One of the biggest problems facing those of us who dispute the principle of "multiculturalism" is the sheer ignorance of the people who support the idea.
They seem to think that multicultural just means different style of clothes, art, music and food. So they take, as a celebration of the success of multiculturalism, the examples of curry restaurants, Asian music and colourful African dress and say "look isn't multiculturalism great?" The obvious fact that these things exist in monocultural societies just as much doesn't seem to bother them too much.
Quite simply, they just do not understand what culture is.
To understand what culture is, you first have to understand what it is not. It is not things like art, music, theatre and dance. Because we often use the term culture to describe these things, they have become associated with the definition of culture as a societal phenomenon. But culture as in art, is not the same as culture as in society - it is merely the result of that societal culture. In other words, art (for example) is an expression of the culture, not an element of the culture.
Culture consists of a myriad of things, but in essence boils down to the values, beliefs, traditions, histories and institutions of a people structured into a common identity.
Some may argue that Britain is already multicultural because our British culture consists of the culture of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England anyway. This is, of course, incorrect. You could equally argue that we are multicultural because everybody is different and everybody has their own identity.
The point is that the elements that make up our shared identity are the elements that define the national culture. The national culture draws on all the various cultures from the nation - whether it be Lancastrian, Cornish or Kentish. These all feed into the national identity to what makes us English. You can not change that. If you try, you destroy the shared identity of the nation and that just leads to fractured communities and ghettoisation - which is exactly what we are seeing in Britain today.
Furthermore, cultural formation has to be an evolutionary process taking place over generations. It can not be imposed by force of law because to do so creates discrimination and disaffection. Eventually, the disaffected and discriminated will take action. That action may be to leave the nation - either individually (emigration) or collectively (secession). Either way, this leads to the collapse of the national culture and to the end of that nation - either culturally or physically.
Changes to culture can only be achieved over long periods of time with the conscious acceptance and agreement of the people. And of course, whatever changes take place over time, the nation can only ever have one predominant culture. This is because the most important element of culture is law. There can only be one law for a nation and this is why a nation can only be monocultural.
This brings us to the very heart of the problem we face today. Because of the failed belief that we can be "multicultural" we are now seeing a situation where other cultures are demanding that they receive different treatment because our law conflicts with their law. If they succeed in doing this we get a situation where, the law treats one set of people different to another. This has even started happening in Britain today (has even been happening for quite some time).
This may seem trivial - what's wrong with that? Well, there are two things wrong with that. Firstly, if one minority group can get special treatment under the law, why shouldn't another? The second problem is that it is the thin end of the wedge. After that, what next? And next? And next?
Law is at the very core of culture and identity. A united people can have only one law and therefore only one culture. Mulitculturalism as a national concept is not only misguided, it is downright dangerous. We've had warnings of how dangerous from places like Nigeria, Rwanda and Yugoslavia - and we're starting to see how dangerous it can be in France, Holland and even Britain.
An independent England can only be a monocultural nation.
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