Paradigm shift: Multiculturalism isn’t working, by Joe Priestley

[Joe Priestley writes about Multiculturalism after the Islamic terrorist bombings in London and the chaos in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.]

By Joe Priestley, 6th October 2005

The 3rd of April 2004 was as a significant day in the development of British society. On that Saturday morning the establishment let it be known that they were getting worried, so worried that they had chief commissar of the CRE Trevor Phillips admit in an interview in the Times newspaper that “multiculturalism isn’t working”.

The more daring newspaper columnists have been asking awkward questions of multiculturalism for a couple of years or so, and of course the BNP has been a consistent opponent of the concept. But when the head of the Equality Gestapo Trevor Phillips casts doubt on it too, we know something must be up! What’s going on?

Up to that point the establishment had presented a more or less united front in support of multiculturalism as the ideal form of social organisation. For the past 30 odd years the education system has been conditioning our children and young adults into accepting multiculturalism as an unconditional good. And our televisions, radios, newspapers, public servants, legal institutions, and politicians have been promoting the same message: Multiculturalism is marvellous and Britain should be geared towards achieving that state.

Although Phillips has no real authority and his position in the establishment is primarily symbolic, he nevertheless plays an important role. He is there for the ethnic minorities, a living example that the establishment is not closed to them and that it cares about their ‘plight’. And as such it is inconceivable that he would rubbish the multiculturalism idea without first consulting his superiors in the establishment; this change in tack was instigated from on high. Getting Phillips to break the news was a way of testing the water without feeling the ripples.

Phillips is a Negro of Guyanan parentage. He is Chairman of the CRE and of the Runnymede Trust, both of which are anti-White and anti British. He is a member of the Labour Party; he was the first black president of the Students’ Union; during his student days he was close to Charles Clarke and Peter Hain, and with whom during his student days he visited Cuba to pay homage to Fidel Castro. Phillips remains a chip-on-his-shoulder race activist on behalf of Britain’s black and brown populations. Who better to bear the bad tidings that “multiculturalism isn’t working” – it would have been much less palatable to our minorities had it been announced by a white.

The seed is sown

On Monday 5th of April 2004 I phoned my local education authority. I then had three children at the local junior and infants’ school (two have subsequently moved to senior school) and I wanted to know how Phillips’ pronouncement would affect their schooling; what were the implications for pro-multicultural propaganda, or if you prefer, education.

Funny how sensitive people are about this subject; the person I spoke to dismissed (albeit in an affectionate manner) Phillips as eccentric and said that he was renowned for challenging the status quo. I was told it was unlikely the education authority would be dropping its promotion of multiculturalism. And when I probed further I was treated to a rant on the alleged contribution that black and ethnic minority people have made to Britain – no change there then!

The media was less inhibited. It was as if the lid had been removed from a pressurised container and columnists and broadcasters who previously had been fully behind the multicultural idea were now expressing concern that maybe it wasn’t such a good thing after all. Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight put pro-multiculturalists through the wringer, “It’s just not working, is it?” Minette Marrin, Peter Hitchens, Simon Heffer et al, were all busy bashing multiculturalism as if it had always been the case.

But up to then the BNP had been the only organisation of note to maintain consistently that the ‘multicultural society’ is quite literally a contradiction in terms. Mass third world immigration hasn’t created a multicultural society; it has created a society which encourages alien societies to exist within it and to be antagonistic towards it. And of course the party has been roundly condemned for its stance; haters, Nazis, thugs in suits, etc, the usual nonsense.

Now those same people who had in the past opposed the BNP’s critique of the multicultural idea were employing the very arguments the BNP had been using for years. We didn’t need to say, “We told you so.” They were saying it for us.

Then the furore calmed down, as it tends to do. Newspapers and television stations found other things to occupy their minds, and the illogic of multiculturalism was put to one side. But it didn’t go away. The seed had been sown; criticism of multiculturalism had been legitimised, and it was only by dint of its taboo status that the idea had lasted as long as it had. It was only a matter of time or of events before the subject was broached again. The multicultural fantasy had been shattered by reality.

Seismic events

A year or so after Phillips’ revelation the issue of multiculturalism was back at the top of the agenda, pushed there by two seemingly unrelated events: The Islamic terrorist bombings in London and the post hurricane Katrina chaos that ensued in New Orleans.

Katrina couldn’t have struck at a worse time for the British establishment. We felt none of its physical effects, but socially it had a massive impact – made more significant by post 7/7 angst.

For the previous two months Britain’s establishment had been working hard to contain the fall out from the London bombings. The ‘bombers’ we were told, again and again, were an aberration. Once upon a time they had been moderate Muslims, the kind we all love. They played cricket, taught our kids, helped our grannies cross the road, and served us fish and chips. Innocents to a man, unwittingly they fell under the spell of evil outsiders who brainwashed them to hate the west and its people. They weren’t terrorists; they were ‘disaffected youth’, a sort of Muslim equivalent of hippies; but whereas hippies rebelled by growing their hair and smoking dope, they wanted to kill us. It was a classic case of alienation, or so we were told.

Then Katrina hit New Orleans. And those left behind after the city’s evacuation proceeded to loot, rape, and murder, and our TV screens were filled with images of New Orleans blacks creating mayhem in the absence of authority. It was another example of ‘minority disaffection in the west’ whined the liberals. The American government was accused of being slow to respond to the plight of blacks. Had the victims been white, commentators said, the situation would have been totally different. Indeed!

Blacks had been left to fend for themselves. Without food and water they had no choice but to loot sports and electrical stores in order to survive. It was a matter of life and death.

Of course it didn’t wash. And nor did the bull about ‘disaffected’ Muslim youth. The fault lines in western society had been exposed and no amount of sweet talk was going to cover them up. And it’s an indication of the British establishment’s predicament and the enormity of the problem we all face in that they were compelled to shift tack.

The Whites-as-racist-oppressors argument is now so threadbare it elicits nothing but groans of derision – even if the majority of them are still made under the breath. Guilt isn’t quite as efficient as it was as a means of controlling us. And perhaps also our politicians are waking up to the fact that when White is with White the conversation tends to veer away from what might be deemed politically correct. Another explanation for black/brown behaviour was needed.

And right on cue commissar Phillips was wheeled out to question again the logic of multiculturalism.

Between a rock and a hard place

Like much of the language spawned by the liberal/left the term ‘multiculturalism’ is a dishonest one. It is a sleight of hand used to suggest fairness and understanding but in reality it means the downgrading of the host culture as part of a process towards cultural equivalence. It goes hand in hand with the idea of racial equality: If all men are equal then it must follow that their cultures are equal too. And that’s why this issue is such a difficult one for the establishment to broach. There is a very real danger that by questioning the idea of multiculturalism the idea of racial equality will also be questioned.

And if multiculturalism is not the ideal form of social organisation as Trevor Phillips now argues, does it not follow that there is a qualitative difference between the cultures? And since culture is a function of race, any qualitative difference between the cultures must be a function of a qualitative difference between the races. Oh dear they are in a mess, aren’t they?

The establishment’s problem is that their theory is now well and truly in practice. Multiculturalism isn’t utopia; it is chaos! The consequences of following the commandments of the religion of racial equality are evident throughout the White world. And we can tell how far things have unravelled by the establishment’s tentative rejection (albeit via Trevor Phillips) of what was until very recently the central pillar of its ideology, which is that multiculturalism is the ideal.

Racial equality is to racial identity what the Ptolemaic was to the Copernican. Long after the hypothesis of the earth as the centre of the solar system had been soundly disproved (Copernicus 1473-1543) the establishment of the time continued to oppress those who adopted the new way of viewing the world, that is as one which orbits the sun. The establishment had no choice; they were tied to the old idea. Plus ca change.

Trevor Phillips has the job of squaring this particular circle – or at least setting the squaring of it in motion. The idea of racial equality hasn’t worked in practice and the problems of multiracial Britain are confirmation of it. Phillips has the task of protecting the idea of racial equality from the strife it creates – if ever there was a location between a rock and a hard place his is it.

A new utopia

Phillips’ explanation of the London bombings and of the New Orleans anarchy is that they were a consequence of a lack of integration which itself is a consequence of multiculturalism. His solution is greater integration; once we to get to know each other we’ll become one big happy family.

The media has grasped this straw with both hands as has the Conservative Party and some Labour politicians, although the government has yet to make it its own. They’re probably waiting to see how determined the ethnic minorities are to hang on to their minority cultures.

This is their way out, or so they hope. Their relief is easy to see – even so-called right wing columnists have been heaping praise on ‘brave’ Trevor Phillips for having the ‘courage’ to speak out against the ‘self-defeating’ multiculturalism.

Stephen Glover writing recently in the Daily Mail said, “…multiculturalism is literally a divisive creed. Britain cannot be a happy and successful multicultural society. No such society has ever existed, or ever will.” And how long has it taken him to work this out?

He goes on, “Our only hope is to accept, even celebrate, our ethnic diversity, and seek to create a society that shares a core of values and beliefs.” You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

They want us to have friends from the minorities, and they want us to have them over for dinner. They want our schools to be culturally mixed and our children to go on summer camps where they can get to know each other and rejoice in their difference, or should it be rejoice in their sameness?

If we all adhere to what they call ‘British values’ everything will be OK. And once the mistakes of multiculturalism have been addressed we can achieve our new utopia, a mono-cultural multiracial society! Where we’re all the same but not all the same – it makes such perfect sense, doesn’t it? We can celebrate our cultural uniformity at the same time as celebrating our racial difference. It’s going to be one big carnival from now on.

Sacred cow

Multiculturalism won’t work and can’t work, and now it’s obvious to anyone with eyes to see. And thus the establishment had no alternative but to divorce itself from the idea, irrespective of the awkwardness of the consequences. Faced with a choice between ‘u’ turn and total loss of credibility, they chose ‘u’ turn.

The ‘u’ turn is the easy part – it’s what follows that matters.

Multiculturalism stems from racial equality. And when doubt is cast on multiculturalism inevitably it has implications for racial equality. This is what the establishment is worried about, hence the desperate attempt to define the problem and thus harness it. In fact the establishment is so desperate that in their eagerness to pour oil on troubled waters they’ve had Phillips point the finger at them: If multiculturalism is the problem then they are to blame because multiculturalism is what they’ve been force feeding us these 20 years or so.

Consider for a moment what this admission of failure says about the precariousness of the establishment’s position and about the strength of our own. Things are going so badly for them they’ve had to sacrifice their sacred cow multiculturalism. They hope that’s going to satisfy the opposition and that it’s going to answer the questions and fend off the arguments.

But they’re wrong.

Concessions are defensive. They are an integral part of a retreat. And far from silencing opposition, they encourage it. As any historical study of revolution will confirm – people revolt not against repression but against weakness. The racial equality idea is weak; we can see it is, events confirm it.

Their intention – or rather prayer – is that they can keep the racial equality idea alive and thereby maintain their position of authority. Their strategy is to coerce the races and cultures into mixing socially so that they’ll get to know and thus love one another. They want to blend difference into sameness. Wishful thinking is what powers these idiots; it’s what liberals do instead of factual thinking. If the facts don’t fit, ignore them. They think the world will behave as they think it should because that’s what they think – and these are the people are in charge.

Of course there are fundamentalists, fantasists, and cultists, who, in spite of the obvious and Phillip’s words still cling to the multicultural ideal. These are the useful idiots in the schools and town halls and liberal press and in the media, especially television and radio and especially the BBC. Listen to them and it’s as if nothing has been said, as if nothing’s changed. As if the multicultural idea was intact, unassailable. They haven’t noticed the sand shifting under their feet. They don’t see the big picture.

Multiculturalism is undone; the idea has been made nonsense by reality.



Originally published on the website of the British National Party.

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