Thursday, August 04, 2005
"British way of life" posted by Richard Seymour
The Tories may finally manage to punch their way out of that paper bag. Shadow Home Secretary, and contender for leadership of the Conservative Party, David Davis has announced that multiculturalism is over, an "outdated" idea. It is time to return to, what - monoculturalism? No, to Britishness. It is time for Britons to "assert a core of Britishness":"Searching questions now have to be asked about what has been happening inside Britain's Muslim communities and how the perverted values of the suicide bomber have been allowed to take root.
"Britain has pursued a policy of multiculturalism - allowing people of different cultures to settle without expecting them to integrate into society.
"Often the authorities have seemed more concerned with encouraging distinctive identities than with promoting common cultural values of nationhood."
Will I ever learn what "Britishness" and "British values" are? Will someone please illuminate me? And what exactly are "the values of the suicide bomber"? And what will dispensing with multiculturalism mean in the concrete, aside from demanding that Muslims interrogate themselves and "integrate" (translation: do as they're told), and scrapping the Human Rights Act?
Gerald Howarth MP offered a partial clue yesterday when he expostulated that those Muslims who saw the Iraq war as a conflict against Islam were just as treacherous as those who supported the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they should "get out" . And of those who were born here?
"Tough. If you don't give allegiance to this country, then leave.
"There are plenty of other countries whose way of life would appear to be more conducive to what they aspire to. They would be happy and we would be happy."
This xenophobic outburst comes as the police report a 566% increase in attacks on London Muslims - this in a period in which other kinds of racist attacks fell. There have been arson attacks on mosques, racist killings , threats and violence. Howarth, in dabbling with this hateful language, is not merely exhibiting cold indifference to the fate of Muslims: in preparing the excuse of every racist thug in the country, he is building a political base on blood.
In a perverse way, he may get his wish. The Guardian reports that two-thirds of British Muslims have considered leaving the UK - not because they condone suicide attacks (the overwhelming majority do not) but because they are sick of bigots like Mr Howarth, and the canine brethren who take comfort in his words.