Minority Views

As an inaugural Global Youth Fellow of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, I have been extensively exploring the meaning and relevance of multiculturalism, diversity and the pluralism of identity for foreign policy. I grew up in Africa and have lived and studied abroad, travelled extensively and become an active member of Canadian society, so these issues are close to me personally. They also run deep in the historical experience and transnational ties of my family, and fuel a perennial desire to understand why identity and diversity have been a source of conflict in societies as well as a source of growth and pride, Canada being no exception.

For a country that takes immense pride in accommodating diversity, however, Canadians lately seem edgier than usual on the question of diversity if judged, prima facie, by the reaction to the arrest of alleged terrorists in Toronto last summer and the 2006 evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon. Maclean’s...