Without doubt, his message was bold and provocative. The public debate that ensued was illustration enough. However, the underlying assumptions in his speech were either misguided or plain wrong. He was wrong to claim that multiculturalism had been an abject failure; encouraging different cultures ‘to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream’.
Firstly, multiculturalism is the mainstream. The vast majority of people, who live and work in the UK’s cities and towns, mix and interact with others from a whole array of different backgrounds. Rather than dividing us, it actually brings us together. It’s premised on an equal, open and shared sense of personal worth, where everyone can live freely. He claims this is an affront to liberalism. On the contrary, the space that a multicultural society provides can be a liberating sensation (just look at London).
What Cameron has done is erroneously conflate the idea of multiculturalism with ‘ghettoisation’, a real problem in certain places around the country, which is caused more by economic and social woes than by failures in diverse cultural doctrines. So if Cameron rejects the current ‘cultural passivity’ we all live in, what is the alternative? Judging by the rhetoric and musings of his speech, it is an integrative social approach with a more defined and overt sense of national identity. He called it ‘muscular liberalism’.
However, it is clear Cameron is not the liberal he purports to be. His politics is rife with paternalistic instincts, whether on marriage, education, the ‘big society’ or, as we now know, on cultural freedom and identity. His doctrine of muscular liberalism is a contradiction in terms as it seeks to prescribe a set of values and principles not just in terms of law (which he should do) but culturally too. This is dangerous stuff. Cultural homogenisation is not the way to create a more tolerant or cohesive society.
This is a key passage from Cameron’s speech, ‘But I believe a genuinely liberal country does much more; it believes in certain values and actively promotes them. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality. It says to its citizens, this is what defines us as a society: to belong here is to believe in these things.’ I couldn’t agree with that anymore. And all of it is or should be enshrined in law. However, to publicly advocate this as a cultural prospectus for the nation is another thing. Aside from the illiberal nature of prescriptive declarations, it is simply too naive to think this would seriously change attitudes and create a more tolerant society. It encourages a ‘them’ and ‘us’ environment, and is only likely to shift opinion moderately. Integration is no cure for intolerance.
To really bring people together and create the respectful, tolerant, and cohesive social world we all desire, then you need to focus on the basic principle that informs all human relationships: interaction. The reason why we don’t feel a stronger sense of nationhood (and there are many) is not because we lack a more identifiable sense with who we are collectively, but more simply down to there not being enough social interaction. Multiculturalism has served most of our cities and conurbations well. But where the structural forces of separation have been too strong, we have encountered problems. Analysis conducted by the ippr has found the most racially and culturally homogenous areas in the UK, to be the most receptive and prone to extremist groups.
We need to focus less on how we define ourselves, and more on what defines us. There is an old saying, ‘we fear what we do not know’. Some communities in Britain, white and non-white, are so detached culturally from others, that it is easy to understand how intolerance and extremism has bred. If one does not understand, how is one meant to accept? We need to be absolutely resolute in our determination to engineer a new national understanding and respect for one another.
In terms of policy, we need to ensure schools are not just socially mixed in the formal aggregate sense, but mixed in terms of schooling, activity and participation. Local authorities should use their powers over housing to foster mixed communities. There needs to be more cross-community collaborative ventures at a local level. And religious institutions need to be more open and accessible places, for all faiths and none. Only through creating the conditions for social exchange will we be able to dispel the fear and insecurity that gives life to hatred and intolerance.
I’m not saying this is going to be easy, or indeed a panacea, for tackling extremism. There are many issues we need to address. But by bringing to life a shared social experience and understanding, we help to illuminate our shared and collective fate … our greatest weapon against hatred.
Read Luke Akehurst’s reaction to the Cameron speech
My views on the BNP etc are well known and based on actual experience of them, so I wont go on about the morons apart from to repeat they are morons. That said you lose the debate when you make plays on words exchanging multiculturalism with ‘ghettoisation’ and to be honest with you it is that kind of dismissive analysis that develops the extremism of the BNP and EDL. Although the hierarchy of them are what we all assume them to be, we have to face the fact that a considerable number of their membership are in support of them because they believe multiculturalism or which ever branding you wish to give it has and is failing them. They are the people who feel their neighbourhoods are being taken over by ‘ghettoisation’, have to face pungent odours which they feel would be dealt with by environmental health, if it were them creating it, see parking laws broken around mosques, when they are being used, with no enforcement being taken while at the same time tickets are issued to ‘their churches’ on Sunday mornings, for doing the same thing and it is that one rule for ‘them’ another rule for ‘us’ which is the biggest issue. The problem is that they believe raising these concerns equate to being branded racists, that nobody represents them other than the extreme parties and as such multiculturalism has indeed failed them as have those parties who have refused to listen, gone as far as dismissing their concerns often in the belief that its is done for political gain. The fear for me now is that those on the boarders of the BNP etc, no matter how limited they are in number, will have nodded in agreement to what call me Dave has said and Labour being so far behind on this important matter could lose even more support, especially preference votes, should the utterly stupid AV system which allows the BNP to thrive come in.
your comment Andy is shocking to me,it spouts all the old school racist cliches,I am appalled.Lack of money and resources,urban planning, housing allocation and time for a foreign people to adjust,yes which may well take a full generation.Your comment’s make me sick to my stomach I have to say.
Sadly d.mcardle it comes as very little shock. Let me be clear it is people like you who make the idiots within the BNP exist. All the above reasons I gave are facts not clichés, something I strongly suspect you know nothing of. As for my comments being racist its as stupid as it is laughable. All the above reasons I gave can and more importantly should be dealt with. The reasons have nothing to do with entire races which is what I fear does happen when the argument is raised but certain members within that community, in the same way it is members within not all members of all other communities who become targets for speeches, like for example benefit recipients. Like it or not they believe that what is classed as playing the race card is an option and before you get back on your high horse if there was a similar option for other communities some, not the entire community, would chose to do it as well! I am afraid your sickened to the stomach line just doesn’t wash . The ‘handful’ need dealing with which include those in Luton with their anti-British pamphlets on tables etc. and communities need to wake up to the fact that when sections are discussed its the section that needs to be dealt with. Not dealing with the section, gets lost with things like multiculturalism isn’t working and harms the community you are naively and rather stupidly trying to protect.
well flattery will get you everywhere! Poor Andy you sound more than a bit paranoid to me.We have plenty of chaps with ‘pamphlets on tables in Nottinghill too you know,but also very intelligent and effective police surveillance operations .Chill man ,it takes time ,and Muslim people round here are already noticeably more relaxed,we have a new halal butchers a couple of doors down and that has had a marked effect of calming the constant partying of the afro-caribbean hairdressers next door ! .Our neighborhood has worked at race relations for a long time and we are rather good at it . I’m not from the Cotswolds as you seem to imagine! It was the ‘pungent odours’ that got me I suppose ,well here we have just watched an entire generation move to in and around Brick Lane for that very reason! and hey ,better than the smell of boiled cabbage any day! Well and ‘parking laws broken around mosques ‘ ,wooaahh man! call the ghost busters!
and of course I mean the generation of young kids of all races that have gone to live around Brick Lane ,recently.
In the 1960’s I belonged to a group on a the housing estate in Newport in Wales, the group was housing group which the council asked for advice, it was put in place to try and stop the wars and battles that went on. One day an Asian couple was to move into a house, they had two kids, the lad worked with me at Uskmouth Power station. The committee met and I was sitting when a member of the committee got up and said right lets get down to the real issues why are Paki’s being allowed houses in this country when we have hard working local waiting for homes. The whole place started clapping and by the end of the day it was decided to ask the council to look into where and how these people got onto the housing estate. On the letter one person had written the smell of these people cooking will affect the whole area. His grand parents were born here, his parents were born here and he and his wife was born here. They did get the house as the council decided it was racism, but the committee disbanded, I went to see the lad a few months later to find his windows had been broken his car damaged he left a few weeks later. It seems we still have the same bullshit on here. Andy mate you sound like you know about the BNP mate your in it.
Britain used to OWN India and we created Pakistan with partition,the wealth of this country 6th. in the world was built built by our domination over others.IT IS THE BROWN MAN”S TURN to have something the b… sh.. you rant is based on ignorance .There are poor people in this country of all types that need better resources,urban planning and opportunity regardless of their colour. Racism/fascism the easy call for fight back,such a crude argument! turn and tackle the Government ,help Labour to do that.