Making Multiculturalism Work

We can’t just throw people from different cultures together and expect it to work perfectly. And yet, when we do just that and it doesn’t work, we conclude that Multiculturalism has Failed! That is what the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech last month. Actually, she said “Failed Utterly”.

The comment was sparked by preliminary facts that around 3.8% of immigrants have not completed obligatory language and culture courses. 3.8%! It is politics, of course. And those of us who do the multicultural footwork may not be much helped by it.

So let’s move on the Cultural Intelligent discussion.  How does the way in which we communicate and connect differently across cultures impact our understanding for one another, and therefore our ability to as Dr Merkel says, “live side by side and be thrilled for each other”?

As we meet in society; in the boardroom and on the sidewalk, in the job interview and at school, we try to read each other. We try to establish who this person is. Will I hire him or her? Befriend? Tolerate? Avoid?

In a cultural sense, we are doing something called “decoding behaviour”. It is much more complex than noticing and interpreting a veil or a turban; most of us can see past differences in clothing. It is a subtle, subconscious process of reading behaviour, and guessing at the person within.

Take something as simple with eye contact. People from some of Australia’s main immigrant cultures are raised and rewarded not to look their counterpart directly in the eyes. “It drives me crazy”, said one of my participants. “It is so rude! I feel like they don’t care enough to even acknowledge me. Why are they here in the first place, if they don’t want to be part of this society?”.

So we jump to conclusions, on all sides. “This society” is Australia, where we look each other in the eye on the street and possibly even say “G’day” to strangers. That is no more right, or wrong, than the way 2/3rds of the world’s population does it – with less eye contact. If we don’t understand how culture works on us, especially our own culture, we won’t automatically know that.

So, if we are going to make our multicultural society work, we won’t get there by simply stating our grand ambitions. That would be like a sports person turning up to the Olympics without training. We need practical, validated, tried-and tested tools.  Cultural Intelligence is one such, and a key ingredient in a thriving multicultural society.