If you have spent your life living in UK its unlikely you have ever heard any argument against multiculturalism. For decades multiculturalism has been the state sanctioned message, repeated ad nauseum, but never questioned. We are led to believe it’s the secret sauce that has created a harmonious, inclusive Britain. It’s simply the modern and progressive way of doing things.
Like many ideas, it’s not until you spend a quiet moment thinking deeply about it that it’s incoherence and unsustainability become apparent.
What existed before multiculturism? Well mono-culturalism of course. Before there was multiculturism there was only one culture: British culture.
To create multi-culturalism you need to add extra cultures to the mix: foreign cultures.
That might not sound too bad if you consider only the most peripheral aspects of culture such as food. After all, who doesn’t like a curry? And generally if you ask someone about multiculturalism you can pretty much guarantee that will be the first thing they mention.
But when you stop for a moment and consider the full scope of culture, what it actually entrails, you get a very long list. It’s our laws, history, language, behaviour, attitudes, politics, allegiances, manners. The list goes on and on. It’s basically EVERYTHING that makes a people who they are.
Perhaps you can now start to see why multiculturalism is an incoherent idea.
How can one country have multiple systems of law, one for each for segment of the population? How can one country have multiple languages, and have any hope of maintaining a high trust society, not to mention an efficient workforce? How can one country have multiple histories and still feel a sense of unity and place?
Well it can’t.
For countries are, by definition, coherent entities: they are sovereign states where, at the very least, all citizens all live under the same rule of law, partake in the same political process, abide by the same norms, and share the same allegiances. Without these things, no country is sustainable.
It should be obvious then that here is no such thing as a true multi-culture. There is no country with two parallel legal systems, two parallel political processes, or two parallel ideas of where the borders of that country lie. Having a unified agreement on these things are the very essence of what makes a country one country, not two.
So why do we keep being told Britain is multicultural and that its something wonderful? I believe there are two explanations: one is sinister and one is confused.
The first, sinister and unwelcome, meaning of multiculturalism is that we allow foreign cultures to persist and even flourish, within certain enclaves and to within certain limits in Britain. Examples of this are myriad, from areas of London where Jewish children don’t even learn English, or parts of the midlands where entire towns are Pakistani. No foreign culture yet has supplanted our legal system, although they are trying (see Sharia courts). But what you do have is millions of people living in Britain who try to build and maintain a life as close to the one they left in their home country.
Why on earth would any culture welcome this? Obviously they wouldn’t unless they have suicidal tendencies or an inability to extrapolate. But if their culture ALLOWED such a thing (see paradox of tolerance) then immigrants will take advantage, and begin to turn a host country into a foreign one.
Those who push this form of multiculturalism are exactly those who want to see British culture changed radically, because they don’t really like it much. They would rather see this country be more like their home country.
Most British people can see how ugly it would be to emirate to Japan, a proud country with a rich heritage and ways of doing things, but upon arrival not just carry on being British, but expect the Japanese to make extra accommodations, or even change THEIR culture to suit us.
Or perhaps closer to home, you can imagine a Guardian article decrying how areas of Spain have been colonised by British people, creating British pubs and restaurants with high streets covered in English signage not Spanish. But why do they decry it? After all this is multiculturalism in practice.
Yet somehow when those same things go on in the UK, the Guardian journalist is not interested in writing about it, and it’s readers are not interested in reading about it. Any talk of keeping Britain British is immediately shut down as racist.
Which brings us the multi-culturalism being a synonym for multi-racialism. I think purposefully conflated. For to be against a foreign culture is to be against their RACE. A cardinal sin. One can see how this can be used to insulate the multicultural message from criticism and I think it has been very effective.
But the idea that race and culture and tied is the true racism. It’s equivalent to thinking that all black people think alike, when they obviously don’t. Black and brown people can be 100% British, and many are. These are people who originally came to this country to join “Team Britain” because they preferred British culture to where they came from. Sure they may have brought some minor parts of their culture such as food, but this is really a minor (and subservient) part of their identity, for they are culturally complete Brits.
The other of interpretation multiculturalism is “melting pot” idea. We all learn from each other, creating an even better unified British culture. Yet, this cannot be multi-culturalism for at the end we are all working towards a single culture: a British culture just with influences from foreign cultures.
But this is what British culture has always been, and it never needed to be called multiculturalism. There is nothing wrong with slow changes to a culture, after all its unavoidable. Slow change, rather than revolution, being the very essence of conservatism which is so much part of being British.
Those who want to see Britain completely changed and balkanised are those that dress up the true motivations behind multiculturalism in this gentle sounding melting pot idea, but it is simply not the same thing.
British people by and large want Britain to remain an monoculture. They want Britain to remain British even if some of our population has a different skin colour. Only nefarious actors and their confused acolytes push the multicultural message. But I for one can see its an absolutely rubbish idea.