Although I subscribe to the Rodney King Can't-We-All-Just-Get-Along school of thought when it comes to diversity, I'm not sure that the happy-clappy optimism of this year's UN Human Development Report really helps all that much. Yes, there's much to be said for debunking the dangerous idea that ethnic groups are fated to perpetual struggle (Robert Kaplan's misleading study of the Balkans may have deterred the Clinton administration from taking a more forthright approach to the Bosnian crisis in the 1990s), but the UN's Pollyanna approach - of assuming that any downside to diversity is just the result of ignorance or misperception - seems just as foolish in the long-run. Playing down the very real particularist tensions in Spain and Belgium, for instance, isn't going to help anyone (since this is a Canadian Cultural Blog perhaps someone who's actually been to Our Lady of the Snows can comment on the situation up north). And as The Economist points out, representing diversity as the key to prosperity requires a certain amount of fact-twisting too. Among the most ethnically homogenous countries in the world today are Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, Ireland and Austria, none of which are exactly economic basket-cases.
Posted by Alan Allport at July 28, 2004 06:55 AM