The post In praise of multiculturalism by Peter Ryley aka Fat Man on a Keyboard caused me more headache than many international, national and even family affairs that unfolded since I've read it first.
Was it because Peter is a superb thinker (and blogger, which is not a sufficient distinction, of course, but still, where it counts...) and I, who has recently gleefully noted the demise of multiculturalism in Europe, don't feel equipped to argue with him. Language, education, professional background and, let's face it, insufficient number of brain cells - there are enough reasons to avoid an argument in this case.
Or was it simply because I couldn't put my finger on the bug (have I mentioned the professional background already) in Peter's post? After all, how can one fault the clear and unambiguous statement like this:
Multiculturalism succeeds because it is not about separation, it is about acceptance; inclusion rather than exclusion; seeing 'them' as 'us'.Nope, I am afraid that I can't argue with this. But still, the post as a whole leaves me with a feeling of something wrong, something that tries to persuade me to accept a phenomenon when my senses teach me differently.
Was it because I have already said something that I still believe in:
Multiculturalism, in many feverish progressive minds, was supposed to become an unending festival of mutual enrichment, poetic meeting of different cultures under the benevolent watch of the government sponsor, where foodstuffs, music, language, dance, love (don't ever forget love) and other ethnic delights flow every each way unimpeded. In the grim reality of thousands so called European "projects" it turned out to be just lots of newly erected ghettos bringing alienation, lack of common language and, indeed, common culture. Well, lack of common culture was built into the idea of multikulti to start with, you would say, and you will be right. Of course, this is precisely the point. This is what ghetto tends to do to its inhabitants - a majority of them just don't see any need to make an effort and integrate into the host society. And the host society hardly cares - as long as the streets remain clean, the cars are produced on schedule, the garbage removed etc.Or was it because I feel uneasy with Peter's classification of objectors to multiculturalism?
Multiculturalism has become one of the targets for parts of the anti-totalitarian left, as well as some long-standing enemies on the right.
Opposition to multiculturalism can sometimes be soft racism.I am not sure I am ready to be classified at my tender age.
So what remains to me is to do some (limited by my drawbacks) combing throuh Peter's post. As I said, I can no more object to "seeing 'them' as 'us'" than I can object to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!". With one reservation: while I can't object to these two, I don't have to believe in the possibility of making them work and indeed, I don't believe in it (the possibility). If we apply to multiculturalism the same scientific criteria that we (should) apply to communism, e.g. when we observe a repeated failure of the theory with no successful implementation, we should conclude that the theory is either wrong or unworkable in any known to us set of conditions.
It's not enough to state that the MC theory is unworkable, one has to explain why. Again, in theory MC could work - provided that enough resources, attention and time are spent by the host society that should do its best in two respects at once: insure both integration of the newcomers (yes, understand and accept me exactly as I understand and accept you) and freedom for the newcomers to keep and nurture their own culture.
Peter rightly states that Britain was a multicultural society long ago: "How else could Disraeli have written of Britain being two nations in the 19th Century?" Being of the same tribe as Disraeli, I feel that my inalienable right is to answer this question by a question or two. Would you remember Disraeli if he has written what he has written in Yiddish or Portuguese or Ladino? Could Disraeli get where he got without English? Or without being baptized to Anglicanism at age 12? Hint: Disraeli's mom and dad have done their utmost - and some more - to integrate and to succeed in the host society.
However, what produced distinct ethnic areas was not government policy. It was both the internal pressures of choice and cohesion and, much more importantly, the external ones of exclusion, poverty and racism.I think that Peter soft-pedals in the first sentence of the quote. Of course, it was not the government policy that produced ghettos. It was lack of government policy, lack of interest, investment, vision etc. And, since the lack of all that and more is consistently presented in all countries that eagerly accepted gastarbeiters only to 'fess up later "We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, but that's not the reality", shouldn't we conclude and confess that so far the implementation (but not the idea) of multiculturalism was a consistent failure?
Multiculturalism, in contrast, offers diversity. Yet that diversity does not mean the toleration of injustice, it demands a respect for human rights.Yes, but when implementation of multiculturalism is reduced to "they are settled somehow, now let them be" lazy way of ignoring the problems, one shouldn't expect anything good coming out of this implementation.
And finally (ain't you glad?):
We do not face a choice between multiculturalism and integration, the two are complementary, one facilitating the other.But if we ignore one of the two, we do it at our own peril. I know that Peter will agree to this, even if he rejects the rest of my post.
