Don’t Blame Multiculturalism?

  • by:
  • 03/02/2023

The International Herald Tribune ran a column yesterday defending multiculturalism in Britain. The column really illustrates how the entire edifice of multiculturalism is predicated on a series of vacuous platitudes (otherwise known as lies). These bromides can't be supported empirically, and the article doesn't even attempt to present any evidence or studies demonstrating that they're true. But these premises stand as self-evident truths largely because they're phrased in such a way that anyone who would question them could easily be portrayed as a racist. The column shows that multiculturalism is based on the following notions:

1. Any social pathologies demonstrated by minority or immigrant groups, including terrorism, stem from the poverty and racism faced by these groups in Britain. The failure of any minority or immigrant group to succeed in Britain is only - and can only be - the fault of British society.

2. There is no such thing as a negative cultural practice or ideology that can be imported into Britain by immigrants. The only negative cultural trait that actually exists in the world and is worth discussing is Western racism.

3. Minority and immigrant groups that refuse to assimilate into British society can be forced to assimilate by clever government programs.

These are the tenets underlying the author's argument for multiculturalism, and not a single one of them is true. Like the terrorists who committed the 9/11 attacks, most Western Jihadists are middle-class and highly educated. The "poverty breeds terrorism" canard is totally false, but it's a logical argument to make for someone who can't bear to admit that Jihadism actually springs from a violent ideology based on immigrants' own religious theology.

Also, notice the kinds of cultural practices the author chooses not to discuss - polygamy, female circumcision, honor killings, virulent anti-Semitism, and a host of other problems that the British authorities are struggling against within immigrant communities. Since it's hard to argue that these practices somehow stem from British racism, in the author?s mind they simply do not - and cannot - exist.

Still, the article demonstrates that the multiculturalists have been put on the defensive. They've made a major concession in that they now acknowledge that non-Western immigrants to the West should, in fact, assimilate into their adopted countries. This really deals a blow to one of the seminal ideas - if not the seminal idea - of multiculturalism: that society functions best when it's multi-cultural.

Image:
ADVERTISEMENT

Opinion

View All

British schoolchildren more violent due to lockdown–causes developmental delays: BBC study

Nearly one in five teachers at schools across England reported being hit by a student in the past yea...

London features 'Happy Ramadan' lights throughout city over Easter weekend

The lights have drawn criticism from prominent conservatives who insisted that the council ought to s...

Polish foreign minister claims US was aware of Nord Stream pipeline attack but 'did not prevent it'

Radoslaw Sikorski suggested it was done by "someone who had a vested interest in it."...