Dear Editor,
I refer to the editorial captioned ‘The end of multiculturalism?’ (SN, February 19). So many disquieting nuances emanate from that script that, taken together, they represent a recipe for disaster. There are obvious implications for the Judeo-Christian worldview as well.
Firstly, the editorial predictably degenerates to a less-than-subtle apologist-defence of the Muslim/ Islamist presence in Britain and Europe, and sets as its core premise the rather astonishing theory that the reason for its real or imagined failure had more to do with overly generous and thereby ‘condescending’ British/European policies on immigration and less with some very negative incidents that have come to symbolize (rightly or wrongly) Muslim/Islamist stereotyping in the region. This is a remarkable proposition, rendered suspect at the outset because any reader who bothers to peruse Melanie Phillips’ Londonis-tan) would see that she is in fact lamenting that somehow the natural process of adaptation and assimilation within constitutional boundaries known to the West has somehow been bastardized from its more believeble ‘Martin Luther King’ process to one which advocates that co-existing with radical sections of the immigrant community means simply that the de-facto ‘British’ way of life, and its foundational institutions, have to disappear.
No society, especially those in the East, and moreso those in the West who have undeniably some of the most generous policies in relation to immigration and integration, can countenance such a warped premise.
Having sown this seed, however, the editor should take the responsibility to analyse the plight of 300 million Dalits in India and tell us whether his/her analysis still holds true in the context of ‘democracy’ and ‘multiculturalism.’ It is here, one thinks, that the best appreciation of what ‘Afro-Caribbean’ means would achieve legitimacy in the context of ‘multiculturalism.’ One senses, however, that no answer will be forthcoming in this regard from the editor.
It is this consideration that has in the past led that same author (Melanie Phillips) to advocate that the world seems now so fuelled by an “upside-down” approach to logic, fact and truth, that perspectives which are outrageously trite and flippant are routinely allowed to pass muster.
It is sadder still that, in attempts like these (and Amartya Sen’s list of “crusades” exemplify this) the editorial eventually seeks to achieve legitimacy by attaching itself to the Black civil-rights struggle almost as an afterthought, but no thought is given to the endurance and the message that Martin Luther King subscribed to. Great moments call for great men, admittedly, but why is the struggle today in Europe not characterized by “Come, let us reason together”?
We last countered this level of suave deception in the response to a similar editorial about BC Pires on ‘The Ideal Caribbean Person’ (SN, Sept 26, 2008). There are at least six other aspects of the editorial that are extremely worrying, and that deserve to be treated in the next few days with the seriousness that they deserve.
We should leave this initial response with the secure proposition that efforts to make real the idea of ‘state multiculturalism’ however defined (we have chosen to define our context as ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’) have been more meaningful, intense and possible/plausible in Western states than in any other hemispheric bloc – sometimes to the detriment of their national ethos in Western states. To contend otherwise would be foolish.
Phillips’ analysis in Londonistan really advises that Cameron’s admission of failure had less to do with historical policy on multiculturalism than it had to do with a local and international failure by some immigrants to understand or sell the laudable concepts of ‘peace,’ ‘goodwill,’ ‘scholarship’ and ‘reason’ to their new neighbours.
Denying multiculturalism means denying the power of scholarship, reason and truth. Thankfully, the Judeo-Christian ethic wherever exercised advocates no such thing.
Yours faithfully,
Roger Williams
