Ethnicity and Group Rights: Nomos XXXIX

5. On Human Diversity and the Limits of Toleration

5 ON HUMAN DIVERSI1Y AND THE LIMITS OF TOLERATION ADENO ADDIS Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made. -Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent" Civil tolerance ... merely requires a recognition that in a pluralistic society we must "live and let live." -ChiefJudge Lively, Mozert v. Hawkins County Board ofEducation True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. -Paulo Freire, Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed There are about 8,000 distinct cultural groups inhabiting the more than 180 independent countries that are currently members of the United Nations.l Most nations are multiethnic and multicultural . For some countries, such as many in the developing world, such diversity is most often the result of political boundaries arbitrarily drawn by the former colonial powers. For others, such as the former colonial powers of Europe, multiethnicity is, to a large extent, a consequence of the presence of citizens from the former colonies. In France, for example, the issue of diversity is raised more intensely in relation to cultural activities of citizens from France's former colonies in North Mrica.2 The debate about diversity and multiculturalism in England is again a debate about how inclusive the country ought to be in relation to its citizens that have come from Britain's former colonial possessions such as 112 On Human Diversity and the Limits of Toleration 113 South Asia and the Caribbean or trace their ancestry to those places.3 Still for others, such as the United States and Australia, which consider themselves immigrant nations, diversity is the defining feature of the nation rather than an "unintended" consequence of certain activities and structures.4 Whether the multiplicity is the "unintended" consequence of colonialism or the organizing principle, the defining feature, of the particular nation -state, the uncontroverted fact is that most nations are indeed multiethnic and multicultural. Given this fact, the question many cultural and ethnic groups in many nation-states have been asking is whether they can "all get along" as members of the same nation-state and what should be the institutional responses to tensions and skirmishes that result from such diversity. Of course, the question of "getting along" invites more questions: What does "getting along" mean? What are the institutional conditions for "getting along?" There is, of course, an alternative to the attempt to get along. Married couples sometimes make that choice. They separate. Political separation, formally known as secession, is an alternative to attempting to make the political marriage work. Some groups have made that choice. As a general response to diversity in political units, however, separation seems as impractical as it is dangerous. It is impractical partly because not all groups that believe themselves to be marginalized and excluded from the social and political life of the polity live in a defined territorial unit. In such circumstances, secession will not be a viable answer to the problem of exclusion and discrimination. Indeed, the notion of separation under these conditions is likely to lead to a process of ethnic cleansing.5 It is also true that not all groups that have grievances against a dominant majority want to secede, even if that were practically possible. They simply wish to participate equally and fully in the life of the political community. Political separation as a general response to discrimination and exclusion of groups is also, in my view, dangerous. First, in many cases there are likely to be subunits in the new nation-state that are likely to invoke the same principle, the right of self-determination , that was relied upon by the new nation-state to separate itself from the larger political unit. Perhaps the most prominent current examples of this possibility are the destructive conflicts that 114 ADENO ADDIS have ravaged some of the countries that have been formed out of the former Yugoslavia, particularly Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia . Ethnic Serbs who live in those two countries invoked the same principle of self-determination to justify their desire for political separation that the two countries invoked when they separated from the former Yugoslavia. But the problem is not confined to the Balkans. It is a potential problem of every region. Thus, for example, some members of the English speaking population of Quebec, estimated to be about 18 percent of Quebec's population , are apparently insisting "that if Canada is divisible then Quebec is...