Why Multiculturalists Hate America

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | October 23, 2002 | Dan Flynn

[Coeur de Lion]

College course selection catalogues for the current academic year list such "multicultural" courses as Penn's "American Racism," Harvard's "Ebonics: Myths and Facts," and UMass-Amherst's "The Social Construction of Whiteness and Women," which centers "primarily on the U.S." Lest any student feel shanghaied by the compulsory activism in this last course, the class description notes: "Students work in groups to design and implement activist projects."

The common denominator of such "multicultural" courses is a lack of truth in advertising. Their emphasis is monocultural, not multicultural. That is to say that the focus is exclusively on bemoaning some aspect of Western society. Ostensibly, multiculturalism celebrates overlooked aspects of foreign cultures. In practice, it serves as a propaganda tool of the domestic Left to denigrate America and the West.

Real multiculturalism-an honest look at societies outside our own-would reveal precisely what campus multiculturalists attempt to hide: the fact that some cultures are better than others. This is why the American Left ignores other cultures, and instead focuses a jaundiced eye upon America. Remarkably, this endeavor is labeled "multiculturalism." In my new book, Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness, I examine other cultures in detail. What's revealed doesn't quite fit with the Left's ideological preconceptions about foreign societies.

So what is it that multiculturalists seek to hide about foreign cultures?

The horrible treatment of women The United Nations estimates that between 100 and 150 million living African women have undergone female genital mutilation. Forced abortions in China primarily target females. For every 100 baby girls that are born in China, 117 baby boys are born. Of the more than 2,100 rapes reported in Bangladesh in 2000, a mere 63 resulted in criminal convictions. In most Middle Eastern nations, a woman can't travel outside of her homeland without permission from her closest male relative, leniency is awarded those partaking in "honor killings," and rape is treated as a joke. In India, thousands of women are murdered every year because of dowry disputes.

A lack of democracy Self-government, which is almost universal in the West, is essentially a novelty in the rest of the world. No Arab country boasts a republican form of government. Of the more than fifty African nations, not even a dozen could legitimately be described as democracies. Nearly two billion people in the Far East have no say in their government's leaders.

Unfree Speech The idea that the citizens of other nations equally possess the free speech rights possessed by every American is untrue and dangerous. Kuwait bans speech that "affects the value of the national currency," "spreads dissension among the populace," or "creates hatred." Azerbaijan's Law on Mass Media bars coverage that "insults the honour and dignity of the state and the Azerbaijani people" or "is contrary to the national interest." In Togo, people who "offend the honor, dignity or esteem" of government officials are subject to imprisonment. Zimbabwe bans subversive statements and views that threaten "interest of defense, public safety, public order, state economic interests, public morality, and public health." Even many European countries lack the safeguards against infringements on freedom of speech.

Rampant Racism Race-based slavery persists in Sudan, Mauritania, and other parts of Africa. Zimbabwe's campaign of land expropriation targeting white farmers has led to numerous murders and the public theft of private wealth. For much of the last decade, ethnic Eritreans living in Ethiopia were imprisoned in concentration camps. The widely held notion on the Left that America is somehow unique in having racial problems strikes one as preposterous when one takes an honest look at the world around us.

So why do multiculturalists ignore other cultures in favor of bemoaning aspects of America that they despise? The answer is obvious when one discovers the true nature of many foreign societies. A sensible person can't encounter forced abortions, race-based land expropriations, or apostasy executions and embrace the mantra that "all cultures are equal." All cultures are not equal. The only way to reconcile this multiculturalist slogan with the reality of life in non-Western cultures is to lie about other cultures or to ignore them entirely.

Embracing the ideology of multiculturalism and having a multicultural outlook are incongruous ideals. The latter critically examines other cultures while the former encourages an uncritical embrace of anything foreign.

The real study of foreign cultures, ironically enough, serves as the greatest threat to multiculturalism. Quite clearly, the academics offering-up such monocultural "multicultural" courses as "American Racism" and "Ebonics: Myths and Facts" know this truth all too well.