We have had left wing city councils declaring 'nuclear free zones', we had my own Labour Council some years back suggesting that the Christmas festivities be scrapped and replaced by a non religious 'Winterval' in case they offended the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and any other religion/ culture they could think of. It took a representative group of those very community leaders from the various non Christian faiths to tell the Council not to be so bloody ridiculous before they backed down.
The same with 'positive discrimination'. There is every good reason to educate management not to fill its vacancies entirely with representatives of the white middle class, but I'm not sure the idea of quotas encourages the result of necessarily achieving the balanced objective. When this was first implemented in Birmingham there were the usual jokes about 'Don't apply unless you are a one armed wheel chair bound, partially sighted, black lesbian feminist' and exaggerated though that was , the policy of lurching to extremes in order to be seen 'doing the right thing' has long been the order of the day.
Now, of course, the Labour bible has long cherished the ideal of multi culturalism. The idea that within a nation state, different cultures be allowed to flourish and grow, preserving their own ways and their own attitudes, their own schools, dress codes and so on.
The idea was to give these cultural communities the confidence to thrive and grow in a new land without feeling oppressed and subordinated by the indigenous population. What was not anticipated, and maybe should have been, is the degree to which many of these communities have so succeeded in this aim that they live completely separate lives from other cultures within the United Kingdom. The result has been racial stress, tension and distrust leading to the current wave of reaction against multi-culturalism. This wave is led by the very politicians who first encouraged it.
Muslim women teachers who felt they were entitled to demonstrate their cultural diversity by wearing the veil in class are now being told that its not acceptable and that they risk suspension. Bradford City Council, home to more Muslims than anywhere in Britain, is to introduce a uniform code of dress for students and teachers in all its schools. The ethnic communities are suddenly shell-shocked by having the proverbial rug pulled from under them by the very politicians who put it there.
The United States, maybe the biggest and most successful nation with regard to the absorption of different cultures from all over the globe in a relatively short space of time has something to teach us. The U.S. applied a philosophy of 'the melting pot', allowing immigrants to adapt to US life at their own pace but always, in the background, was the firm committment to becoming an American and all that entailed.
While I would not necessarily like the UK to display all the overt manifestations of patriotism that marks out the United States, there is no doubt that there has been a lack of any emotional commitment to the nation state within the United Kingdom, no sense of belonging to a national community, precious little for immigrants to aspire to - so they have welded their own strong community rules and are shocked when these are challenged.
Belatedly the United Kingdom has recognised its failings and has started to do something about them but at times does seem to be thrashing round blindly for solutions. The encouraging thing is that many minority community leaders have themselves recognised the dangers of 'ghettoism' and are prepared to work towards greater harmony.
Maybe in ten years time there will be a different story to tell. I can but hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment