418 Hindu supremacist organisations: received Greater London Council Funding in the 1980s25, [just like many other organisations with vague objectives but a clear particularist agenda].
Section 44 of RRA 1976: also funds organisations concerned with promoting equal opportunities and good relations between people from different ethnic backgrounds.
Since the late 1980s [Education Reform Act 1988, partly based on Swann Report 1985]
Local Government, which has, in practice, full responsibility for education, has put in place specific schemes geared towards ethnic minority children: countless examples to be found in Bristol, e.g.
Name given to multicultural education: ‘sari, samosa and steelband’ multiculturalism.
416 Weight of differentialism in multiculturalism: the ‘difference discourse’ which lies at the core of multiculturalism may be said to use the same logic as racist ideologies.
= rather than criticising racism on the grounds of universal equality of people, multiculturalist policies are justified by the conviction that ‘black’ people (i.e. coloured and underprivileged) are fundamentally different from other British people. The issue behind multiculturalism is therefore about how to accommodate those differences. As put by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:
When many of our forms of multiculturalism have been built on the premise that ‘immigrants’ are so peculiar, so different from mainstream British society that the only way we can live together is we keep apart as much as possible, it is perhaps unsurprising that they are failing to enable us to deal with the society we live in today. 26
After the beginning of the multicultural settlement, rather than really tackling social inequalities or addressing political disaffection, British authorities merely encouraged ethnic communities to live ‘parallel lives’.
Multicultural Policies as Threats to Equality and Democracy
To many commentators: multiculturalist policies = in contradiction with basic democratic principles
417 they have granted special rights for different groups, which is not what equality is all about. As Brian Barry puts it: « Multiculturalism is a challenge to the whole idea that equal treatment means treating people in the same way »27.
Problem of self-appointed (Conservative or radical) community leaders, who then deal with the authorities, both locally and nationally.
= issue of representativeness of Muslim leaders or ‘representatives’
417
Exemptions / special rights
Legislation on ritual slaughter. The govt accepts that ritual (either Halal or kosher) butchery of animals causes unnecessary ‘very significant pain and distress’ (Government’s Advisory Committee, 1985). Yet the report when on saying that ‘the government had an opportunity to consult Jewish and Muslim leaders in great detail on the question’ : they rejected the committee’s report. To Barry: ‘merely citing the objections as it were decisive, was, in effect, to turn the powers of government over to a pressure group’28, although the vast majority of people was against it (77% according to a poll carried out in 1983
Likewise, the crash helmet bill: never debated on the floor of the H. of C. itself.
Sensitivity to the idea that ethnic minority people should be governed by their own norms in the private sphere: justifies / turns a blind eye to potential violation of Human Right or basic laws: female genital mutilation & forces marriages were long defended by advocates of multiculturalism in the name of ‘culture survival’. Asian women 418 not happier in forced marriage than European women + genital mutilation: equally harmful to African women than it would be to white ones. Ambivalent because overlooks the distress of those subjected to it.
The exemption for Sikhs to carry knives in public places: ignores law and order rules as well as the general interest.
420 Conclusions
421
In Europe, Blasphemy laws should be scrapped, just like public funding of religious schools as separation of Church & State = an important Enlightenment Principle. At the same time, people should be protected against hatred on religious grounds, as under the British Incitement to Religious Hatred Act (voir si là aussi, pas un double-edged sword, dans la mesure où les musulmans peuvent à present agiter le drapeau de l’islamophobie à tout bout de champ)
423
Main paradox behind multiculturalism:
universal rights and values, should be promoted, through political dialogue and debate. In the name of respect and tolerance, multiculturalism practically ignored intercultural dialogue and made debate impossible.
Multiculturalism as a double-edged sword
When Tony Blair was re-elected, the UK continued to pride itself on its generous policies towards asylum seekers, unique in Europe, although the government insisted that ‘genuine’ asylum seekers (those fleeing persecutions at home) only should be allowed in (there was then talk, notably in the popular press, of ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, i.e. chiefly economically-motivated immigrants pretending to be refugees).
Likewise in the name of freedom of speech the government openly allowed Abu Hamza al Masri and his likes at Finsbury Park mosque (North London Central Mosque) to preach hatred against all things Western and openly rejoice in the killings of countless innocents in the 9/11 attacks. 29
Usable elements taken from Peter Tatchell’s article (to be reformulated because article will be submitted to students for reading)
Bas du formulaire
Multiculturalism vs. human rights?