Multiculturalism

Once again there is talk that multiculturalism has failed. The Boy-King of the Conservative Party who is now, for reasons I still find hard to understand, the Prime Minister of this country, has said so and lots of people became quite excited. In fact, people became almost as excited as they did in 2006 when Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly (there's glory for you, as Humpty Dumpty would say) launched a Commission to enquire into the problem of how and why it failed.

Many people knew it had failed back in 1984, long before the question of Islamist terrorism had reared its ugly head, when Ray Honeyford a Bradford headmaster dared to question the ideology in an article in The Salisbury Review (full disclosure: I am a regular contributor to the quarterly and have been for many years) and paid for his temerity with his career.

Nothing very much seems to be done about the matter, partly because our politicians do not seem to be all that concerned with educational problems, possibly because they know in their heart of hearts that the only solution is their removal from the field, and partly because there is no theoretical understanding as to what is actually wrong with it.

So, we possibly need a discussion on the subject that will take us beyond multi-culti is wrong because it produces terrorists, the apparent extent of political thinking.

My friend Jerome di Costanzo, journalist and conservative commentator whose interview with Nigel Farage was published on this blog, phrased his characteristically thoughtful objection like this:

Multiculturalism gets its legitimacy, not from Reason or "in the name of Freedom" but from arbitrary laws and media terror. So it could be morally right to fight it.

To which my reply was:

It is the exact opposite of freedom or reason or enlightenment as it denies individual rights and duties, preferring group rights (no duties). Morally it is not only right but essential to fight it.

Perhaps, readers of this blog can go beyond those two comments.