Friday 5 June 2015

The probable birth of multiculturalism

Imagine a meeting in the 70s in a north London council. They are thinking of new policies after a landslide victory for the Labour party. It coincides with the arrival of many thousands of Ugandan Asians, thrown out by Idi Amin and all holding British passports. One voice, a bearded intellectual from the local university, says, I know, why not see how many different nationalities we can get into the country to see what happens? He was a sociologist, one fascinated with society and how it actually comes about, and would like nothing more than have a go at creating his own version rather than let it grow naturally.

A few muffled voices object, and were responded to with 'You can't object, it's racist'. They soon shut up, as even a random unfounded accusation of racism would risk them the sack, and they just had to play along with the growing enthusiasm for the idea, which in fact had been picked totally at random from a combined desire to make an impression on the local area to demonstrate the power of the new council, and the chance happening of a massive influx of people who had absolutely no connection with the country but were here as refugees who happened to have the entitlement to come here rather than anywhere else.

Then of course other Labour politicians picked this up, and rather than risk accusations of racism ended up extending the view far and wide across the left, the Liberals of the day (all three of them) joining the bandwagon and somehow lighting a fire on the far left handful of Socialist Workers and Worker's Revolutionary Party. Within months this crazy experiment became mainstream policy, not because there was a reason for it, but the consequences of challenging or resisting it were so potentially dire the majority of party members had little choice to follow what had only begun as one man's dream. Thirty years later the leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair, had been brought up politically with the idea for so long he decided to use it as a national policy. Not an express manifesto promise, as because voting was secret nearly everyone could dismiss it and not risk getting into any trouble, so once his party were brought in with a landslide simply made it possible for anyone to come into the country, and even sent people around the world to recruit as many random foreigners to come over and complete the experiment.

This increased the population by millions, reduced the average wage and forced up benefit costs, not to mention the massive pressure on services and housing. Some people dared to object, mainly in areas where English was rarely heard and there were hardly any white people to be seen, and were threatened with prosecution. This soon finished off, besides the far right groups who every now and then demonstrated against the transformation of where they were born and grew up, only to face violent opposition from groups on the far left who called them Nazis for daring to challenge the policy. It reached the point where hardly anyone in politics or the media could question the policy, and the standard response was 'But what exactly is the harm in immigration?'. As soon as anyone answered they were cut down and made to look like a bigot, so opposition remained on the fringes. Within twenty years a country like any other had become an experimental test tube, where people had forgotten what it was like before, and mainly accepted a country unrecognisable and unique around the world, and based on what the professor had decided to name his 'Multicultural experiment'. The country and culture would never recover. It was not the immigrant's fault, they had been invited or encouraged to come, all from dire countries where Britain seemed like heaven in comparison, even where many call radio stations to object to the way they are treated, and the decadence in the country compared to their own culture, but they still chose to come here. You can't legally or morally send a single person back, so not only is the experiment random but irreversible. And as the political culture has been permanently changed by the threat of being labelled racist the changes appear permanent in the future, with predictions making a million new arrivals every four years until the country resembles the countries they left and they no longer choose to come as there are no longer any benefits to be gained by doing so.

Now part of this story was 100% true and half was made up, but although I have no actual idea how such a totally bizarre idea became a mainstream one, and one actually named as a virtue of multiculturalism, where it is not only treated as an experiment for its own sake but something all societies should aspire to. Why? That is the one question they will never be able to answer, as there isn't one. How could there be? It's a random experiment only justified after the event. That may only be my own theory but one I suspect is the genuine answer. Or sabotage maybe.

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