Can diversity and social cohesion coexist?

The Honourable Ratna Omidvar, C.M., O.Ont.,  gave her Academy Lecture at the Robert Bosch Academy in June 2026. Please note: The text below may differ slightly from the delivered lecture. 

I want to say a few words about this space and this place. It is indeed a gift to be a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow during these disruptive times.  

The tag line of the Academy – think, debate, inspire – says it all. I have been given the space to think, Fellows to debate with – and opportunities to be inspired, indeed uplifted.

Most of all, you have infused in me a sense of hope – that indeed the world’s problems need not only to be discussed, dissected, and understood, but also solved. 

I bring that spirit of solution-seeking to this opportunity, because the question that has been put to me is not an easy one. Can a nation stay united while continually being remade by people from new places, carrying different norms, values, and ideas?  

I bring my own personal philosophy to this question. I am always someone who will see the glass half-full. My Persian last name, “Omidvar,” quite literally means “hope.” So, I will take you on this journey of optimism and hope with me.  

I am a politician – albeit one in recovery – and people are my business. So rather than show you charts or graphs or trends, I bring you some observations from Canada and Germany. I am also a storyteller and as much as I want to inform you, there is a part of me that wants to tell you some stories.

Why Canada and Germany? Well, that may be somewhat obvious, but there is a personal story behind this – and for me, the personal is almost always the political.  

Many years ago, I was a student in Munich, studying German literature, and fell in love with the language and its intricacies. I read Thomas Mann – in fact, I remember clearly how very proud I felt after I had read Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks cover to cover in German. I explored the outdoors and met my life partner on a hike in the Bavarian Alps.  

After completing our studies, we wanted to make Germany our home. Yet at that time, German immigration law offered no pathway for us, and the only diversity we saw were the faces of Turkish guest workers. So, we left to search for a country we could call our own – and went to Iran, my partner’s homeland.

I believe symbols tell you a great deal about identity. I know that Germans take pride in the Grundgesetz, the Christmas markets, forests and hiking, and, of course, football. As I compare the two, I am struck with the fact that Canadian symbols are more emotional – leaning more towards nation building. German symbols are more about democracy, about unique regionalism.  

Now, if we could only combine these two, we would all be living in a better world. A mashup of hockey and soccer.  

Some people ask me whether there is such a thing as too much diversity. That is akin to asking whether there is too much humanity. This question, on its face, misdirects. It treats human variation as if it were a substance that could overflow from a container, rather than a demographic condition.  

But I believe that the question means something else entirely: anxiety about trust, communication, or shared expectations. Anxiety about identity. It could also be nostalgia masquerading as policy: a longing for an imagined past when society felt simpler, more familiar, more legible.

But societies are never static. They are always evolving – economically, culturally, technologically, demographically. Migration simply makes that evolution more visible and more immediate.  

So, the real question is not whether diversity exists. It does. The real question is whether our political, social, cultural, and economic institutions have the capacity to understand and adapt to changing realities.

When institutions do, diversity becomes a source of resilience and renewal rather than instability. 

Canada offers some examples of this. Toronto, the city I come from, is hugely diverse. 56 % are racial minorities and nearly half were born outside Canada. Nowhere is this felt more than in our schools, who were early adaptors and pioneers. Even 40 years ago, when my kids were in school, the school celebrated Kwaanza, the two Christmases, Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and Diwali. More importantly, they brought home their learnings to us, the parents. When my father passed away in Toronto in the late 1990s, I was unable to spread his ashes in a flowing river – which is my culture. But twenty years later, it is not only possible, but highly regulated. As it should be. None of this happened automatically or flawlessly, but institutions adapted because reality demanded it.

When institutions fail to adapt, tension grows – not because diversity itself is unmanageable, but because systems lag the society they are supposed to serve.  

One small but telling example here in Berlin is the growing debate over Muslim burial spaces. Berlin’s population has changed; its demographics have changed. Yet some public institutions have been slower to adapt. For many Muslim families, finding burial space that accommodates Islamic traditions remains difficult, despite growing demand and the availability of cemetery land. The result can be a sense of frustration and symbolic exclusion – not because people refuse to belong, but because institutions have not fully caught up with the people who live here. Encouragingly, civil society groups and community organizations in Berlin have been pressing for change, and public authorities have begun responding to those concerns.

Burial grounds are not the only places for tension – these exist in housing, labor markets, schools, and public administration across many democracies.  

So, my takeaway observation is: Diversity explains less than we think. Institutional adaptability or rigidity explains far more. 

Social cohesion, by contrast, is a clearer construct: it is the ribbon that binds a society with shared values, common concerns, and collective aspirations. It infuses a people with a shared identity. A cohesive society is one that is confident, that knows itself and is better able to protect itself and deal with threats from the outside. It is in short, as Robert Putnam described it, a society that “bowls together.”  

And yet, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Instead of asking whether there is too much diversity, perhaps it is necessary to ask whether there is too much social cohesion.  

There are lots of lessons to draw on from history and, sadly, also lessons in the making. I look at the example of the country of my birth, India. India, the world’s largest secular democracy, is shifting and increasingly so from a pluralistic society to a single idea: that of a Hindu nation.  

Tightly bound, super cohesive societies can be a danger unto themselves. They can be manipulated by those in power, individual freedoms can be compromised. They discourage dissent and innovation. And become brittle and static. Given the history of this country, I don’t think I need to belabor this point.  

Let me offer a slightly uncomfortable proposition. Just as diversity is no more than changing demographic patterns and neither a public good nor a public evil, social cohesion is also not an unqualified public good or something to be maximized. Because the evidence and experience suggest otherwise.  

Too little cohesion, of course, leads to fragmentation. We see that in polarized democracies where trust collapses and institutions weaken. But too much cohesion carries its own risks. When everyone agrees too quickly, it is often not because everyone is right, but because someone has stopped speaking.  

So how do we get it just right – not too cold, not too hot, but just right?  

One answer is of course diversity. Diversity brings difference, evolution, innovation, even disruption to institutions and keeps them dynamic, current, and on their toes. Think of diversity as an inoculation against populism or the resistance band of cohesion.  

So where does this leave us? Where is the bridge between diversity (just demographics) and social cohesion (aspiration and a hope)? Where is the missing link? This is the big question.  

I find that link in belonging. 

Belonging is the emotional and human experience that bridges the two. Belonging is where diversity becomes more than a statistic and cohesion becomes more than an aspiration.  

It is the moment when a society stops feeling like a place where you live and begins to feel like a place that is partly yours. As Nagib Mahfouz has said, “Home is not where you are born; home is when all your attempts to flee cease.”  

Belonging, as it happens, cannot be legislated. Governments can grant citizenship, rights, and legal status – but belonging is something different. It does not arise because a government says it must. Belonging is not administrative. And therefore, it cannot be granted by decree, legislated into existence, or measured on a census form.  

Belonging is an emotion and no one can force you to experience emotions.

But there are patterns and indicators.  

The sociologist Mark Granovetter writes about the “strength of weak ties.”

We all understand strong ties. Family. Close friends. Trusted colleagues. But weak ties are different.

They are the neighbor you chat with over a fence. The parent standing beside you at a sports club. The shopkeeper who knows your name. The acquaintance who introduces you to a new opportunity. The person who expands your world just a little.

Weak ties carry information, trust, opportunity, and understanding across social boundaries. They are the invisible threads that connect one community to another. And this brings me to peanut butter and jelly...  

Shortly after I arrived in Canada, I enrolled my daughter in a sports club. Every Saturday morning, I stood with other mothers in a kitchen preparing snacks for the children. And on one of those mornings, through these weak ties, I learned something essential about Canada.

Children in Canada love (really love) this rather disgusting combination of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. To my palate, it was frankly very strange, sticky and sweet. But in those mornings, putting the bread together, cutting sandwiches with others, I felt the first inkling of belonging.

That moment was a happy accident for me. I became part of an emotional collective; I had ownership of those darn sandwiches. And the sticky glue of belonging stuck.

In my own way, I have stitched together belonging for others. Ten years ago, along with friends and colleagues, I sponsored 20 Syrian refugees to find a new life in Canada. This January, we celebrated the 10th year of their arrival. They are all settled, the kids go to school, they are homeowners, taxpayers, citizens, they vote. It is not a perfect story, but, all in all, when I weigh up all the things I have done – laws, policies, public awareness on the one hand – and compare that to the lives of 20 people who belong, there is no doubt in my mind what I am most proud of.    

We need many, many more moments of belonging. Yet, we cannot simply rely on happy accidents – we need the glue of institutions.  

Institutions, such as a small volunteer-run sports club, a group of Canadians or Germans coming together to sponsor refugees – these are the platforms and institutions that enable belonging.   

And here, Germany has a secret weapon. I may not fully appreciate the strength of that weapon, but I am sure that you do.    

You have a remarkable tradition and wealth of institutions and associations that you create for shared activities. By some estimates, you have organized yourselves around close to 600,000 associations. There is one Verein for every 132 residents. Die Verienskultur in Deutschland is gesund.  

One of these, the Alpenverein, played a transformational part in my life when I lived in Bavaria. On one of those Alpen hikes, I met my partner and after 52 years, we are still hiking together.  

But there all kinds of usual and unusual Vereins that are part of your society. There are associations for tall men – Klub Langer Menschen. You also have a Verein devoted to sucrology – an association for people who collect sugar packets.  

This dense network of associations is one reason many scholars point to Germany as having unusually strong social infrastructure and civic participation.

This is all strange and wonderful. And it is the right scaffolding to engineer and create bridging capital. I am sure that there are tall immigrants and maybe some immigrants who like to collect sugar packets!  

In other words, networking within these networks is low-hanging fruit for you to build connection and belonging. No laws, no policies – just plain old human connection and empathy.  

Let me move on to another essential expression of belonging: language. Language reflects our values. It shapes our identity. Language has the power to influence and change hearts and minds.  

German is a truly beautiful language. As a student of German, I devoured the writings of Heinrich Böll and Thomas Mann. I learned the 100 rules and the 100 exceptions to the rules.  

You are also masters of vocabulary. You have words for emotions that are either absent in other vocabularies or do not have the same romance or fluidity. Words like Schadenfreude, Heimweh, Sehnsucht, Weltschmerz. It is hard to find that depth in English.    

At the same time, German likes accuracy. You describe who is a German in two ways: (a) German and (b) Germans with Migrationsgeschichte (DMMG). Even a German whose grandparents were born in Germany could be described as DMMG.    

The DMMG definition is a label and it meets an administrative purpose. But it is not the language of belonging. If social cohesion is on the agenda, then this language of separation must be replaced with new language of belonging.  

I have been through this journey of changing language to change hearts and minds. Many years ago, we started a whisper campaign in Canada.  We would no longer describe immigrant qualifications as foreign qualifications. We would instead transpose the word “foreign” with the word “international.” Just think how that small shift between two words – foreign on the one hand, international on the other – lifts your associations with it. Who would you hire: someone with foreign qualifications or someone with international qualifications?

What will your new language be? I can’t tell you that. I think you need to find it yourself – and not with yet another Integrations-Kommission. Go to the people. Ask poets, rappers, bloggers, the film makers, the writers, school children – maybe even have a competition, like Eurovision. You may not come to a decision, you may not find the new magical words, but you will have a necessary conversation.  

Perhaps there is a courageous NGO in the room, perhaps there is even a progressive foundation in the room who would seed such a campaign. I urge you to leave the officials with their terms; find the ones for the street.

Find the language of the people and for the people. Erase the difference.  

I am sure that many in this room expected a lecture heavy on legislative reform, public policy, and regulation given my public profile in politics, and the fact that much of my professional life has been about making, amending, and proposing laws.  

But experience has taught me that laws and constitutions, important as they are, do not always reach the soul of a nation. They can constrain behavior, encourage behavior, and sometimes change behavior. But they do not always change hearts.

The deeper narrative of a nation is carried in the stories people tell one another – about themselves, about their neighbors, and about who belongs.

Germany understands this.

It was Heinrich Böll who told stories about humanity at the end of the Second World War. Amidst the rubble, the despair, the reckoning, were ordinary human beings and through their stories, Böll helped restore empathy and compassion in the narrative.  

Today, writers like Navid Kermani tell the new story of Germany and of the immigrant experience as part of the German story – again injecting humanity into the narrative.  

But stories do not belong only to famous writers. Some of the most important stories are small ones. Some may even involve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

So, find the people. Let them tell their stories. 

This is a tried and true political strategy that can be successful. It is always easier to say who or what you are against than who or what you are for. This “single idea” or “single identity” may serve them in the short term, but in the long term, the long arm of declining demographics, slower demographic growth, and lower living standards will outpace them.