David Cameron and the Multiculturalism debate

In the weeks since David Cameron’s Munich speech on multiculturalism we’ve covered the subject on the OBV website along with guest writers the story has run and run. It’s been given a new lease of life with the recent adoption rules changes and Searchlights new report on British attitudes toward immigration.

As this story keeps rolling I thought it would be good to highlight a piece which deserves wider viewing. Khola Hasan writes for Middle East Online about her experiences living in London:

“The next London train was in ten minutes so I settled down on a bench on the windy platform and began to read my book; The Jews of Islam by Bernard Lewis promised to be a riveting read.

I had managed to read only a few pages when a man walking by said, “Who, may I ask, are the Jews of Islam?”

And so began a fascinating conversation which continued on a London tube for the next 20 minutes. The parents of my new acquaintance were Austro-Hungarian Jews who had fled Nazi persecution and taken refuge in Chile. We discussed various issues, including violence in the name of religion and the role of women in society, all very loudly over the rumblings and rattling of the Central Line.

This, for me – a Muslim woman living in UK – is multiculturalism at its best.”

I especially liked this piece because it was a simple insight into a real life experience between two people that furthered understanding across two communities and could only happen in a multicultural society like ours. It’s a shame that we don’t see more examples of this in the public discourse on Britain’s multicultural heritage when talking about immigration.

Leon Green