Don’t be afraid to say it
I am not afraid to say the West’s values are better
The West should be proud of its ethical achievements
Before sidling off into history last month, the Commission for Racial Equality published a final report. Decades of multiculturalism, it revealed, had left Britain a fractured and unequal nation at risk of splitting up. The Commission’s chairman Trevor Phillips stated several years ago that multiculturalism had failed. His commission waited till its final hours to admit as much. It was impossible not to feel saddened by this confession.
Even as left-wing experiments go, multiculturalism was an especially costly failure. Principally it blighted the lives of immigrants who escaped their own countries only to be told not to integrate into ours. But its victims also included those who refused to remain silent before their era’s craze. For some, like the Bradford headteacher Ray Honeyford, speaking the truth ended their careers. Others — like the philosopher Roger Scruton — had to endure years of libel and innuendo. How different it could have been had the recent worthies all spoken out a little earlier, or kept silent a little less.
More articles from: Douglas Murray | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late
Rod LiddleRod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with
Cass SunsteinCass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme
Who would have thought a herd could moonwalk?
Mark EarlsThe acclaimed web theorist, Mark Earls, says that the death of Michael Jackson unleashed the extremes of collective action: mass mourning and sick jokes
A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty
Deborah RossIn the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop
What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’
Uri Geller
My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.
No more consensus: this time there is a choice
Irwin StelzerThe next election will present voters with two distinct futures, says Irwin Stelzer: Labour’s rising taxes and love of the EU, or the Tories’ spending cuts and plans for the ‘broken society’
I have come up with a way of disrupting all these mad employment tribunals
Rod LiddleRod Liddle says the case of Fata Lemes — a Muslim woman who claimed her dignity had been ‘violated’ by the dress she had to wear in a cocktail bar — is sadly typical of a crazy institutional structure that kowtows to every conceivable outraged sensibility
Fathers have become second-class citizens
Toby YoungToby Young says that Father’s Day is nothing to celebrate: today’s neutered dads have become overworked assistants to their children rather than paternal role models
This is how you should use your reprieve, Gordon
Irwin StelzerIrwin Stelzer says the PM should seize the opportunity presented by this stay of execution: plot a path to fiscal sanity, cut red tape and restore Britain’s stature on the world stage
We came close to losing our democracy in 1979
Douglas EdenDouglas Eden reveals the extraordinary penetration of the 1970s Labour movement by pro-Soviet trade unionists and the extent of Callaghan’s toleration of the hard Left
Latest blog posts
sponsored links
BIG SAND STEEL BAND
IF YOU ARE PLANNING A CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION and looking for some light entertainment, you can now hire London's busiest steel
BOSC LEBAT, Tarn et Garonne.
BOSC LEBAT, SW France. Only 45 minutes from Toulouse Airport with daily flights from most provincial airports avoiding the horrors
ROME CENTRE
PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique
Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine
Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Conor Pickering
October 8th, 2007 5:50pmThank you for this voice of reason in an age and a nation that is scared of its history, politically and socially weak in its present and ill equipped to face the challenges of the future. With decency, tolerance, honesty, pluralism and ambition we can face the future with some hope of success. But to do so, we must understand who we are and be confident about the things we have got right, whilst recognising the things we have got wrong. Mr Murray is helping us do that.
Charles E Moore
October 8th, 2007 10:17pmWe offend ourselves, and the world, by cringing beneath the weight of a self-imposed "guilt," affected merely in order to "apolgize" for the fact that western civilisation, out of respect for individual rights, has created so much for so many. For all the regard we may genuinely feel for the brilliant accomplisments of other world cultures, none have deigned to grant the single human being, and how much less the single human female, the dignity of meaning that we so take for granted...and shamelessly seem almost ashamed to note.
Ian Campbell
October 9th, 2007 6:05pmIt should be remebered that historicaly, the freedoms we ascribe as western with roots in Judeo-Christian teachings have only recently become what they are in western liberal societies. Was it only in 1984 that women got the vote in Luxembourg (or was it Lichtenstein?). Our cultural values as embodied today are quite new, so we should not be surprised that other cultures are just getting exposure to them. That is not to say that their historical novelty means they should not be asserted as much better or else future developments of worldwide cultural values will not benefit from the lessons learnt along the path to the values we have today.
Brett_McS
October 10th, 2007 12:28amExcellent article. "The emperor has no clothes" - or perhaps he is a social nudist? Multiculturalism and post-modernism: How future generations will laugh at us!
Rob Spear
October 10th, 2007 3:19pmVotes'n'democracy as the sole determiner of government policy is at best a contentious issue, Mr Campbell. Since it has been introduced we have seen ever more rapacious and totalitarian states in the west. I do not know if this is inevitable, but it is possible that democracy is the enemy of freedom.