It is well understood in the trade unions today, that the economic policy of the coalition government is a major assault upon working class living standards. Correctly, this has led the majority of trade unions to organise in opposition, in some manner or another, to this policy.
Unfortunately, what is not so well understood is that the social policy of the same government is an equally devastating attack upon the working class. In particular, David Cameron’s recent statements concerning multi-culturalism and the Muslim community, and immigrants, represents the social corollary of a reactionary economic policy. If you are going to inflict the biggest reduction in living standards since 1945, then a good dose of racism, Islamaphobia and xenophobia helps to divide the opposition.
As usual, the Conservatives demonstrate a degree of intelligence in the manner in which they promote their policy. David Cameron, whilst steering public opinion towards respectable forms of Islamaphobia, also tacks back by insisting that Islam is a good religion, and Muslims are generally peaceful. But it is evident that the suggestion that Muslims have to accept “our” values places them in total as a problem for the rest of society.
Category Archives: Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism must go, says Dutch home affairs minister
Dutch society and its values must take precedence and integration policy should go, home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner told parliament on Thursday evening during the presentation of his integration bill.
Donner spoke of a “change of direction” in which the government “will distance itself from the relativism contained in the model of a multicultural society”. Society changes, he said, but must not be “interchangeable with any other form of society”, according to press reports.
It is not the government’s job to integrate immigrants, he said. General policy on schooling, jobs and housing gives them ample opportunity for integration.
Donner wants an end to integration policy and a tougher approach to people who ignore Dutch values or disobey the law. He is planning to introduce a law making forced marriage illegal and he wants tougher measures for immigrants who lower their chance of employment by the way they dress.
If necessary, the government will introduce extra measures to allow the removal of residence permits from immigrants who fail their integration course.
See also RNW, 17 June 2011
Theresa May attacks FOSIS and accuses universities of tolerating ‘Muslim extremists’
The Daily Telegraph reports that home secretary Theresa May has accused universities of “complacency” in tackling Muslim extremism.
May told the Daily Telegraph that universities are not taking the issue of radicalisation seriously enough and that it was too easy for Muslim extremists to form groups on campuses “without anyone knowing”.
May was evidently outlining changes in the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy, an updated version of which will published this week.
“I think for too long there’s been complacency around universities,” she said. “I don’t think they have been sufficiently willing to recognise what can be happening on their campuses and the radicalisation that can take place. I think there is more that universities can do.”
Reassessing ‘parallel lives’ and ‘self-segregation’
Two interesting articles by Ben Chu from the Independent, marking the tenth anniversary of the Oldham riots: “Oldham: A town still divided?” and “Muslims in Britain continued“.
EDL teams up with BNP to attack anti-racist meeting
The racist thugs of the English Defence League teamed up with their Nazi pals in the British National Party to attack an anti-racist meeting in Barking on Thursday night.
They smashed the windows of Crown House on Linton Road, where the meeting was taking place. A woman NHS worker who was attending the meeting was injured in the attack. She had to receive hospital treatment.
The meeting went ahead despite the EDL’s attempts to storm it. It had been called by local councillors and trade unionists together with UAF to defend multiculturalism in Barking & Dagenham.
The coordinated attack on multiculturalism
Open Democracy has published an article by Liz Fekete based on her excellent study for the Institute of Race Relations, Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism. She concludes:
“… the social agenda of Blue Labour (as fashioned by Lord Glasman), the fashionable credo of civic nationalism (articulated by Michael Ignatieff and others), the Searchlight strategy for pulling the rug from under potential extremists, all seek to win back the faith of the white working class at a time of austerity and fragmentation. And all, to one degree or another, are in danger of appealing, if not directly to faith, flag and family, to a latent ethnic nationalism.”
Victoria: minister defends multiculturalism, migrants and right to wear veil
Muslim women who choose to wear the face-covering burqa should be entitled to do as they pleased, says Victoria’s multicultural affairs minister.
Nick Kotsiras has also praised the Sudanese community who have come under scrutiny in the aftermath of outbreaks of street brawling after a youth beauty pageant last month. ”We have not got a Sudanese problem in Australia – or in Melbourne. There are 8000 Sudanese living in Victoria, the vast majority are hard-working, law-abiding citizens ” he told The Age.
In a spirited defence of cultural diversity, Mr Kotsiras said isolated incidents of violence were not an example of social disharmony brought on by the latest arrivals from Africa. And while those who broke the law should be punished, ”you cannot say it’s all the community’s fault”.
Weighing into the international debate on banning burqas, taken up by some of his federal Coalition colleagues, Mr Kotsiras said: ”If a person wishes to wear the burqa, then they should be allowed to wear the burqa. I don’t believe that someone should be forced to wear any particular item of clothing, but that’s across all cultures. If someone wants to wear [a burqa], I can’t see what the problem is.”
Mr Kotsiras, who arrived here as a child migrant from Greece in the early 1960s with no English, acknowledged that all new waves of settlers to Australia faced challenges relating to issues such as jobs and youth.
But he hoped an initiative in the state budget for a new unit within the Premier’s Department to help co-ordinate policies for new refugees and migrants across local, state and federal governments would identify service gaps. ”We open our arms to new migrants but now it is about helping them resettle in a new country,” said Mr Kotsiras, who is also the Minister for Citizenship.
A tendency of new arrivals to congregate in certain suburbs such as Dandenong or St Albans should not be characterised as creating ”ethnic ghettos”, Mr Kotsiras said.
”That’s an appalling term,” he said. ”There is absolutely no such thing as ghettos; people will live where they’ve got friends, where they’ve got jobs, where they’ve got a support base.” Mr Kotsiras cited his own experience arriving with his family: ”We went to Fitzroy because of the support base … and relatives. Where else would you expect us to go and live?”
UKIP by-election candidate backs Geert Wilders, says Islam is ‘morally flawed and degenerate’
Abhijit Pandya, an Indian-origin candidate for the Leicester South byelection, has sparked fury by making critical remarks about Islam in his blog less than a week before the May 5 elections.
Pandya, 31, is the candidate for the UK Independence Party, which is opposed to Britain’s membership of the European Union.
On his blog, Pandya called Islam “morally flawed and degenerate” and said he backed Geert Wilders, a controversial Dutch politician who allegedly called Islam a retarded ideology.
Attacks on multiculturalism linked to economic crisis, IRR study finds
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) publishes today Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism – a detailed analysis by Executive Director, Liz Fekete, of key speeches made over the past six months by leading centre-right politicians from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.
These speeches attack multiculturalism and immigration and link them to the economic crisis. The IRR finds that:
- In singling out multiculturalism as a threat to national identity, the leaders of Europe’s centre-right parties are using the same kind of rhetoric and specious arguments as Enoch Powell did forty years ago. Only this time, it is not one rogue European politician carrying the flag, but the leaders of centre-right parties now replacing race and immigration with culture and religion as the watch words.
- As multiculturalism becomes code for discussing the ‘Muslim problem’, the language, terms and metaphors used by centre-right politicians subtly (and in some cases crudely) convey a sense of national victimhood, of a majority culture under threat from Muslim minorities and new migrants who demand special privileges and group rights and refuse to learn the language.
In Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalismthe IRR warns that:
- The attacks on multiculturalism are taking place at a time of economic crisis and swingeing cuts, when politicians are desperate to deflect public anger and explain societal break down. The centre Right is establishing a narrative, with some centre-left parties following suit, to justify the biggest round of spending cuts since the 1920s, blaming the current economic crisis not on the bankers and global financial crisis, but on immigration, and on Muslims.
- As the extreme Right increasingly enters national parliaments, sometimes holding the balance of power, there are dangerous signs that the centre Right is preparing for future power-sharing with the extreme Right, as well as nativist anti-immigration parties. The fact that mainstream politicians are now speaking to the fear and hatred promoted by the extremists’ anti-multicultural platform, is giving legitimacy to conspiracy theories about Muslims and to anti-Muslim hatred.
Read the IRR’s research Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism here.
Multiculturalism strengthens communities, study shows
Multiculturalism is associated with strengthening the ties between different ethnic groups, according to an extensive study of English data.
A research team led by Dr Laia Bécares from the University of Manchester reveals that neighbourhoods with higher ethnic diversity are associated with higher rates of social cohesion, respect for ethnic differences, and neighbours of different backgrounds getting on well together.
The research, mainly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, found that deprivation, not multiculturalism, was the root cause of fragmented communities.
The paper – published next month in Urban Studies – challenges critics of British multiculturalism, including most recently Prime Minister David Cameron.
“Politicians seem to link racial tensions to the perception that ethnic minority people and newly arrived migrants are not integrated into their host culture,” Dr Bécares said. “But our findings show it is not neighbourhood ethnic profile but neighbourhood deprivation which erodes social cohesion in England.”
She added: “Our study complements other research which shows that multiculturalism hasn’t failed: segregation in the UK is not increasing, and Muslim people are as likely to report they feel British as people from other minority religions.”