Crisis of the Policy of Multiculturalism and National Security in Western Europe

Abstract

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States of America, the threat of terrorism has become evident to leaders of the Western democracies, forcing them to face the challenges of fighting this threat from a new standpoint. Amid universal globalization and integration, Western European countries set a course for the policy of multiculturalism which was supposed to blur foreign-culture differences within a common system of the Western European civilization. As of today, however, the leaders of the three most prominent Western democratic countries (Great Britain, Germany, France) have already admitted failure of multiculturalism as a worldwide “melting pot”. But are there alternatives to multiculturalism today? How a person can be made to “love” a follower of other cultural traditions? These and many other issues are covered in this article. Its purpose is to analyze the impact of international events (from Afghanistan to the present-day Ukraine) of European policy and cultural differences on the dynamics of this phenomenon, as well as investigate causes of radicalization trends in the liberal democratic society -which is especially relevant with regard to the international terrorism and extremism fighting effort. The author concludes that the crisis of multiculturalism does not necessarily mean its rejection and believes that the policy's emphasis should be first shifted to a municipal level (“municipal multiculturalism”), to be ranked up as a nationwide objective only after positive results are obtained.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s3p179