Given the longer history we have just considered, it may be that multiculturalism has outlasted its usefulness as a viable blueprint for Western European societies. The term has been saddled with criticism—both thoughtful and spurious—from every imaginable political quarter. The sheer weight of these condemnations may simply be too difficult to lay aside or overcome. Even commentators who are committed to “lived multiculture” in Europe have urged its abandonment, and some have offered alternative concepts such as conviviality.¹ At the end of the day, however, such calls for abandonment raise a number of urgent questions: What exactly do