Multicultural Societies-Britain and the Netherlands

Multicultural Societies-Britain and the Netherlands

Over the last decades, many Western democracies have been described as "multicultural" of their adoption of multiculturalism as national policy, or reaching multicultural consensus. Noticeable examples are found as early as in 1970s in Canada, Australia and followed by Britain, and other European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. By specifically looking into Britain and Netherlands as examples, it is not difficult to find out the presence of ethnic diversity demographically. Thanks to the high immigration rates experienced since the 19th century, there is now an estimated minority ethnic population of more than 4 million, 7.1% of the population in Britain (Britain’s official website for the USA). According to a BBC Report in September 2005, immigration made up more than half of Britain's population growth from 1991 to 2001, and these non-UK born citizens are highly composed of Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), Africans (South Afican, Kenya) and Caribbean. However, it’s immigrants from eastern Europe, particularly Poland form the largest group of immigrants in Britain recently. In the Netherlands, similar phenomenon can be seen which in the first nine months of 2007, about 13,000 immigrants from Bulgaria, Romania and Poland moved to the Netherlands (Immigratie Oost-Europeanen blijft hoog). However, they are not as dominated as others like Indonesian, German, Turkish, Surinamese and Moroccans as the immigrated inhabitants. Before looking into the problems and successes of these two countries, How much do we know about multiculturalism by its meaning?   According to Rosado (1997), multiculturalism is “a system of beliefs and behaviors that recognizes and respects the presence of all diverse groups in an organization or society, acknowledges and values their socio-cultural differences, and encourages and enables their continued contribution within an inclusive cultural context which empowers all within the organization or...