The UK press, multiculturalism and the elephant in the room
Exclusive to The Daily Banter
By Nana Kofi Mensah
The
Daily Mail and Telegraph are up in jubilant arms. For those of you that
don’t know, I am referring to the British right wing press, whose
standard polemic against immigration and British multiculturalism
received a boost from an article published on Friday in the Royal
United Services Institute (RUSI) Journal.
In
the RUSI piec
e, Professor Gwyn Prins and Lord Salisbury criticised the
UK’s “misplaced deference to multiculturalism”, that has allegedly
“failed to lay down the line to immigrant communities, thus
undercutting those within trying to fight extremism." The
y go on by
saying, "the country’s lack of confidence is in stark contrast to the
implacability of its Islamist terrorist enemy, within and without.”
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Hazel Blears talks on the
BBC
about the government’s efforts to integrate communities by encouraging English language usage.
Surely, these people are missing the point. There is an elephant in the room they would rather ignore: U.K Foreign Policy.
While
it is true that frictions between various Muslim communities and the
national body pre-date the war in Iraq, no serious pundit would argue
that matters have not become markedly worse since March/April 2003 when
the British government acted against popular will by taking us into a
legally ambiguous conflict in the Middle East. The offense has been
compounded by a one-sided stance on the Israel-Palestine question. See,
for example,
Tony Blair
’s
comments during the Lebanon conflict of last year. I'm referring to
nonsensical statements such as ‘A ceasefire would not be useful at this
time’ made while the Lebanese were dying in their hundreds, mostly
civilians. Collective punishment in the Gaza strip today is met with
silence.
The reality of 21
st
century
Great Britain
is one of Diaspora. Communities within the multicultural
kaleidoscope
have ties of kinship outside the
UK
that are not Anglo-Saxon. Therefore, when we reproduce traditional
geo-political strategies, there are new implications for British
citizens. And these are Britons we are talking about. Hazel Blear's
“let’s make sure everyone speaks English” drive is a non-sequitor. The
people that bombed
London
on 7
th
July 2005 had no problem speaking English. The kids hopping on planes to train in
Afghanistan
speak with our regional accents. In terms of long term nation building,
I think it makes sense to ensure that English is universally understood
in the British isles or as close to that as possible.
However, with regard to the immediate threat of
UK
born Islamist terrorism, language is not the problem. Public policy, in
particular foreign policy, reinforces the “otherness” of our British
Muslims for reasons outlined above. When the RUSI report talks as it
does of a crisis of confidence... Well, of course there is. The British
Empire passed from existence within living memory and we are now
extricating ourselves from a morally bankrupt military engagement in
the middle-east. Confidence will come with time and a more honest
alignment between our values and our actions. Let’s not give up on
multiculturalism because of the shortfall between those latter two.
