Cultural diversity has been a buzzword for the past couple of decades. In a 2009 Harvard Business School publication, championing diversity was seen as a sound business strategy that added value through enhanced output efficiency, reduced costs, and increased market access, apart from inculcating social inclusiveness and cultural sensitivity in a globalized work environment.

Attractive immigration policies enabled several Western countries to address their own skill shortages. Aging populations, for instance, became pathways for caregivers. Everyday jobs, from taxi driving to plumbing, became occupations that immigrants handled with proficiency, including in advanced technical jobs from the building construction industry to those in shipyards, railways, subways, airports and the hospitality sector. 

In Italy, agricultural labour came predominantly from India. In the UK, most medical professionals are of South Asian origin. Furthermore, immigrants owned corner shops and grocery stores across the UK and North America, and increasingly, in Australia.

Change in Western thinking

The virtues of multiculturalism have been extolled by Western countries, including in the education sector, through international students, for creating a genuinely global learning experience and fostering awareness of other cultures, apart from job creation and significant revenue from tuition fees and living expenses. Even the tourism and civilian aviation sector benefited enormously. A welcoming visa policy, with adequate safeguards, was a win-win. Indeed, several Western countries took great pride in their cultural diversity and referred to it as a defining characteristic of their personae.

However, all this is likely to dramatically change – at one level because of the rapidly growing resentment against immigrants espoused by far-right ideology in several Western countries, and at another level, surprisingly, the advocacy by mainstream parties of the need to curb immigration. It is almost as if there is an alignment in the way the ultranationalist and mainstream political parties are viewing immigrants. Insularity may well replace cultural diversity.

This extraordinary shift in approach is largely driven by geopolitical considerations, especially the concern that the global order is on the cusp of profound disruption, with the distinct possibility that immigrants might take sides and question the legitimacy of a unipolar global order based on Western values.

Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US – or CAUKUS – appear to have aligned their border control policies, in varying degrees, to restrict immigration, including (in the case of the UK, Canada, and Australia) of international students. This is a significant development because it suggests these countries are willing to forego the substantial revenue that the higher education sector and the local economy benefits from.

Immigrants seen as Trojan horses?

As far as international students are concerned, data has already shown a sharp decline in applications to institutions in these countries and opting for alternative and more reliable study destinations. It is common knowledge that markets once lost are difficult to regain.

What is even more intriguing is that each of these countries has been built by immigrants and were known to openly acknowledge the enormous contribution immigrants made. However, today, mainstream parties are under pressure to cater to the narrow considerations of domestic politics and electoral compulsions where concerns about cultural diversity jeopardizing national security have taken centre stage and become increasingly vocal. What this adds up to is that restrictive immigration policies could well become the new normal, unless domestic lobbying forces a course correction.  

It is not unsurprising that Western governments have started to see immigrants as the Trojan horse and that welcoming them would be an invitation to disaster. This is primarily driven by a common and deeply ingrained view that immigrants refuse to fully integrate and are often in conflict with prevailing social norms, values, and ideology. Cultural diversity, in other words, is a rejection of homogeneity, opening the way to culture clashes. A new narrative then emerges and multiculturalism starts to be perceived as a disruptive force with a contrary ideology that poses a credible threat to the Western worldview. Immigrants are perceived as foreigners, who are disrespectful of the prevailing cultural unity by asserting – even imposing – an alien way of thinking and behaving. Suspicion and distrust become the predominant vocabulary in such a narrative. Consequently, it is argued that limits to multiculturalism are warranted on security grounds.

It may be recalled how, in early August, a stabbing incident in northwest England left three young girls, aged between six and eleven, dead and several other children injured. Rumours spread like wildfire, through social media, that the assailant was Muslim and an asylum seeker, triggering widespread rioting and violent clashes with the police. Videos – many might well be fake – of protest marches, including priests in white cassocks with the crucifix clearly visible, and many demonstrators carrying banners with the slogan ‘Give our country back to us’ surfaced on social media. While the government gave the police immediate and wide-ranging powers to crack down and contain the riots, their main concern was how quickly fake news mobilized rioters through social media, and how this could be handled the next time around.

Assertion of ultranationalists

But there was another concern that few spoke about. The large turnout of protestors and the multiple rioting incidents were an assertion of ultranationalist identity and a visible demonstration of strong anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner sentiment. This was evidence of the significant support and mobilization power the far-right call for selectivity in immigration enjoyed among the visible public. Certainly, there were counter protests but the strong showing by the ultranationalists saw its emergence as a powerful influencer in electoral politics and immigration policies.

A few weeks later, another stabbing incident took place, this time in Solingen in Germany, killing three people and injuring eight others. A Syrian was arrested after he turned himself in. ISIS claimed responsibility and said that the perpetrator targeted Christians and was "a soldier of the Islamic State’, who wanted to avenge the death of Palestinians. Apparently, the reference was to Germany’s support, based on historical guilt, to Israel.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was clearly worried after an overwhelming recent victory of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Thuringia and its close defeat in Saxony. Anti-migration policies have been in the forefront of the agenda for the AfD and are increasingly gaining support. Scholz has called for all political parties to unite to defeat the AfD and far-right ideology. The unfortunate reality is that multicultural Germany faces growing anti-immigration sentiment.

These are ominous developments, especially because we live in a multicultural and interconnected world. A restrictive and selective immigration policy would necessarily impair cultural diversity and create closed societies if it is driven by ideological imperatives. This will sharpen polarization in a world that is already deeply divided and divisive. Policies of this type challenge the concept of a global community. Diversity that held us together is now increasingly being seen as tearing us apart. The world that is about to be created through such policies would be terrifying. Sadly, it would prove that John Lennon was a dreamer.

(The author is a former Indian diplomat who was awarded Australia's NSW Multicultural Commission award in 2013. Views are personal.)

The unprecedented rise, in several western countries, of far-right groups and support for their anti-immigrant policies poses a clear and direct challenge to multiculturalism and cultural diversity that has for long been advocated, for a variety of reasons, as one of their USPs. For political reasons, even Labour governments and the Democrats face an acute ethical dilemma on regulating and even, curbing migration.