Description:
<jats:p> It hardly needs stating that as diasporic groups move between countries in search of economic advantage, the increasing proliferation of multiple cultural and ethnic minorities in most modern societies has posed a major challenge to the idea of a homogeneous nation-state. In part, this is the result of greater mobility made possible by technological change in a world that has embraced a globalized economy. It also represents, however, the legacy not only of the period of European imperialism, but also of the trauma arising from the failure of nation-states to achieve a coherence grounded in homogeneity. One thinks, for example, of the horrific consequences of attempts to impose homogeneity in Nazi Germany, or of the breakup and re-Balkanization of Yugoslavia, with the attendant atrocities that ensued from it. &ldquo;Multiculturalism&rdquo; as a political policy based on principles of recognition, tolerance, and accommodation is the response that many nations have adopted as a means of addressing the pressing challenges posed by these emergent circumstances. </jats:p>