Race Relations PLC

George Orwell said in the thirties that Britain was the only major country in Europe whose intellectuals were ashamed of their nationality. The new report from the Runnymede Trust proves the point. “British” is a racist word. We are not a nation; we are a “community of communities”. And the government should declare Britain a multicultural society.

Of course in this politically correct age, to oppose multiculturalism is a bit like blasphemy in the Middle Ages, so perhaps I should explain where I’m coming from on the issue. I know a bit about issues of ethnicity. I should, having been born in Buddhist Sri Lanka, to a Catholic Sinhalese family, whose ancestors in 1276 were Hindus, who became Buddhists and then Christians in 1536. I enjoy ethnic food as much as the next man, and perhaps more than most. I have attended many Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucian events.

Britain is a country made up of wave after wave of immigrants. We are all immigrants – even the Celts, who may have been amongst the first to arrive.

As a nation of immigrants, we have forged together a common British identity and culture. British does not mean that we are just white; it means all. Scots, English, Irish, Jews, Indians – everybody. But now we are told we should be ashamed of it. It is racist. It is OK for the Jews to have a national homeland in Israel where their own culture is predominant. It is OK for Islamic nations around the world to assert their identity. OK for African nations to celebrate their rich cultural heritage. But somehow not OK to be British.

There is a danger here that those born British or have become British will start to feel like strangers in their own country – a recipe surely for resentment and hostility.

I agree with Trevor Phillips. The Runnymede Trust’s “community of communities” is more likely to become a dysfunctional collection of ghettoised minorities, a hotbed of racial tension and conflict. Our task as the host nation to many immigrants is not to create new ghettos, but to welcome newcomers and help them to integrate into our society, as previous waves of immigrants have for centuries and so enriched and empowered themselves and Britain.

It may be that some immigrants come here simply for economic reasons or to escape persecution. I myself chose to be British. But I believe that the great majority of those who come precisely because they admire and respect the values that underlie our democracy, and without prejudice to their own ethnic cultures, want to identify with British values in their adopted nation.

Sadly, our education system is letting these people down.

We no longer teach British history – the leaders and issues which moulded the long evolution of our democracy. Instead, we invite pupils to look back through a distorted, politically-correct prism, at soft-focus social issues, or to engage in multicultural studies. We no longer teach grammar, spelling, punctuation, correct spoken English, choosing instead to “celebrate” the dialects of minorities through large events paid for at public expense which will ultimately leave the newcomers at a uncompetitive disadvantage.

The accessible, inspiring and unifying prose and poetry which even I learned at school in Sri Lanka – Milton, Shakespeare, Cole ridge, Wordsworth, Masefield, Kipling, Walter de la Mare, Macaulay – is slowly being abandoned in Britain favour of African studies or Caribbean literature.

In this way we are denying immigrant youngsters what they and we most need – that they should have an opportunity to become integrated, pursue excellence and complete successfully into our society, to understand our democracy and to learn the communication skills which will enable them to find work and to prosper.

There is a certain perverse logic in the wild proposals of the race relations agitators of the Runnymede Trust. By making proposals that, if adopted, would set back race relations in Britain by decades, they are securing their own jobs in the ever-growing race relations industry.

Lee Jasper, the Mayor of London’s Senior Policy Advisor on Equalities who forged a career in this “industry” as a result of his senior positions in the National Black Alliance, National Black Caucus and Operation Black Vote is just another example of this problem. Following Ken Livingstone’s multi-million pound display of vanity that was the European Social Forum, Jasper sought to portray the protests of, amongst many others, opposition groups on the London Assembly at the vast public expense of the event and lack of discussion relating to the event as a “racist attack”.

An attack it may well have been, a “racist attack” it certainly was not. Such ludicrous accusations of “racism” which are used as ammunition against political opponents seek only to cause further divisions in British society and further fuel the wicked fire of the BNP.

Of course part of the New Labour agenda is to cut all of us off from everything familiar, comfortable and traditional, to let us loose in their Brave New World without roots or a sense of direction.

They want to expunge the notion of Britishness so that they can replace it with a new European and perhaps socialist identity – like the Maoists in Red China did in trying to establish Marxism.

We need to bring back the nation to centre stage. The nation is the bulwark of our freedoms and democracy, and one that enables us all, Scots, Welsh, English, Afro Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani to celebrate our common history, that binds us together and that which catalysed their very presence in the British Isles. Without our common history we would not have been physically present in Britain. But how many of our youngsters know of our common history?

A history not only of colonisation and subjugation but a history that also established modern democracy, the rule of law, systems of government, jury systems, plantation industries, banking systems, schools, hospitals and universities, commerce and shipping through out what was then the Empire and is now the Commonwealth?

A common history that impelled millions of brown and black volunteers from the colonies to lay down their lives in two world wars in the mud of France, Belgium and the desserts of Africa and not least in the jungles of Asia so that Britain might prevail and remain free.

If the Empire was such a bad thing, why did millions of Indian and African soldiers die for Britain in the last century? No one forced them to enlist, but they did enlist in their droves. It could hardly have been for the money – a few shillings a week – for which 700,000 Indian soldiers perished!

Trevor Philips is right. Lee Jasper and the Runnymede Trust are so wrong.