"Diversity, is Europe's destiny. The continent is a patchwork quilt of languages and tribes, the residue of migrations over several thousand years. Today's migratory flux is little different from the past, except that migrants arrive in larger numbers and, in some cases, come from further afield. It is a fact of globalisation."

Report: Living Together: Combining Diversity and Freedom in 21st Century Europe

As an alternative to multiculturalism, others have pushed the concept of interculturalism, which he describes as striving for a proper balance between participation in a common culture and retaining individual expressions of diversity.

It seems to be increasingly fashionable to question the concept of multiculturalism. By embracing the narrative of failed multiculturalism and championing the need for greater integration of immigrants, leaders such as those of France and Germany are executing a strategy of attempting to limit the discursive ground of the right-wing parties by widening their own scope.

by: Wendy Zeldin  On April 4, 2011, the Haarlem district court ruled that a ban on headscarves imposed by Don Bosco high school, a Catholic institution in the town of Volendam, was legal. According to the court decision, the ban is consistent with the school's religious principles and its desire to uphold its Catholic character.

The judge held, moreover, that the prohibition against headscarves does not constitute religious discrimination, given that hats and similar attire are also not allowed, nor does the ban restrict freedom of speech. 

An excellant briefing paper on the "debate" over multiculturalism taking place in the UK from the IRR (Institute of Race Relations),  in which author  JENNY BOURNE puts the recent statements  of the UK prime minister in a historical perspective, while navigating the reader through the meaning and implications of multiculturalism. Here are excerpts from the BRIEFING PAPER:

Part of the problem within the British discussion about multiculturalism is that a number of different things are being addressed under its banner. First it is important to distinguish between the description of our society as multicultural and multiculturalism as policy.

To describe society as multicultural is just a statement of fact, of what is.

Compared with fifty years ago when every shop, restaurant, piece of clothing or music, sportsman, religious institution, festival etc, almost without exception, was English (Welsh or Scots), our society is indeed infinitely diverse and multicultural. It reflects on a cultural level the many different ethnic groups that have settled in the UK. And it reflects this, not just in the sense that each ethnic group can have access to its own customs and traditions, but that all members of society can partake in the cultural diversity that has been jointly created.

Multiculturalism as policy emanated from both central and local government as a conscious attempt to answer racial inequality (and especially the  resistances to it after the ‘riots’ of 1981 and 1985) with cultural solutions.

This move towards multiculturalism did not come out of the air or from government benefice. It happened as a response to the struggles that black communities waged against decades of racial discrimination in employment, housing, social services etc. Struggles to wear the turban at work, struggles against non-nationals having to report to the police, struggles for equal pay on the shop floor, to make the police protect communities from racial attack, struggles for children not to be streamed or bussed out of schools, struggles to include other histories in educational curricula, to get the media to report on black people positively and so on. Multiculturalism, therefore, was a concomitant of community-based fights for equality and justice.

Flashback: On Wednesday, 10 August 2005, the BBC made a report availabe at its online nevs vensite, titled: UK majority back multiculturalism. The report stated that the majority of British people think multiculturalism makes the country a better place: Some 62% of the national population believe "multiculturalism makes Britain a better place to live", according to the poll.

At the same time, 58% thought "people who come to live in Britain should adopt the values of and traditions of British culture".The survey also shoved that  32% think it "threatens the British way of life" and 54% think "parts of the country don't feel like Britain any more because of immigration". Only 2% of the national population described themselves as "very racially prejudiced".