Words are such a problem. In February, The Prime Minister made a speech describing the failure of multiculturalism. The speaker being David Cameron, I naturally assumed whatever he was saying would be odious, short sighted and wrong, and I wasn't far off the mark. However, I was surprised to find that on the point about multiculturalism, the National Secular Society agreed with Mr Cameron.
My surprise hinged upon my understanding of the word multiculturalism. You see, when I say "I live in a multicultural society", I mean that every day I encounter people with a broad range of skin colours, faiths, social backgrounds and behaviours, which may or may not originate in one part of the world or another, and - importantly - those differences don't really matter: people are people. I naïvely thought multiculturalism was kinda the opposite of racism.
From a political point of view, that is not the case at all. Multiculturalism is originally a racist, right wing idea: we have our culture and they have theirs, and if we keep 'em seperate it'll be easier to send 'em back where they came from. It is based on the prejudice that each person belongs to a fixed cultural group and each group should be treated seperately.
In the UK, multiculturalism is not so hard line but is nevertheless based upon discrimination between specific cultural groups. Johann Hari explains the problems of multiculturalism better than I could, but one example I can give is the pernicious notion of the faith school. The idea that a child belongs to a specific faith group and should be educated in a specific faith school is prejudiced, nonsensical and discriminatory, and can further segregate communities - if you doubt this, ask yourself why there is no such thing as a catholic fire station, which is allowed to discriminate in favour of catholic fires.
At its nicer, fluffier end, multiculturalism is an earnest attempt to address the needs of minority demographics. It is essential to acknowledge non-cultural minorities: the blind, or wheelchair users, for example. It would be reasonable to think that should extend to cultural minorities too. The problem comes when identifying our cultural group. We start to make assumptions, to label people and seperate them. When this becomes government policy, our laws and public institutions begin to discriminate based on these labels and drive wedges into the community. Hardly the way to promote tolerance and cohesion.
Mr Cameron is right: although this is a happily multicultural society, multiculturalism is the last thing we need. What we do need is called secularism. Secularism may originally relate to religion, but essentially it is about respecting and protecting each individual's right to their individual culture, and ensuring that the state is not biased or discriminatory towards any individual because of that culture. It is the very opposite of multiculturalism, which labels everyone according to some narrow definition and then purposefully discriminates between those labels.
In a country where so many cultures meet and mix, and statements of identity are never simple, secularism is surely the best way to ensure fair governance and intercultural understanding.
Postscript: the National Secular Society campaigns for secularism in the UK. I wish they were a bit less atheistic in tone because that obscures the aspect of secularism which protects freedom of religion: a campaign against religious privilege is not a campaign against religion; it is a campaign for fairness, for people of all faiths and none.
