Author: Jay Jina
Publication: Asian Voice, London
Date: December 13, 2003
In these times of political correctness,
to negate the country's traditions in favour of multi-culturalism is trendy
and to challenge multi-culturalism raises howls of "racist", "bigot", and
worse. The pity is that a small, select group have become the de facto
spokesmen for the so called ethnic minorities and they only work to underplay
this political correctness whilst having little to say about real societal
injustices like the wholly inadequate sentences on the men who desecrated
a temple in Wembley. Of course, the Ministry of Culture leads the way:
how else is one to explain the negation of Christmas by the use of patently
non-Christian forms on their greeting cards?
In any event, since when was culture
available in mono- and multi- flavours? Did these islands, or for that
matter, any post-primitive society ever have a mono-culture? And what is
"cultural memory" anyway? To suggest superficial ideas like streets being
named after Gandhi and the statues of Tagore and Tutu adorning our parks
as necessary for a multi-cultural society sounds more like further deepening
divisions than creating a cohesive modern society.
If such ideas were followed to their
logical conclusion, one can just imagine the situation. Suppose that a
city council decide to place a statue of Jinnah in a park: People with
Indian roots are not best pleased, they see him as the architect of partition,
one who said Muslims could not live with Hindus, not an icon for a tolerant
society. Some with Pakistani roots might object on the grounds that their
religion does not permit the erection of graven images. Similar objections
might also arise with Gandhi. Is this the society we want to create? If
this is cultural memory, thanks, but no thanks!
The fact is that most people, when
left alone and unencumbered by political correctness, are comfortable with
what is underneath their skin and that of others. They would rather see
culture not as something that is "mine" and "not mine", but rather as "here".
Each individual has the freedom to pick and mix what suits them. Living
comfortably with ones Britishness, combined with roots from the Midlands/Glasgow/Africa,
and a heritage based on Jewish/Indian/Irish or whatever other tradition
has nothing to do with the sociological construct of multi-culturalism.
The lives and works of those like
Martin Luther King and Tagore, far from endorsing an exclusivist, compartmentalised
multi-culturalism, espoused a holistic, non-exclusive, humanist, and global
outlook. To use them as symbols of political correctness would be a travesty.
Better to do them justice by honouring them as men of distinction; they
should be icons NOT because Britain is a place with immigrants, but because,
society, as a coherent, civilised whole, values them.
Martin Luther King wanted the world
to see him and treat him as a man, NOT a black man. Multi-culturalism with
its thin gloss and lack of substance has the danger of reducing King to
a black man, and treating the overwhelming number of your readers as brown
men and women, whereas in earnest, all they want is to be respected as
men and women, pure and simple. As for cultural memory, that is something
for each individual to decide on, and not for experts who are so busy looking
into the rear view mirror that they cannot see the future.
Better for our future generations,
that they find heroes of their own. We ought to be more positive: We need
to learn from the ecstatic reaction of the average 16 year old in Ealing
or Leicester when Jonny Wilkinson dropped that goal against the Aussies,
and of the awe in which Sachin Tendulkar is held by the average (that is,
white, in politically correct language) cricket follower.
