Why Interculturalism Will Work

by Christopher HaynesAcknowledgementsA big thank you to all those who helped me write this book: George, David, Craig, Mo,Peter, Carmen, Derek, and especially Deniss.This book is dedicated to Derek, perhaps the most interculturalist man I know, for puttingwords and structure to the central idea it describes.Introduction Not long ago, I was watching the Canadian national news and heard people complainingyet again. Complaining, you see, is the favourite pastime of those of us living in what Imay be permitted to call the privileged world. These particular complaints were aboutdifferent cultures. The news was full of them. Some members of the cultural majoritywere giving a girl heat because she was wearing a headscarf while playing football(soccer). I wondered why anyone would complain about this. Is it a problem for you thatsomeone wears a headscarf? Or only during a game of football? In fact, is it any of your business? It seemed a strange thing to worry about, and was perhaps a complaint made because everything else in the complainant’s world was fine. Other complaints werecoming through the screen from every city and town of the world every day. It seemedthat our world was becoming less and less friendly to difference. How could this be?Could it be that the locals of our globalised world are, ironically, less tolerant of outsiders? Are we getting tired of words like “multiculturalism” and “diversity”? Are we

afraid that, with this rapidly changing era, our values and ways of life are at risk? Or arewe just poking our noses in where they don’t belong? But the biggest question I had was,what can be done to make the world unafraid of and, if possible, benefit from difference?As I watched the story and the simplistic arguments for and against the headscarf, Irealised that I knew the answer. I had known it for years but never thought of putting iton paper. I suddenly became afraid that, if I didn’t present my idea, my solution tocultural conflict, we could engage in more than just the wars of words that we areaccustomed to in the privileged world.How could I have the answer? As someone who has spent the last nine years ininternational teams and organisations and seeking out crosscultural situations, I haveknown the answer for some time. One turning point in my life was at the age of seventeenwhen I went on a cultural exchange to Uruguay. I worked on a team of Canadians andUruguayans carrying out numerous projects to improve the community we lived in. Ilearned how to communicate across cultures and why it was such an important way tosolve the world’s problems. I learned how to understand culture and realised how much Icould learn from the rest of the world. And I got my first taste of working on anintercultural team. I have been interacting with people from different cultures ever since, promoting interculturalism not through my actions. The biggest challenges in my lifesince then have come from differences in culture, and I and everyone involved in themwith me have overcome them and become stronger and wiser every time.The title of this book comes from the title of Martin Wolf’s book

Why GlobalisationWorks

. We can know that globalisation works, Mr Wolf says, because it has been triedand has succeeded. This book’s name contains the word “will” because interculturalismhas not been attempted on a wide scale. “Will work” contains the same conviction as“works” that interculturalism can succeed in creating a more peaceful world if given theright push by schools, governments, businesses and everyone else who stands to gainfrom it. As for the apparently rare lack of colon and subtitle, I prefer the simple hope thatinterculturalism will work even without a subtitle.

This book outlines a vision. It is a book for not just philosophical discussion at the ivorytower level but practical application in daily life. Justification of what you already believeis good: preaching to the converted is much underrated. But this book also provides a practical side in order to help you foster interculturalism beyond those open to reason,such as children. Readers should think carefully about the arguments I make. How does itapply to you? How can you apply my suggestions in your community? What culturalconflict do you see around you? What actions could and should you take to addressthem? How can you personally change? Who else should be reading this book? Whenyou have answered those and your own questions, you have thought critically about your role in an intercultural world, and I will have achieved my purpose. If you change your attitude and those of the people around you, you have achieved much more.