The Gray Monk

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April 12, 2004

Cultural incompatibility?

An item on the BBC News Web page has Cardinal Cormach O'Connor, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England, supporting Lord Carey's comments on the failure of Islam to condemn acts of blatant and unholy terrorism. And before anyone says "what about the IRA", it is only fair to note that the Cardinal was among the few to be vocal on this issue as well.

Equally, he criticises the developed nations for not doing enough to tackle the poverty gap which is clearly one of the underlying causes of the resentment that festers in the hearts of so many in the undeveloped world. This provides a very fertile breeding ground for recruiting terrorists. If you have nothing to lose, why be afraid to die? If all you have to look forward too is a life of grinding poverty, what incentive is there to live? And why not take some of the "rich pigs" with you?

Coming on top of the statement last week from the head of the Commission for Racial Equality, that the concept of Multi-culturalism is causing divisions and tensions in society, it is perhaps timely to look at both these issues.

Firstly, while I agree with both Lord Carey and the good Cardinal, I do have a problem with the practicalities of some of what they say. Yes, the West needs to do something to distribute its wealth more evenly, but this cannot be one sided and it equally cannot be done without lowering the standards of life for a substantial majority of those who currently enjoy the benefit of living in the "Developed" world. The Cardinal acknowledges this, saying that the West needs to make a truly "sacrificial" effort.

OK, but at whose cost? It certainly won't be at the expense of Whitehall, Washington, or Brussels - it will be at the expense of the usual suspects - us. Now, as a Christian, I do not have a problem with sharing my good fortune with others, but I have worked extremely hard for what I have and have made a lot of sacrifices in order to maintain my small place in society. I would be extremely reluctant to see my living standards reduced to something approaching the third world's if all it meant was that Tone and his cronies in the governments of the Third World, Mugabe, Mbeki, Sayad, and the rest of their dictatorial ilk simply milked the system and we saw no change at all in the living standards of those most in need.

So, before we can talk about how we redistribute the wealth, we need to sort out WHO will do it - and it should not be the fat cats of Whitehall or any other Capital - and we need to sort out the most fundamental issue of it all - the governments that thrive on corruption and nepostism. It is they, more than any "wrong doing" in the developed world, that lock their own people into poverty. It is they who destroy opportunity for their people and refuse to share the wealth of their own nations. When we have that little issue sorted out, the wealth issue becomes a viable discussion, or even it begins to sort itself.

This feeds into another part of the problem. Examine the press and media in many of these "Third World" nations and you find day on day that there is a tirade against anyone of "Western" origins, aginast "Western" exploitation and "Western" "crimes". The most vociferous and strident are naturally located in the most oppressive and corruptly ruled nations. With their access to any other source of information limited or non-existent, what are the people living there to believe? The "truth" as presented by their governments, or the "lies" of the West, about which they hear only the selected and most damaging bits and pieces. It would seem to me that you would have to start by correcting that and by having a completely unbiased and balanced media. Oops, now we really are getting in over our heads!

Then there is the issue of colliding cultures. This is never going to be an easy one to resolve. Globalisation is held to be the current root of all evil in the undeveloped world, but is it? What is happening is that gradually all nations are having to adapt, to develop a more "global" culture which crosses national and religious boundaries. Only those who want a future locked into a past viewed through rose tinted spectacles could possibly think that this is a way forward. This is also where those who insist on "multi culturalism" fail to see that they are promoting conflict and cultural clashes between groups. Inevitably, if my "cultural" comfort zone comes under threat, I have two choices, move away and find somewhere I can live in "my" cultural environment, or adopt the "new" culture.

Having moved about a bit and seen different cultures at work, there are clearly some I will have no truck with at all - head hunting is definitely not my bag! Others I could live within, but I would end up creating a ghetto and surrounding myself with friends and a lifestyle that would support my "cultural" needs. The dominant culture would obviously impact upon this in a number of ways - my pattern of worship would have to change if I were living in a non-Christian Society which celebrated a weekend which did not co-incide with Sunday. You can see this in microcosm in any city in the Far East or the Middle East - expatriate communities who have their own areas, their own golf clubs and their own restuarants. Those who "go native" and adopt the local culture generally find themselves outside the social circle "ghetto" fairly rapidly.

This is where, in the UK, the multi-culturalists have created a monster - and it is one which will soon bite, and bite hard. Already we have seen the rumblings in the North East and around Sheffield, and it is not confined to there either. I suspect that it is already happening in the US as well, although I am making a guess there based only on what I read and see in the news from there. The promotion of "keep your own culture" and "don't blend in" philosophies has created a situation where communities now form enclaves - another word for ghetto - and soon it becomes so alien to the residents who are not from that particular background or group that they feel compelled to move out. If this is combined with a lower than expected income or a lack of jobs, the next phase is dissaffection among the youth and you see the development of street gangs. These lead to or may be drawn into criminal activities and it begins a downward spiral which can only lead to confrontation. In short, a ghetto develops around an underclass.

It is in this atmosphere that the likes of Abu Hamza and other poisonous and twisted individuals can thrive. They have a ready made set of "victims" on which to prey - and do they ever make use of the well intended but ill thought-out concept through "rights" that our legislators have given them!

Legislators traditionally respond to these situations by "passing a law" supposedly to promote the "underprivileged" or "disadvantaged", but the law is a very blunt instrument, and one which usually compounds the original problem. Here lies the road to Apartheid. By affording "privileged" status to any one group in a community you create resentment, you create division, and you create opportunities for exploitation. That is what has happened here and I dare say elsewhere, and more legislation will only compound the error. It is not escaping people's attention that the Civil Service has been "minority-ised" to the point where population groups who make up around 3% of the population are now occupying over 8% of the positions in the Civil Service. And this is not an isolated case - the same is being done to all Public Services. In fact, like it or not, the situation is now polarised to the point where it would not be surprising if a public backlash undid all the good - and there is some - that has been done.

We need to break the ghetto mentality - to encourage people to retain those parts of their cultures which they consider most important, and to adopt those parts of the culture in which they now reside, which do not clash with their own beliefs. We need to have an open and honest debate about all of this - not one limited by the usual mantra howled by the promoters of Multi Culturalism, that all who disagree with them are "Bigots", "Racists", "Fascists" or "Neo-Nazi" - but an honets debate involving all peoples and opinions. Sadly, we are unlikely to see this.

Far more likely is the move that the MC promoters will adopt a regime of renaming their poisonous philosophy, or at least those elements of it which have come under closest scrutiny. They will sneak things in through back doors where they cannot get away with bringing it through the front door, and they will continue to be a powerful influence until once again they touch off the explosion that will lead to far worse than 9/11 or Madrid.

The only hope is that the men of Lord Carey's and Cardinal O'Connor's standing will keep saying what needs to be said - and that the rest of us will continue to expose the purveyors of weasel words and false "inclusivity". They have highjacked morality and perverted it, they have also highjacked the language and perverted that as well. It is time for all those who support fairness, decency, and truth to take back the language and the morality and expose the charlatans who hide behind this discredited concept.

Does anyone else out there not find it strange that the generation that spent the 60's, 70's and 80's in boycotts, digging up cricket pitches, and promoting anti-apartheid causes (including terrorism) are now the very same people who are promoting the underlying principle of apartheid - separation of cultural identities?

I rest my case.

Posted by The Gray Monk at April 12, 2004 09:09 AM

Comments

Posted by: Ozguru at April 12, 2004 11:06 PM

Posted by: VC at April 17, 2004 04:17 PM