Day By Day

Sunday, October 08, 2006

The Collapse of Multi-culturalism

The Brits seem to be reconsidering multiculturalism.

Patience Wheatcroft writes:

The tyranny of political correctness has for years suppressed the qualms that many Britons have had about what was happening to their country. Radical imams were allowed to preach hatred while being funded with state benefits, but few dared to question such madness, let alone act against it. The doctrine of multiculturalism dictated that all beliefs should be allowed to flourish, and to challenge that view was as politically incorrect as pinning up a Pirelli calendar in Islington Town Hall or suggesting that two married parents usually provide the best start in life for a child.

Gradually, however, people are gaining the courage to defy the diktats of political correctness and to question the assumptions of what should be acceptable in Britain
Read it here.

What is most impressive is that the Church of England, that most mealymouthed of institutions, has begun to speak out against multiculturalism.

Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports:

The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government's drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society.

In a wide-ranging condemnation of policy, it says that the attempt to make minority "faith" communities more integrated has backfired, leaving society "more separated than ever before". The criticisms are made in a confidential Church document, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, that challenges the "widespread description" of Britain as a multi-faith society and even calls for the term "multi-faith" to be reconsidered.

It claims that divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government's "schizophrenic" approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given "privileged attention" to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities.

Read it here.

As a liberal friend of mine remarked with regard to recent anti-immigrant resolutions and laws adopted by various municipalities "multiculturalism depends on mutual respect and a basic agreement on the part of all as to the minimal standards of civilized behavior." Without those, multiculturalism cannot be sustained.

Britain, indeed much of Europe, is slowly waking to this basic fact of life. Unfortunately, this realization all to often is manifested in demands for immigration restriction. That is not only a prescription for economic catastrophe but it denies millions of people access to economic opportunity. What is needed, instead, is a welcoming society characterized by a vigorous assertion and maintenance of native cultural standards.

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