Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitieslanguages. The distinctiveness of Luxembourg’s trilingualism consists in its concernto promote competence in and across all three languages rather than in organisingand defending the rights of separate language communities. Since the 1970s,however, Luxembourgish has enjoyed a cultural resurgence and has been promotedespecially actively since 1984 when it became the national language of theGrand Duchy. A variety of bodies – most notably the Government Commission forForeigners and the National Council for Foreigners – has been established for thepurpose of inducting and integrating immigrants into Luxembourg social and culturallife, and special consultative committees are established by local authoritieswhere those classed as foreigners comprise more than 20% of the population.European Union immigrants have a range of political rights, including votingrights and the right to stand for election; non-European Union citizens do not haveequivalent rights. Naturalisation is possible, normally after ten years residence orfor the children of immigrants, provided that the criteria for adequate integrationspecified in the 1968 Luxembourg Nationality Act are met.Cultural policy and cultural diversityTo date, the majority of official policy action has focused on the promotion oftrilingualism and the distinctive cultures associated with the relationships andexchanges between the three autochthonous languages and their speakers. Suchattention as has been given to the cultural situation of immigrants has been largelyintegrative in character and this has tended to come more from private associations– the Support Association for Immigrant Workers and the Foreigners Liaison andAction Committee, for example – than from public authorities. The activities ofsuch associations have, in recent years, added to their social integration activitiesa more active promotion and celebration of cultural diversity – the 1997 Carnivalof Cultures, for example – setting a lead which public authorities are now keen tofollow.SwitzerlandMapping diversityThere are two main aspects to diversity in contemporary Switzerland. The first,embodied in the principles of quadrilingualism and language territoriality, consistsin the clearly demarcated geographical distribution of the four officially recognisednational languages: German (63.6% of the population at the 1990 census),French (19.2%), Italian (7.6%) and Romansh (0.6%). The second comprises thesignificant immigrant population which, after a sharp fall in the inter-war yearsfrom a 1914 proportion of 15.4% of the population, now comprises 20.7% of thepopulation. Propelled by a variety of factors – economic migration, refugees andasylum seekers – this immigrant population consists mainly of ex-Yugoslavs,especially Kosovans, and Italians, accounting for 23.8% and 24.8% respectivelyof Switzerland’s foreigner population. It also tends to be concentrated in the mainurban centres: 43.7% of the population of Geneva are classified as foreigners.40