Multiculturalism and patriotism can sometimes go hand in hand

If we are still concerned about the fate of the right and the left in Europe and around the world – that is, the state of democracy and the threats it faces – the decisive factor is the impact of migration, alongside the phenomenon of multiculturalism. If right-wing parties are on the rise, gaining ever-larger shares of the electorate, this is due not only to the alarmist or grim rhetoric of unscrupulous and morally irresponsible demagogues, but also to the undeniable fact that the mono-ethnic and monocultural democracies of the past have irreversibly transformed into multicultural and multi-ethnic democracies. Nonetheless, a major experiment has been underway for some time now: that of creating democratic societies capable of managing, if not neutralising, the conflicts that multiculturalism causes or may cause.

“Politics is important, but society is even more so”: I read this sentence in Yascha Mounk’s book The Great Experiment (Feltrinelli), a volume that, naturally and quite rightly, focuses entirely on the social sciences, assuming, among other things, that political events are nothing more than the predictable effects of social causes. Generally speaking, it now seems to be an established fact that the large-scale migrations of the last three decades have led to the rise of the right. Our democratic societies have been destabilised by the multiculturalism that, to varying degrees, characterises their fabric: ‘Are we destined to be divided forever by categories such as race and religion? What are the main ways in which heterogeneous societies have fallen apart in the past? And what lessons can we draw from all this for today’s multicultural democracies, so that they may fare better in the future?’ (p. 32).

Mounk’s book is also interesting from an essayistic point of view because the author does not shy away from using autobiographical material, starting with the opening lines of Part One: ‘My mother hates crowds. When I was a child, we would often take a much longer route to avoid the busiest streets. Stadiums, where tens of thousands of people cheer on their team and jeer at the opposition, made her feel particularly uneasy”. This serves as a reminder, as Orwell said, that ‘deep down, everyone is a bit of a misanthrope’ and that it is not an anti-democratic sin to be, at times and in certain circumstances, a little misanthropic and disturbed by crowds – especially if they are shouting, overexcited and violently partisan. Orwell himself, in a London under bombardment by the Wehrmacht, wrote an essay in defence of and in favour of patriotism, as a counterpoint to aggressive political nationalism. Patriotism involves love and affection for one’s own country, its traditions, customs and idiosyncratic characteristics: this is a just defence of one’s own harmless and non-violent diversity.

Thus, drawing on Orwell, the author of the book proposes, as a positively multicultural resource, three forms of patriotism: excellent civic patriotism, cultural patriotism and lifestyle patriotism. Today, however, fads are rife. The more invasive, fanatical and senseless they are, the less tolerable they become. In short: I take a dim view of those who flaunt endless tattoos and metal rings in their lips. I’m not talking about mobile phones that are always switched on: this is anthropologically monstrous and there is no remedy for it.