Multiculturalism Hasn't Worked: Let's Rediscover Britishness

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 10-8-2006 | Patience Wheatcroft

[george76]

Next the parliment should repeal the anti-guns laws and allow the common citizens to be able to defend themselves.

Probably asking for an apology is too much ?

[Dallas59]

RACISM!

[Anti-Bubba182]

Multiculturalism is like herpes. Good luck getting rid of it.

[Lunatic Fringe]

I don't want to rediscover Britishness, thank you.

[blam]

Drive for multi-faith Britain deepens rifts, says Church

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones
(Filed: 08/10/2006)

The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government's drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society.

In a wide-ranging condemnation of policy, it says that the attempt to make minority "faith" communities more integrated has backfired, leaving society "more separated than ever before". The criticisms are made in a confidential Church document, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, that challenges the "widespread description" of Britain as a multi-faith society and even calls for the term "multi-faith" to be reconsidered.

The Church says 'privileged attention' has been given to the Islamic faith

It claims that divisions between communities have been deepened by the Government's "schizophrenic" approach to tackling multiculturalism. While trying to encourage interfaith relations, it has actually given "privileged attention" to the Islamic faith and Muslim communities.

Written by Guy Wilkinson, the interfaith adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the paper says that the Church of England has been sidelined. Instead, "preferential" treatment has been afforded to the Muslim community despite the fact that it makes up only three per cent of the population. Britain remains overwhelmingly a Christian country at heart and moves to label it as a multi-faith society suggest a hidden agenda, it says.

The leaked report follows a week of tension in which a Muslim policeman was excused armed guard duty at the Israeli embassy in London, Asian and white youths clashed in Windsor, and Jack Straw suggested that Muslim women should not wear the full veil across the face in public.

The report lists a number of moves made by the Government since the London bombings in July last year to win favour with Muslim communities. These include "using public funds" to fly Muslim scholars to Britain, shelving legislation on forced marriage and encouraging financial arrangements to comply with Islamic requirements. These efforts have undermined its interfaith agenda and produced no "noticeable positive impact on community cohesion", the Church document says.

"Indeed, one might argue that disaffection and separation is now greater than ever, with Muslim

communities withdrawing further into a sense of victimhood, and other faith communities seriously concerned that the Government has given signals that appear to encourage the notion of a privileged relationship with sections of the Muslim community."

Insiders at the House of Bishops meeting last week, where the briefing paper was "well received", say it marks a radical departure from the Church's usually diplomatic relations with the Government on the multi-faith issue. One bishop said it was the first time the Church had launched such a defence of the country's Christian heritage.

The paper, entitled Cohesion and Integration – A briefing note for the House [of Bishops], argues that the effort invested in trying to integrate Muslims since the London bombings has had no positive impact on community relations and that Ruth Kelly's controversial Commission on Cohesion and Integration seems doomed to fail.

It can also be revealed that the archbishop met Miss Kelly, the Communities Secretary, last month to discuss how the Church of England could contribute. Bishops are dismayed that no Christian denomination is represented on the commission.

The bishops' document questions how effective it will be and says the focus for solving the problem should not be placed on one particular minority but "with the 'majority' communities and in the core culture".

"In relation to faith, there has been a divided, almost schizophrenic approach," the briefing paper says. The Government was misguided in "scapegoating the Muslim community as the source of the problem at the same time as believing that they should be uniquely responsible for solutions". It goes on: "The contribution of the Church of England in particular and of Christianity in general to the underlying culture remains very substantial."

The 2001 census showed that 72 per cent of Britons describe themselves as Christian. "It could certainly be argued that there is an agenda behind a claim that a five per cent adherence to 'other faiths' makes for a multi-faith society," says the document.

Mr Wilkinson, who was an archdeacon in Bradford during the riots of 2001, says the Government is wrong to see faith as the cause of a divided society.

[glorgau]

Commission on Cohesion and Integration set up by Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Communities

The very name almost guarantees a useless bureaucratic nightmare.

[TimSkalaBim]

Only this week a Conservative councillor was forced to resign after implying that a modern Noah's Ark would have to accommodate some gay animals. "How offensive", came the howls of outrage. Political correctness is no joke.

The author of this article is either a moron or a slave.

[blam]

"The very name almost guarantees a useless bureaucratic nightmare."

Sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel.

[Clemenza]

Bad teeth, the class system, warm beer, Hills Angels, etc.

Then again, compared to Islamism, its culturally like ancient Rome.

[Fairview]

". . .even the Church of England, it seems, may be rediscovering sufficient backbone to assert the importance of its role as the predominant faith in the country."

Bit of a lost cause there, I should think. The C of E is going to have to rediscover Christianity before it is able to stand against multiculturalism.

[IronJack]

This is an idea whose time is well overdue. We should take a page from this book and regain our pride at being Americans, and a more solid consciousness of what that means.

[Billyv]

I couldn't agree with you more. I am second generation, my grandmother walked across the Rio Grande around 1909 to stay with relatives until the revolution was over. The extended family lost, she married an american cotton farm worker in Texas- hence my father. My father was totally against bilingual education (he had to demonstrate the english learned at school when he came home everyday or be punished).
He often told me that without being forced to learn and speak english he would never have bothered, living in the Bario in San Antonio. Instead he served our nation in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, obtained an A.S. degree while in the service, finished his B.S. after retirement, spoke and wrote English, Spanish, Arabic, German, some Japanese, and was studying Greek when he passed away.
He believed in the American Melting Pot - Be AMERICAN first, don't forget your roots but remember our Nation's strength comes from out similarities not our differences, Americans take the best from all cultures and adopt it as our own.

I apolagize for the length.

[Vanders9]

As opposed to false teeth, autocratic two-party politics, beer with the strength of gnats wee, and rap music.

Then again, compared to Britain, culturally you have the "Jerry Springer show".

[Jimmy Valentine]

Well, this one gets it at least.

[thile44]

That would be far preferable to today's PC, MC, BS society that is taking over so much of the world. If we don't wake up we will have no Americaness either.

[IronJack]

Be AMERICAN first, don't forget your roots but remember our Nation's strength comes from out similarities not our differences

Absolutely. The Dividers, the Hyphenators, aren't interested in a strong America; they're only interested in developing wedges.

[blam]

Good story, thanks.

[Vanders9]

Be AMERICAN first, don't forget your roots but remember our Nation's strength comes from out similarities not our differences
Absolutely. The Dividers, the Hyphenators, aren't interested in a strong America; they're only interested in developing wedges.


I concur 100%. Differences are good, diversity is the spice of life, but we are all more similar than we are different. We forget that, and we become defined by our differences, not reconciled to them. That way leads to schism, anarchy, and weakness in the body politic.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Let's Rediscover Britishness

Yeah, that'll work. Sorry, the toothpaste has been washed down the drain and tube thrown out in the trash.