It is not cultures that migrate, but men and women. It is not cultures that welcome these people from elsewhere, but other men and women living in society.
Neither multiculturalism nor interculturalism – with their culturalizing reading of social realities and their concealment of economic disparities – succeed in accounting for the complexity of the behavior of these groups and individuals who, beyond their real or imaginary differences , share the same humanity.
If by culture we mean a set of values, ways of life, ways of thinking and collective representations resulting from particular historical, social and economic conditions, we cannot speak of Italian, Algerian, Haitian or other culture in Quebec.
An abstract conception of cultures
This would be proposing an abstract and non-dynamic conception of cultures and not taking into account the context which determines and nourishes them. There are, on the other hand, in any host country – except in extreme cases of segregation – immigrants whose lifestyles and ways of thinking are increasingly moving away from those of the country of origin. get closer to those of the majority, most often with respect for class affinities.
There are in fact more similarities between an immigrant and a Quebecer of the same social condition than between a disadvantaged and a privileged one claiming to be from the same culture. The many cases of inter-ethnic marriage and friendship are enough to prove this. They take place most of the time between people of the same social level.
Social condition
Thus, unlike the culturalist current which claims to explain the fate and behavior of individuals through culture in defiance of social determinants, we can easily see that choices as important as the neighborhood (wealthy or popular), school (private or public) ), employment (prestigious or ordinary), leisure activities (cultural or common), political orientation (if we disregard the sovereignist option) are more often a matter of social condition than of the culture of origin .
Even French, which the majority of immigrants will eventually master, will bear traces of their social condition or that to which they aspire. A worker will rarely speak like a professional.
As for the academic failures of some young immigrants, the deviant behavior of some of them and the poverty of some of the parents, it will take a lot of ignorance, if not bad faith, to put them to the account of Culture.
In the greater Montreal region (and elsewhere in Quebec where there are immigrant groups), beyond cases of racial profiling and discrimination based on ethnic origin, we are witnessing the formation of a cosmopolitan model. to which the many immigrant communities contribute in all areas of collective life, well beyond ostentatious or superficial forms generally based on culinary, recreational or folkloric particularities.
However, it is indisputable that what is created, dreamed, written and built here is Quebecois, like a plural Quebec connected to the rest of the world and shaped by new generations.
Whether at work, at school or in his home environment, the immigrant – whether he likes it or not – is transformed by the host society. Like all Quebecers, he is called upon to make choices in a community in perpetual change, as imperceptible as it is, crossed by multiple interests, values and ideological currents, thus eclipsing the restricted and evanescent framework of the culture of origin. It is nevertheless on this one that will be built, in the denial of reality, the ideology of multiculturalism, to the detriment not only of Francophones of French Canadian heritage, but also of immigrants.
The influence of the dominant
While advocates of Canadian multiculturalism have been widely criticized for not recognizing the two founding peoples and for reducing Francophones to the status of a simple ethnocultural community, we have, on the other hand, failed to highlight their unified – shared culturalist vision. by the defenders of interculturalism – national communities and immigrant communities, which shields the social conflict at work in each of them.
Abolished, the rich and the poor! Swept away, the privileged and the underprivileged! Everyone is nothing more than the proud standard-bearer of their own real or fantasized culture.
Ideal situation for perpetuating the alienation of the dominated and the hold of the dominant.