Sat Ma­haraj

For a num­ber of years the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha has been ad­vo­cat­ing that the Min­istry of Cul­ture be re­named the Min­istry of Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism with all the at­ten­dant pol­i­cy changes.

On May 28, at the SDMS In­di­an Ar­rival Day din­ner at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that she heard the Ma­ha Sab­ha's call and that the Min­istry of Arts and Cul­ture would be re­named the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism.

We have al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed the cul­ture of a coun­try in the spon­ta­neous ex­pres­sions of the peo­ple and that the State has no busi­ness in cul­ture ex­cept as a fa­cil­i­ta­tor. The State must not de­cide which of the var­i­ous cul­tures of our land should re­ceive en­hanced fund­ing and which shouldn't. Po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion and sup­port must not be the mea­sure of state sup­port.

The Ma­ha Sab­ha's call to re­struc­ture the min­istry is a re­sult of the bias and un­equal treat­ment which the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion abused the Min­istry of Cul­ture. In fact this abuse was high­light­ed months be­fore the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion when it was re­vealed that al­most $50 mil­lion was dis­trib­uted by the Min­istry of Cul­ture to its fam­i­ly and friends un­der the guise of se­cret schol­ar­ships. For too long cul­ture and in par­tic­u­lar the fund­ing of cul­ture by the State has been used as a po­lit­i­cal weapon against all those who did not vote for the PNM. This new min­istry of­fers the promise of great eq­ui­ty in the al­lo­ca­tion of its re­sources.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, the fea­ture speak­er at the din­ner was Dr Den­ni­son Moore, who was chief of staff to the Sec­re­tary of State for Cana­da; chief of staff to the Min­is­ter of Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and Cit­i­zen­ship Cana­da; ex­ec­u­tive as­sis- tant to the Min­is­ter of Im­mi­gra­tion Cana­da and the Sta­tus of Women. Al­so chief of staff to the Min­is­ter of Im­mi­gra­tion. Dr Moore played a cen­tral role in the de­vel­op­ment and pas­sage of the fol­low­ing pieces of leg­is­la­tion: The Cana­di­an Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Act [1988] (the first of its kind in the world) and An Act to Es­tab­lish the De­part­ment of Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and Cit­i­zen­ship [1989].

The Ma­ha Sab­ha urges the new Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and the new At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to re­view the Cana­di­an leg­is­la­tion to as­cer­tain if we can adapt the Cana­di­an Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Act to our sit­u­a­tion. Cana­di­an mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is fun­da­men­tal to the be­lief that all cit­i­zens are equal. Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism en­sures that all cit­i­zens can keep their iden­ti­ties, can take pride in their an­ces­try and have a sense of be­long­ing. Ac­cep­tance gives cit­i­zens a feel­ing of se­cu­ri­ty and self-con­fi­dence, mak­ing them more open to, and ac­cept­ing of, di­verse cul­tures. The Cana­di­an ex­pe­ri­ence has shown that mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism en­cour­ages racial and eth­nic har­mo­ny and cross-cul­tur­al un­der- stand­ing, and dis­cour­ages ghet­toi­sa­tion, ha­tred, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vi­o­lence. Through mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, Cana­da recog­nis­es the po­ten­tial of all Cana­di­ans, en­cour­ag­ing them to in­te­grate in­to their so­ci­ety and take an ac­tive part in its so­cial, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal af­fairs.

Our di­ver­si­ty is a na­tion­al as­set. Re­cent ad­vances in tech­nol­o­gy have made in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions more im­por­tant than ever. Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is a re­la­tion­ship be­tween the State and the peo­ple. Our cit­i­zen­ship gives us equal rights and equal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. By tak­ing an ac­tive part in our civic af­fairs, we af­firm these rights and strength­en our democ­ra­cy, en­sur­ing that a mul­ti­cul­tur­al, in­te­grat­ed and in­clu­sive cit­i­zen­ship will be every cit­i­zen's in­her­i­tance.

The Cana­di­an Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Act states in part:

3. (1) It is here­by de­clared to be the pol­i­cy of the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da to:

(a) recog­nise and pro­mote the un­der­stand­ing that mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism re­flects the cul­tur­al and racial di­ver­si­ty of Cana­di­an so­ci­ety and ac­knowl­edges the free­dom of all mem­bers of Cana­di­an so­ci­ety to pre­serve, en­hance and share their cul­tur­al her­itage;

(b) recog­nise and pro­mote the un­der­stand­ing that mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is a fun­da­men­tal char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Cana­di­an her­itage and iden­ti­ty and that it pro­vides an in­valu­able re­source in the shap­ing of Cana­da's fu­ture;

(c) pro­mote the full and eq­ui­table par­tic­i­pa­tion of in­di­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties of all ori­gins in the con­tin­u­ing evo­lu­tion and shap­ing of all as­pects of Cana­di­an so­ci­ety and as­sist them in the elim­i­na­tion of any bar­ri­er to that par­tic­i­pa­tion;

(d) recog­nise the ex­is­tence of com­mu­ni­ties whose mem­bers share a com­mon ori­gin and their his­toric con­tri­bu­tion to Cana­di­an so­ci­ety, and en­hance their de­vel­op­ment;

(e) en­sure that all in­di­vid­u­als re­ceive equal treat­ment and equal pro­tec­tion un­der the law, while re­spect­ing and valu­ing their di­ver­si­ty;

(f) en­cour­age and as­sist the so­cial, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions of Cana­da to be both re­spect­ful and in­clu­sive of Cana­da's mul­ti­cul­tur­al char­ac­ter;

(g) pro­mote the un­der­stand­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty that arise from the in­ter­ac­tion be­tween in­di­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties of dif­fer­ent ori­gins;

(h) fos­ter the recog­ni­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the di­verse cul­tures of Cana­di­an so­ci­ety and pro­mote the re­flec­tion and the evolv­ing ex­pres­sions of those cul­tures;

(i) pre­serve and en­hance the use of lan­guages oth­er than Eng­lish and French, while strength­en­ing the sta­tus and use of the of­fi­cial lan­guages of Cana­da; and

(j) ad­vance mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism through­out Cana­da in har­mo­ny with the na­tion­al com­mit­ment to the of­fi­cial lan­guages of Cana­da.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the

sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha