Cultures Aren't Equal

By Michael Barone

Anyone who has been keeping up with British opinion since the July 7 bombings will have noticed that "multiculturalism" is under sharp attack.

Multiculturalism preaches that we should allow and encourage immigrants and their children to maintain and celebrate their own culture apart from the national culture. Society should be not a melting pot but, in the phrase of former New York Mayor David Dinkins, "a gorgeous mosaic." That mosaic, of course, looks less gorgeous as people surveyed the work of the British-born-and-raised bombers.

In the past, Tony Blair has spoken favorably about multiculturalism. But on July 7, he struck a different note. "It is important, however, that the terrorists realize our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause the death and destruction of innocent people and impose their extremism on the world."

Sadly, the muticulturalist policies of Blair's Labor government and its Conservative predecessors gave refuge to preachers of Islamist hate in what some have called "Londonistan."

Even before the bombings that prompted second thoughts, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality said, "We need to assert that there is a core of Britishness," and the home secretary introduced English language tests for citizenship. Now, the Blair government has moved to expel Muslim clerics who preach hatred and terrorism, and the left-wing Guardian fired a writer who was a member of Hizb Ut Tahrir, a radical group that advocates a "clash of civilization" and urges Muslims to kill Jews.

Writers in other tolerant countries have been noticing the blowback from multiculturalism. The Dutch novelist Leon de Winter wrote that as traditional Calvinist discipline frayed and Muslim immigrants rejected Dutch tolerance, "the delicate mechanism of Holland's traditional tolerant society gradually lost its balance."

In The Age of Melbourne, Australia, Pamela Bone wrote, "Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here." The Age's Tony Parkinson quoted the French writer Jean Francois Revel's Cold War comment, "A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself." Tolerating intolerance, goodhearted people are beginning to see, does not necessarily produce tolerance in turn.

The conservative Telegraph of London ran a series of articles on extolling Britishness and placed on its website the contributions, positive as well as a few negative, of dozens of citizens. The nonagenarian W.F. Deedes, a journalist since the 1930s, perhaps summed it up best: "The reputation we have in distant lands, I have learned in my travels, is higher than we give ourselves. They admire us for our social stability, our parliamentary and diplomatic experience, for fair play, for tolerance, for a willingness to help lame dogs over stiles, as well as for some of the qualities Shakespeare sang about in his plays."

When I was in Britain for the election in May, I was surprised to hear nothing from Tony Blair (or other politicians) about Britain's positive contributions to the world. Now, they are being heard.

Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures, but in certain specific times and places -- mostly in Britain and America, but also in various parts of Europe.

In America, as in Britain, multiculturalism has become the fashion in large swathes of our society. So the Founding Fathers are presented only as slaveholders, World War II is limited to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Slavery is identified with America, though it has existed in every society and the antislavery movement arose first among English-speaking evangelical Christians.

But most Americans know there is something special about our cultural heritage. While Harvard and Brown are replacing scholars of the founding period with those studying other things, book-buyers are snapping up first-rate histories of the Founders by David McCullough, Joseph Ellis and Ron Chernow.

Mutilculturalist intellectuals do not think our kind of society is worth defending. But millions here and increasing numbers in Britain and other countries know better.

© Copyright 2005 Creators Syndicate

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I have a pretty high opinion of the "live and let live" philosophy, but there are some aspects of all cultures that are incompatible. Discuss you pinko hippie punks.

Homogenous society is boring.

pinko hippie punk reporting in:

i'm not really sure what this article is saying except: AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!

but this is my take: all cultures are equal because the people who comprise said cultures are equal.

i do not embody everything that is american culture, i do not thinkt hat every person i see is a homogenous embodiment of the culture.

this article is nothing more than a dressed up: "nayh-nayh-nayh, we're better than you are".

This is a very complicated issue, that demands a well thought out response that I don't have time for this minute, but I will later.

I agree in part with the author, if not necessarily with the style and sentiment. People may be equal, but cultures are not. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. That is a lower form of culture than our own.

Well said, you bring up some excellent points and now you got me thinking

As in, what may have been or is presently the greatest culture

Greek-A vanguard of Academia, learning and expanding the mind but then again the whole take a young boy under your wing for a little bit of nooky is a bit of a sour point.

Rome- A plethora of negative aspects here, the destruction and/or assimilation of provincial or still far more out laying and distant lands and the people that occupied them, also brought education though to Europe but this was wiped out by the dark ages. New ideas, inventions to the world, for example an expansive road system, concrete or did the Greeks bring it about...

The Oriental culture-Not very knowledgeable on this, women seem to lack rights, the working class did not have much if anything.

I think the problem with this is that it is slapping the consequences of a few onto a whole group of people, millions of who have lived in this country for years, worked, and contributed to society in a positive way. I think 9/11 and 7/7 type incidents really bring racists out of the woodwork. I still believe multiculturalism is something to be embraced and held up as a triumph of humankind. It's something that we should all be proud of, and something we were all proud of before 9/11. IMO it shows the small-mindedness of people who are willing to demonize an entire culture based on the actions of a fringe element. People are people; we are capable of beauty and we are capable of horror no matter our skin color or heritage. Before we start cursing multiculturalism we ought to turn the mirror on whatever "traditional" culture is, and see that it has caused plenty of grief and destruction as well.

This is going places

"Multiculturalism, as it is expressed in the platitudes of the American campus, is not multiculturalism. It is an idea about culture that has a specific genesis, a specific history, and a specific politics. What people mean by multiculturalism is different hues of them- selves. They don't mean Islamic fundamentalists or skinheads. They mean other brown and black students who share opinions like theirs. It isn't diversity. It's a pretense to diversity. And this is an exposure of it--they can't even tolerate my paltry opinion. " -Richard Rodriguez on a near riot at UCSD after his speech on Mexican-American identity. [emphasis mine - BI]


I think what made American great in the past, made it able to create so many new ideas and welcome some many diverse people was that we all shared a common identity as Americans first. Now we are all "hyphenated" Americans. We reject our commonality to favor some kind of historical pride. I think the American melting pot is something that should be held up and praised, not the idea of having a bunch of distinct little districts where the Asians and Hispanics don't ever have to see each other because they can’t get along.

The article isn't about racism at all, especially with regards to Islam. It's about the trendy rejection of British national identity. That's what causes home-grown terrorists. People who see themselves as excluded from society and multiculturalism is to blame for this. Look at the prejudices of whites towards Asians vs. those towards Blacks/Hispanics. The isolated communities that result from multiculturalism breed contempt, hatred, and misunderstanding between people who would otherwise be happy together.

It's not racist to point out problems in foreign cultures anymore than it is to point out the shortcomings of Western culture. I know its super hip and cool to be anti-American right now, esp. among college students. But look at what you are doing. You can say “F**K Bush”, and you probably should, but don’t identify him as the soul of America (or Blair as the soul of England) and hate those countries because of them.


"These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own." – GK Chesterton in the 1920’s.

I think this quote is the embodiment of multiculturalism in the US and UK.

Bullfuckingshit. Christians have ruled this country since its inception. They're the only ones who think the world's out to get them.

Don't take it so darn literally.

Try this:
"These are the days when the American is expected to praise every culture except his own."

Why the "except" part? Who said we can't praise ourselves? It's praising ourselves in spite of others that is wrong.

The fact that the Mulim leadership of Pakistan has criticised Britain for not dealing with hate preachers blows the "multiculturalism=tolerance for hatred" theory out of the water.

Many, many Americans have issues seeing the difference.

Amen.

How? The same logic would say that if the leaders of America support the war in Iraq then all Americans do. Pakistan let the be for decades until Bush bribed them to change

I'd like for someone to define "American culture" for me please.

Hot dogs, apple pie, baseball, you know

I'm not saying all, I'm saying some, if not most.

Why?

I think we all know what aspects of our culture are "American" as universal among all Americans. Then there are things that are "imported" from other cultures. Many of those things become part of American culture over time, many do not.

But really, asking what is American culture is like asking what is art. You know it when you see it.