Books: Multiculturalism has created separate societies within the same territory.

Europe’s Battle over Symbols

Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt

Last summer, the director of Norway’s Trondheim Museum of Art, Pontus Kyander, decided that the museum should no longer fly the Norwegian flag. He argued that a nation’s flag is no longer a collective symbol that unites all citizens. On the contrary, it was divisive—rallying only ethnic Norwegians and Christians, while excluding the country’s newer inhabitants, who often profess a different faith. Kyander suggested that other symbols must be found, which could unite people across religions, ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities.

What if Kyander is right that no common cultural glue exists, not only in Norway, but also in other European countries—and they eventually break up into separate nations, no longer defined by territory, but by religious and moral values? In such split societies, the original populations would live with their customs and norms, separated from others—usually Muslim immigrants—who inhabit a world of their own. What symbol could incarnate the values that keep such distinct communities together? And what kind of community, if any, is left in a multiculturalist society that no longer shares culture, religion, nationality, or language?

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The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism, by Jens-Martin Eriksen, Frederik Stjernfelt