Blog:A Monocultural Britain
From Bolton Interweb
Norah Bone, Political Correspondent, 18th February 2010
For many years the British have been led to believe that racial harmony is only possible through multiculturalism, an official policy of promoting multiple ethnic cultures. Objections to these policies were labelled, incorrectly, racist. Recently the Dutch and Danish have officially reversed their own multicultural policies and now embrace official monoculturalism which means social integration of different ethnicities into the overarching values of the society as a whole. In Britain our national values are those of democracy, tolerance, equality, freedom and justice. Our values happen to be based on liberal Christian values and, like me, you do not have to be a Christian to believe in those values as a firm foundation for a stable and free society. Those values can be found in the liberal forms of many other religions, as well as in secular societies. This is not a fundamentalist Christian society and fundamentalism of any kind is not a British value.
Promotion of different cultures have severely tested our values and we are expected to tolerate inequality in the treatment of women for example. Some of our values are being deliberately pitched against other equally important values. The underlying cause of racism is fear of someone of a different race, and promoting the values of a minority culture to the detriment of the majority culture actually causes the fear that results in racism. Multiculturalism causes racism. But don't take my word for it. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali, and Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, have all been critical of multicultural policies. In any major town or city in the UK with significant ethnic minority populations you will find that rather than people of all colours living together in harmony you have segregation and in some cases racially based ghettos where those of the localised minority feel isolated and fearful. This isn't the tolerant, liberal and multi-racial society that most decent people wanted to see. It is a society that breeds radical Islamists that sometimes turn into terrorists, and one where the BNP candidates get elected to public office when they should be marginalised. It is a nasty and corrupt society with citizens lined up against each other and where subtle ethnic cleansing marches on.
I don't imagine the politicians and social commentators who endorsed and promoted multiculturalism imagined that it had a downside. And perhaps, some small degree of multiculturalism is still a good thing where it promotes understanding. No-one anticipated that promoting cultures and labelling opposition as racism means promoting the whole of those cultures, including aspects that conflict with the values that the majority of people are proud of and were fought hard for. Aspects such as the subjugation of women, election rigging and, as a result of home-grown terrorism, the loss of some of our personal freedom and liberty.
So the time has come for a re-think and an end to effective segregation and to ghettos. The time has come to end the association between multiculturalism and multi-racialism. The time has come to stand up against tolerance, let alone promotion, of values that directly oppose traditional British values. I want a Britain that embraces people from wherever they originate, whatever their colour or religion. But those people also have to embrace and adopt a common set of British values that the majority of the whole population support and a single British culture. It doesn't mean that we don't respect those who respect Ramadan, that we don't celebrate Chinese New Year, that we don't learn about Diwali in school. None of these are in conflict with the basic British values. It does mean that we don't tolerate bigotry from wherever it comes, that we don't allow the beliefs of a minority of citizens to override those of the majority, and that if you want to be British you must accept the core values of this society. If you believe that women or those of different races should not be equal, then you have no place in this society and this society should make it clear that you change your belief or you are not welcome. That applies to black, white, Asian, European, African and West Indian. One nation, one culture, any colour, any religion, united by a common set of British values. That might be a good opening line for a Constitution.
Britain, historically, is a racial melting pot. Not as obvious a pot as those younger countries such as the US, Canada, and Australia that were built on migration from every conceivable corner of the Earth, but Saxons were Germans, Normans were French, and waves of migrants over the centuries mean we are all mixed up. You are unlikely to find any completely pure English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish anywhere in this country. Until recently, perhaps coinciding with the introduction of multiculturalism, we were all British though. The culture changes, should change, over time, adopting the aspects of new cultures that we can all agree add quality to our culture. Our food culture is one such example, so rich in diversity and choice you will not find anywhere else in the world, and that is fantastic. What we have however, inadvertently, been asked to do for the last 30 years or so is accept new cultures that detract and undermine our core values and this has to be reversed. My fear is that we may be too late and dismantling segregation and reversing effective ethnic cleansing will be too difficult for anyone with the power to attempt. It took 30 years to cause the damage, and it will take at least 30 years to fix it. What politician is brave enough and long-sighted enough to try?
© Evrose, 2011
