Multiculturalism: Let the debate begin

The ‘war on terror' and disproportionate focus on immigration and asylum has radically shifted the debate to the Right. When it comes to race, what does the CRE Chief Trevor Phillips have in common with Lord Norman Tebbit, the disgraced TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk and the news paper pundits Melanie Phillips, and Richard Littlejohn? Answer. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Nichts. So, why are they falling over themselves to say how much they agree with Phillips’s ideas about multiculturalism?In essence they do not agree with his ideas about race. Phillips believes that Black and minority ethnic communities (BME) have a right to be Muslim, Caribbean, Hindu, Sikh etc and simultaneously be British. He also believes that we should fight racism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Above all he believes a multicultural society is one of Britain’s greatest assets.The reason why Phillips finds himself in this unholy alliance is because of his reactionary remarks towards a minority of British Muslims who feel desperately alienated from British society. The solution for those Muslims, he argued, who were being lured away by extremism is to assert their Britishness. We must ‘call them British again and again and again’. He further added that ‘multiculturalism’ is now outdated and is often used by the Far Right and others to mean separatism.And with those remarks the flood gates of bigotry were opened, with BME communities being bashed for not being ‘British’ enough.Phillip’s error was to fight an ideological battle about multiculturalism in an arena that is dominated by Right wing thinking. It’s like boxing with your hands tied behind your back. You can never win. A few years ago the then Tory MP John Townsend infamously said that multiculturalism has turned the UK into a ‘mongrel’ race. A view shared by the British National Party. As derogatory as Townsend intended his jibe to sound a ‘mongrel’ society hardly conjures up a vision of separateness, on the contrary. However, the same detractors once again blame multiculturalism when some BME communities have lead segregated existences in towns such as Burnley, Bradford and Oldham. They negate the impact of local racist divide and rule policies and Islamaphobia and cite multiculturalism as the instrument for separating communities. Therefore, depending on which way the racist wind blows, multiculturalism is both a force to racially integrate or to separate. The only consistent thread in this blanket of inconsistencies is the Far Right’s belief that BME communities have no place or legitimacy in the UK.It is not surprising therefore, that dinosaurs such as Norman Tebbit, should seek to define Britishness, not by any reasonable barometers such as birthplace, values, or contribution to society, (nurse, doctor, office cleaner, politician) but by the cricket team one supports. He and the angry band of bigots are in effect saying that unless we BME communities relinquish our culture, history and non-Christian religions we cannot be truly British. Others go one step further, the British National Party, for example say it doesn’t matter which cricket team we support or what God we worship, to them only white Anglo-Saxons can be British.What is troubling about the multiculturalism debate is that it is not happening in a political or intellectual vacuum. Phillip’s remarks were a reaction to a minority of British Muslims reacting to what they see as an Anglo-American war against Islam. Furthermore, this discussion comes on the tail of the pseudo academic David Goodhart’s assertion that too much diversity threatens British values. Roughly translated to mean, we don’t want anymore foreigners here, thank-you very much.Another sad aspect about this negative debate on multiculturalism is that far from being a dynamic without merit it is one area in particular that Britain has got fantastically right. The detractors of multiculturalism demand that we should adopt a more nationalistic position held by countries such as America and France in which cultural and religious identities take a poor second place to that of the nation State.Are these detractors really suggesting that an emphasis on national allegiance is the key to bind different peoples together? The examples of America and France as models to be emulated mask a reality of two nations that are perhaps the most culturally segregated and racist countries in the western world.In France for example, the racist leader Jean Marie Le Penn came frighteningly close to winning the French Presidency. And in America racial communities are so divided that even the worship of the same God cannot bring the different races together.In contrast visitors to the Britain from America, France and beyond cannot quite believe their eyes when they visit London or other major British cities. They witness a multicultural society that in many ways is comfortable with its diversity. Does Britain have racial problems? Yes, of course it does, but compared to the US, France and the rest of main-land Europe, Britain with its history of celebrated multiculturalism is light years ahead.A recent example of what this means to ordinary Britons may be found in the way the country reacted to the racist comments by the football pundit ‘Big Ron’ Atkinson. His remarks were disgraceful but the wholesale condemnation from the public Black and white sent out a clear message that these views have no place in British society. The promotion of multiculturalism and the fight against racism has ensured that ‘Big Ron’s gutter views will not be tolerated. Given the level of overt racism in other parts of Europe I wonder if other European countries would have reacted with the same national outrage as we witnessed here.Without doubt Britain is at a critical crossroad in terms of how it deals with race relations. The ‘war on terror' and disproportionate focus on immigration and asylum has radically shifted the debate to the Right. The question is do we cow-tow to a racist agenda and relinquishes all the positive gains we have made? If we do our society will become even more fragmented and the poison of racial hatred will spread like a cancer. Britain must hold its nerve. We must defend what is good about multiculturalism, not abandon it. We must also continue the fight against the more subtle forms of racism and the inequalities that still exist. When communities and individuals feel they have a place to belong, where they are treated fairly and with dignity, they will not need to be force fed British allegiance by the government or anyone else. In time they themselves will perhaps wear a notion of Britishness as a badge of honour.