The statement that a country is multicultural can be descriptive or evaluative. Descriptively, it refers to the demographic composition (ethnic, linguistic and religious) of the population. The dynamism and vigor of a multicultural society are reflected in its art, literature, education and other cultural indicators. Normatively, it entails the additional notion that multiculturalism is a good thing, that multicultural diversity should be fostered and encouraged and that it is a proper task of government to do so.

The need for multiculturalism arises where one political community embraces several cultural communities. Groups may not be equal, in fact, even when citizens are equal in law. The Aborigine is not functionally equal to the "average" Australian, nor the outcaste to the Brahmin in India.

Westerners can have difficulty coming to terms with the idea that the self is inextricably embedded in its social environment. Many non-Western societies have difficulty conceiving of an individual identity outside its cultural context. While all Western countries are committed today to protecting the rights of minorities, they are less united on the question of whether the objects of protection should be individuals or groups.

The paradox of individual vs. collective rights can be illustrated by the right to self-determination. Individuals exercise the right; the outcome of the exercise is to determine the fate of collectivities. Similarly, the right of freedom of religion is simultaneously an individual right -- the right of any one person to choose between religions -- and a collective right -- the right of the members of any religion to maintain the beliefs, practices and symbols of their religion. The individual's right would be an empty concept if unaccompanied by the right of the group as a collective entity, unless we mean to reduce it to the right to be a closet-worshipper.

Multiculturalism as an ideology has flourished alongside a worldwide resurgence of racial and ethnic identity. It accepts diversity and supports policies of maintaining ethnic identities, values and lifestyles within an overarching framework of common laws and shared institutions. It is entrenched in political discourse in modern Western societies.

Accepting that diversity is a good thing, we may still differ on whether to support a limited role for the state (that it should not discourage or suppress multiculturalism) or an interventionist role (that it should foster and promote multiculturalism). Belief in an interventionist state will likely produce active government involvement in promoting the cause and policies of multiculturalism.

We seem to be witnessing a major shift in ideology toward limited government, individual self-reliance and the pursuit of economic growth without obsessive attention to social justice. In such a worldview, the way to solve the crisis of legitimation and contain the problem of ethnicity is to shift responsibility back to the individual, the family and the group: Local communities must take more responsibility for alleviating problems arising from physical and social disadvantage.

The state may be as misdirected in efforts to capture the commanding heights of multiculturalism as of the economy. In both cases, its proper role is to provide the political, legal and administrative contexts where non-government actors can compete freely on a level playing field. Laws and policies should be neutral between competitors. Facilities available to one group should be equally available to any other group. For example, an Aborigine should not have the right to certain state favors that are not available to any other group. Ascriptive distinctions are not acceptable criteria for discrimination between people, while those formulated on the basis of such criteria as income levels and treaty rights may be permitted.

But what if Aborigines (or any other group) dominate the ranks of the poor, the uneducated, the dispossessed and the misfit? Far from my prescription (of income-based affirmative action) breaking down in this case, it manages to achieve the same social good while remaining race-blind. For if Aborigines (or any other group) are disproportionately represented in the underclass of society, then they will automatically receive the most benefits under any means-testing program of state benefits.

A meritocratic polity allocates valued resources like jobs according to principles that are uniform across the social spectrum. To abandon these principles is to reduce political institutions to a collection of interest groups engaged in a zero-sum distributive struggle where the gains of one group match the losses of another. A multicultural society connotes political pluralism. The challenge of pluralistic democracies is to achieve communal purpose within social diversity. Meritocracy achieves such reconciliation; its abandonment threatens to reduce society to factional struggle.

Problems of cultural pluralism arise because human beings have a tendency to engage in wholesale movements of populations. If in the process some indigenous people are overwhelmed, then a subsequent generation of the colonizing race might seek to expiate historical guilt by policies of positive discrimination. Guilt for past genocidal treatment is not inheritable from the perpetrating to today's generation. Yet while the fault may not have been ours, the responsibility to uplift today's downtrodden is.

Ramesh Thakur is vice rector of the United Nations University. These are his personal views.