Sen on multiculturalism

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has an interesting commentary in today's Financial Times.
He explains how Canada was first to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy and he offers an accurate description of multiculturalism as it exists today.

In terms of human freedom, the merit of diversity must depend on precisely how it is brought about and sustained. If a young woman in a conservative immigrant family in Britain wants to go out with an English boy, her choice can hardly be faulted on grounds of multicultural freedom. In contrast, the attempt by her guardians to stop her doing this (a common enough occurrence) is hardly a multicultural move, since it wants to keep the cultures separate in (what can be called) a "plural monocultural" form. Yet it is the parents' prohibition that seems to strike the most sympathetic chord with the dedicated "multiculturalists" today.

His entire article can be read here.