It is not often that I read an article from the Daily Hate Mail – on-line, not paying for the rag, don’t worry – but it was fascinating to read an article about ‘former race Tsar Trevor Phillips headed ‘Explosive truths about race we’re not allowed to talk about: The political class’s failure to confront unpalatable facts has had appalling consequences!’ Nice work by the sub-editor, don’t you think, coming up with such a catchy title?
What a joy for the Mail this must be, having a prominent black man telling us all that politicians are “too scared of speaking their minds about race.” Actually, Phillips’s comments are actually quite modest and moderate, although you would not think so from reading the Mail this morning which rails, once more, against ‘political correctness’ when actually there is nothing political nor correct about ignoring child grooming by groups of Pakistani men and calls upon right wing Tory nut jobs like Philip Hollobone and, god help us, Phillip Davies to damn Phillips with faint praise, as you would expect from the Mail.
It is true that a lot of these terrible episodes have been swept under the carpet for what we assume to be for reasons of being frightened of upsetting the wider Pakistani community, if there is such a thing, but my guess is that most people of Pakistani origin feel much the same as most of us do: rapists and paedophiles of whatever colour and race are still rapists and paedophiles.
The Mail gets angry about the fact that minorities end up in what are effectively ghettoes, going to separate schools, not learning a different culture or the language of the land. And what’s more it blames, of all people, secularists. Now, the last time I looked, those of us of a more secular disposition oppose religious separation in all aspects of public life and oppose religious privilege full stop. In fact, I would argue that the Mail itself does far more damage to our society in terms of religious separation than almost anything else, supporting as it does Michael Gove’s Free School experiment which is poised to dramatically increase the number of religious schools in our country. Perhaps Gove’s wife, Sarah Vine, who is a prominent journalist at the Mail could give her point of view?
Phillips is concerned about multiculturalism too, as am I, saying that “multiculturalism had become a racket, in which self-styled community leaders bargained for control over local authority funds that would prop up their own status and authority. Far from encouraging integration, it had become in their interest to preserve the isolation of their ethnic groups.” Johann Hari put it much better than that when he said, “multiculturalism was formed with good intentions as a counter-reaction. But it has become a mirror-image of this old racism, treating Muslim women — and others — as so different that they do not deserve the same rights as the rest of us.”
Hari goes further, pointing out that multiculturalism prizes the rights of religious groups where as liberalism prizes the rights of the individual. “So if you want to preach that the Archangel Gabriel revealed the word of God to an illiterate nomad two millennia ago, you can do it as much as you like. You can write books and hold rallies and make your case. What you cannot do is argue that since this angel supposedly said women are worth half of a man when it comes to inheritance, and that gay people should be killed, you can ditch the rules of liberalism and act on it.”
Anyway, what if someone’s culture means that women must go through Female Genital Mutilation which includes the removal of the clitoral hood and clitoral glans (the visible part of the clitoris), removal of the inner labia and, in the most severe form (known as infibulation), removal of the inner and outer labia and closure of the vulva? Or slavery? Or having lots of wives? Or simply operating with a completely separate set of laws, like Sharia, the one favoured by the heir to Britain’s throne and the odd, very odd, former Archbishop of Canterbury?
We do not need racism but then we don’t need multiculturalism either. We live by one set of laws which we all follow and if we don’t want to follow them we can go to a country that better meets our needs. It really is that simple.
But let’s not ignore rape and paedophilia ever under any circumstances. And if taking action against the perpetrators upsets some people, well tough.
Finally, let’s have less about this ‘Muslim Community’ nonsense, or ‘Community Leaders’ who were probably elected by no one. I do not regard myself as a member of the white community, just a member of the community.
