Multicultural Britain fails democracy

Published on Wednesday 17 August 2005 01:47

TO SUGGEST, as John Stewart did in this column on Monday, that "we are going to have to partition some of our cities and allow the Muslim inhabitants to administer and police them according to Sharia law", is to take appeasement to a new level. To appease external aggression as this country did in the 1930s was bad enough, even to contemplate such a flawed policy in the face of internal aggression would be the beginning of the end of British democracy.

If, as Mr Stewart also suggests, a "fundamental incompatibility between Islam and democracy has emerged" in this country, then why appease the former? Those of the Islamic faith who cannot accept our democratic polity are free to leave at any time. Surely this is preferable to making certain parts of our country no-go areas for those whose loyalty is to Britain (or one of its constitutionally recognised constituent parts), its people and its civilised values.

Mr Stewart's suggestion begs further questions: Would Sharia law supersede that legislated by the British Parliament in these partitioned Muslim enclaves? Would a non-Muslim British woman caught in an act of adultery in such an enclave be stoned to death? The whole idea is an absurdity.

Should we ask Cardinals O'Brien and Murphy-O'Connor if they would like to have their own little Roman Catholic enclaves in Scotland and England respectively, where Catholic canon law could supersede that passed by the British Parliament on an issue such as abortion?

What about those refugees whose cultural customs include the female circumcision (or genital mutilation) of young girls. Would they not also want their own little part of Britain to practise what to them is a cultural norm? Is that not what multiculturalism should mean? I suspect that those who espouse this politically correct nonsense are patronising enough to object to this barbaric and uncivilised practice, without actually saying it is barbaric and uncivilised, as are those who practise it.

A few weeks ago, on 27 July, I was watching the BBC Newsnight programme. A Somali refugee who was being interviewed was asked why, having initially fled to Denmark, he subsequently moved from there to Britain. He answered: "I moved from Denmark because in Denmark there is only one culture - Danish." Good on the Danes. One nation, one culture, and if you do not like it then go and live somewhere else. Unfortunately, this Somali, like so many others, chose "soft" multicultural, multiethnic, anti-British Britain.

We, or to be more accurate, the liberal-left intelligentsia and their multiculturalism, have provided those hostile elements from within the ethnic communities with the ability to organise, consolidate and, in the case of the Muslim bombers of 7 July, ultimately to act violently against their fellow citizens. If "we" are guilty of anything here, it is that we have stood idly by and allowed these chattering classes to do so.