Identitats i valors culturals de convivència: el desafiament de la immigració

Abstract

Immigration from the Third World to rich countries and of Hispano- Americans into Spain will be an identity hallmark in the 21st century. The challenge of this millennium consists of striking a balance between equality and solidarity in the framework of a constitutional democracy, with Human Rights as a point of reference. Spanish society is no longer an ethnically and culturally homogeneous society. It has become a host country for immigrants and has to face up to cultural and religious diversity from different standpoints. Twenty-first Century Spain and Europe are becoming increasingly more complex multiracial and multicultural mosaics fertilised with emigrants and ethnic groups from the Third World with very different ways of life. While the phenomenon of international migratory flows must be viewed in the context of the worldwide process of economic globalisation, social inequality and demographic disequilibrium, the terrorist massacres of September and March 11 have generated even greater rejection of immigrants. And while this is not equated with the vast majority of religious leaders and believers, a perverse interpretation of Islam has been generated. Political parties with representation even in the European Parliament, such as the National Front and the Belgian Blok, uphold a dangerous European nationalism that perceives certain foreign groups as the new Barbarians and promote the ethnocentric cry of Europe for the Europeans! In the wake of this rise of Islamophobia in the last decade, the dialogue between Islam and Christianity has become one of the most important challenges of the 21st Century.