congenial to the neoliberal project of remaking the public sphere devoid of critical dissent … singular past government acts [are] abstracted from any deeper consideration of the long-term structural and attitudinal racism that tends to give rise to historical wrongs in the first place.

seek[s] actively to construct popular understandings of injustice in ways congenial to the neoliberal project of remaking the public sphere devoid of critical dissent … singular past government acts [are] abstracted from any deeper consideration of the long-term structural and attitudinal racism that tends to give rise to historical wrongs in the first place.

Through such abstraction — the disconnection between the unjust acts and the bulk of the long-lasting consequences — the state makes things worse by trying to establish a general perception that the matter has been resolved even when the opposite is closer to the truth, particularly from the perspective of those most affected.

With this in mind, it becomes easier to understand the general conclusion, reached within Indigenous and academic communities, that the apology falls far short of atoning for the ways residential schools irreversibly disrupted, harmed, and weakened Indigenous individuals, families, and communities by forcibly separating generations of children from their parents and subjecting them to inhumane conditions. According to Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham (2013: 12-13), the apology

occluded broader consideration of the long history of colonial genocide and its other constitutive components such as the establishment of reservations, the expropriation of land and resources, the deliberate suppression and distortion of Indigenous languages, beliefs, and cultural practices, and the disruption of kinship networks. Not to mention the present conditions of poverty, incarceration, and compromised health lived by many Aboriginal people.

occluded broader consideration of the long history of colonial genocide and its other constitutive components such as the establishment of reservations, the expropriation of land and resources, the deliberate suppression and distortion of Indigenous languages, beliefs, and cultural practices, and the disruption of kinship networks. Not to mention the present conditions of poverty, incarceration, and compromised health lived by many Aboriginal people.

Eva Mackey (2013: 54) adds, in a piece appropriately called ‘The Apologizers’ Apology,’ that the state’s apology completely overlooked ‘Canada’s calculated expropriation of resources and the use of cultural genocide practices as a means........

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