What Is Multiculturalism?

To begin with, during its long history, multiculturalism changed its denotations and number of people who supported it contrary to those who were against it. For one side, it represents the essence of a modern society. For others, it had negative influence which resulted in anxious, frustrated and divided nation. As an example of successful multiculturalism, we need to mention Canada as Canada is the only Western country to include multiculturalism into its constitutional law and the first country that proposed this method as a way of dealing with diversities. According to Ien Ang, it was associated with the consequences of immigration. It was a successful policy which can be confirmed by the study of Irene Bloemraad. Her study was investigating

When explaining the basic notion of multiculturalism, owe are talking about national identity and the way in which cultural diversities were being governed. National identity is a form of identification which begins with appreciating folk culture, cultural artefacts and the landscape around us. (Storey, 13) The notion of the national identity would be, as Storey mentions, the notion of “Britishness” (13). Some basic features of identity would be: The Act of Union in 1707- united England and Scotland; invention of the national hymn in 1745- God Save the Queen and the national emblem in 1801- Union Flag. The conflict with France was one of the most important factors in the creation of British identity. Conflict encouraged active support for nation and overshadowing of social class differences. National identity is usually understood as fixed, when it is, in fact, reinventing over and over again. (Storey,

However, when we want to explain the term happiness then we need to mention that happiness is what we aim for; it is intentional. It means that it is directed towards certain objects. (Ahmed, 123) If we take an example: reading a romantic novel makes us happy. This object contains a promise that if we read this novel, it will result in happiness. The happiness does not reside in this book, but happiness is what comes after reading it and as a result of approaching this book, because objects alone do not contain happiness in themselves. However, these objects embody the feeling and they are being passed around. Ahmed also emphasized that happiness could be felt when we approach a certain room and get an impression about its atmosphere. Furthermore, this impression depends on how we see this room and situation when we approach it. It has a lot to do with our own mood of the day. (Ahmed, 126) On the opposite note, alienation is a feeling which can appear when approaching objects, which are seen as ‘good’, does not result in happiness. Ahmed took for an example herself as a feminist who brings down the atmosphere when talking about sexism in someone’s speech. (127) Existence of the sexism is not bringing people down, but her talking about it and killing the joy. We can pose the question why does that happen. That might be because she refuses to define someone’s