Blair to Immigrants: Adopt Our Values or Stay Away
Tony Blair has sent out a message to would-be British immigrants: assimilate or stay home.
Tony Blair formally declared Britain’s multicultural experiment over yesterday as he told immigrants they had ”a duty” to integrate with the mainstream of society.
In a speech that overturned more than three decades of Labour support for the idea, he set out a series of requirements that were now expected from ethnic minority groups if they wished to call themselves British.
These included “equality of respect” – especially better treatment of women by Muslim men – allegiance to the rule of law and a command of English.If outsiders wishing to settle in Britain were not prepared to conform to the virtues of tolerance then they should stay away. He added: “Conform to it; or don’t come here. We don’t want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed. “If you come here lawfully, we welcome you. If you are permitted to stay here permanently, you become an equal member of our community and become one of us. The right to be different. The duty to integrate. That is what being British means.”
It seems rather self-evident not only that societies would want immigrants to conform to the basic requirements of the culture but that those who are migrating elsewhere would want to do so. Blair’s formulation is just right: “The right to be different. The duty to integrate.” Without the former, you get fascism. Without the latter, anarchy.
How this rhetoric will translate into policy, however, remains to be seen. Steve Bainbridge is likely right that the schools are part of the answer. In recent years, American schools, at least, have overemphasized “The right to be different” and ignored “The duty to integrate.”
Full text of Blair’s remarks here.
Typical of the Dully Torygraph to trumpet this speech as an end to “Britain’s multicultural experiment” and then entirely ignore key passages from Blair’s speech that gives that claim the lie.
Like this:
No “Clash of Civilisations” for Tony, I’m glad to say. Also interesting, he begins the whole speech by talking about how the socialist Labor Party he leads is the only party ever to introduce anti-discrimination legislation in the UK and how whites have become more tolerant of multi-cultural Britain over the years. Then there’s this:
Which comes right before that key phrase “We must respect both our right to differ and the duty to express any difference in a way fully consistent with the values that bind us together.”
My guess, there will be legislation and education initiatives to make support for extremist Islamist ideology as abhorent as support for white supremacist ideology. Which is as it should be. There will be more use of current legislation to enforce equal treatment of, for instance, women and other religions (watch out, evangelists) in religious settings and faith schools of all stripes. Again, I’m fine with that. There is to be a requirement for competence in English for citizenship. Again, not a problem. Even native-born Welsh, Irish and Gaelic speakers are expected to be bilingual.
Tony may be a poodle for Bush in foreign policy, and a control freak like all his New labour kin when it comes to dissent against his accepted line, but on this he’s hit the common thread, the Mother Lode of British multiculturalism. He notes that no mainstream UK party would use race as a political card – that it is inconceivable that the current Conservative leader would do so, for instance. Unfortunatley, that isn’t true of the Torygraph. They truncate Blair’s closing sentences in the quote they provide in their main article, which you have mirrored. The actual final phrasing was:
It is illuminating that the Telegraph – the UK’s primary media home of “Little England” Islamophobia and racism – decided to leave off that last sentence.
Regards, C
Thank you Cernig for making the point I wanted to make, only much more exhaustively then I was prepared to do.
This is, in no way, the “end” of mutliculturalism. Rather it is the roadmap for making multiculturalism work.
Only wisdom can provide the solutions needed here; a thing openly rejected in modern society. Knowledge is no substitute for wisdom.