Introduction

In Wasted lives, Bauman (2004a, p 7) argues that a consequence of late modernity is that “the problems of human waste and human waste disposal weigh ever more heavily on the liquid modern consumerist culture of individualisation”. This results in the absence of outlets for ‘safe disposal’ of surplus and redundant populations, including ‘unwanted’ immigrants, and specifically asylum seekers, who are not specifically ‘invited’ by national immigration policies. It also includes minority ethnic groups who do not sufficiently assimilate their cultural differences into harmlessness, or preferably out of existence, leaving intact the idealised homogeneous national culture. This problem of ‘human waste disposal’ fuels alarm about global over-population involving mass movements of people, playing a key part in the diffuse ‘security fears’ in emergent global strategies and, consequently, the logic of power struggles (Bauman, 2004a, p 7).

The main objective of this chapter is to share reflections and analysis prompted by these observations on diffuse security fears. In particular, we examine the contribution of social policy to the presence of harmonious intergroup relations in terms of both equality and diversity through consideration of the ‘family’ of related ethnic, equality, immigration and integration policies. Socially just citizenship at both the level of the individual and the cultural group is, we contend, a necessary condition for democratic sustainability and ‘perpetual peace’ (Kant, 1795). The chapter builds on the work of the Equality and Social Inclusion in Ireland Project, funded under Strand 2 of the Peace II/SEUPB North–South Programme, carried out in Belfast and Dublin Ireland over the period 2004-06 (see www.qub.ac.uk/sites/EqualitySocialInclusionInIreland-HomePage).

Arguably, one of the most significant legacies of the Enlightenment for modern social and political thought has been the Kantian belief that the universal community of human kind is “… the end or object of the highest moral endeavour” (Bull, 1977, p 27). This view is rooted in the belief that all human beings are fundamentally the same – or at least have the same moral standing in terms of the idea of the universal brotherhood of humanity. This view is shared by both the political right and the political left. It is not, however, without its dissenters (see, for example, Nussbaum, 2005, on recognition of other species).