I’m always wary of discussions about the rights and wrongs of “multiculturalism” in the UK. I mean, what exactly is it? There seems to be an assumption among many conservative commentators that multiculturalism involves an oil-and-water attempt, in every British street, to mix Muslim fundamentalism with a cosy 1930s English home counties lifestyle. In reality, though, if any explosive situations do develop, they do so not because those caricatures are true but because each side believes them to be true of the *other* side only.
Most of us occupy the many shades of grey in between these two (and other) extremes, especially as notions of “culture” don’t always apply on a mass scale. I imagine my cultural view of the world differs no more from that of an earnest Muslim cleric in Leeds than it does from that of Richard Littlejohn. Any attempt to identify a unified “British” culture is going to be futile.
So imagine how I groaned when I heard that Norman Tebbit was criticising the supposedly adverse effect of Islamic culture upon the UK. Some of what he says is reasonable… divisive attitudes within a community are, like, really uncool, and we all should try to get along… m’kayyy? However, in Tebbit terms, “getting along” means submitting to a narrow set of conservative values, which many of us would find restrictive.
In the ePolitix.com interview, he goes on to say this…
Well, think about it… haven’t most of the major recent advances in science, art, literature and technology been in *secular* societies anyway? The dominance of the church upon these disciplines in the West effectively came to an end with the Renaissance (which, some would suggest, was itself inspired by the rediscovery of Aristotle by medieval Muslim scholars).
And, taking us back to my original point, Tebbit also says…
Yes. But not the culture of a former Conservative politician, nor the culture of a Muslim cleric. Culture is not absolute; it’s not even constant. It’s not something you acquire or create within yourself to suit the requirements of a community; it develops gradually, and differently for every person. Criticising multiculturalism is like criticising freedom of speech. One of the great things about living in a secular, democratic society where we have freedom of speech and enough money to enjoy leisure pursuits is that each of us can carve out our own little cultural niche. As soon as one person in a community begins to exercise these freedoms, you have a multicultural society, whether you like it or not.