Society: multi-cultural reality
By Richard North - March 26, 2024
With the onwards march of transgenderism, it is a given that anyone who has stridently to assert that they are women probably means that they aren’t. Much the same could be said of social cohesion, even if in slightly different terms.
Essentially, if your government requires a full-time advisor on social cohesion, who feels the need to publish a lengthy report on threats to social cohesion (published yesterday), then it is a fair bet that your society is on its way to losing whatever cohesion it has, if it has not already lost it.
I was pondering on the general subject of social cohesion the other day, as I often do now, brought on particularly by the sight of yet another half-built mosque, the steelwork of the dome and minaret now protruding above the skyline as one drives past our own temple of Mammon, the local Tescos.
It also occurred to me that the perceptions of the issue varied substantially, north and south, with London very much on its own, so much so that when we talk of multi-ethnicity and multi-culturalism (the two not always related), we might as well be speaking different languages.
This was brought home to me in an article in the last edition of the Sunday Times from an article headed: “Sadiq Khan faces mayoral election overshadowed by violent crime in Brixton”.
This charts the pressures on the loathsome Sadiq Khan to tackle drug dealing, gangs and stabbings which, it is said, are “blighting the south London community as years of police under-funding come to a head”.
Actually, back in the 70s, when I lived in South Croydon, I knew Brixton quite well. As trainee heath inspectors, a gang of us used to go up every week to the famous food market to familiarise ourselves with a range of exotic foods which we might be tested on in our practical examination.
Other that that, we knew it was a place to avoid. It had been a shithole ever since the blacks had taken over in numbers, and it had lived up to its reputation in the Brixton Riots of April 1981.
There had been repeat matches in 1985 and 1995, and again in 2011 when much of London flared up, with the violence spreading to other parts of England, much of it driven by “racial tension” with blacks prominent in the front line.
But what struck me about the Sunday Times article were several things. One was the comment Rik Campbell, 35, co-founder of Kricket, a collection of modern Indian restaurants, one of which is in the area. He says: “I’ve never seen crime and antisocial behaviour so high”, adding: “I’m concerned for the safety of my staff and guests, not to mention the longevity of my business. This is not the Brixton we love and know”.
Actually, its certainly the Brixton I used to know, with what would be hard to describe as “love”. Once a shithole, always a shithole is seems, a sad decline from its Edwardian status as a fashionable London suburb.
Another thing that really struck me was the description of Brixton as “one of the city’s most diverse neighbourhoods”. We are told that scores head to Brixton each day to work, shop and party. The redevelopment of Brixton Village – two separate covered markets – has boosted the fortunes of independent retailers, and 120 vendors represent at least 50 nationalities.
And that’s the point. When trapped in the London bubble, the politicians babble away about multi-culturalism, they really do mean it – a veritable Tower of Babel comprising a bewildering array of races and tongues.
Two hundred miles further north in Bradford, though, multi-culturalism has a different meaning. For sure, we have a smattering of blacks, some Poles and some Indians, but in whole tranches of the city, multiculturalism actually means monoculture – a huge preponderance of Pakistanis or, to be more precise, Kashmiris.
Living on the white fringes of the mosque-dominated ghettos – for that is what they are – I don’t have that much contact, day-to-day with what are increasingly – if somewhat sardonically – called “the cousins”, after their marital habits. But much of the contact is unexceptional.
I have, for instance, a repeat prescription which I pick up from the chemist once a month. For decades, I used the local chain-store chemist in the village but, recently, this was sold to a Pakistani absentee owner, who put a Nigerian pharmacist in charge.
His rudeness and unhelpfulness over missing prescriptions had me shift to another pharmacy, one actually in the Kashmiri ghetto. But the almost (but not entirely) Asian team are quick, helpful and efficient. They speak good English and wear European dress. I have no problems with this as an example of multi-culturalism.
However, some – in fact many – of the customers are not at all Europeanised, wearing traditional Pakistani or Kashmiri dress and speaking their native language. At times, while waiting in the shop, I don’t hear English spoken at all.
Recently, a young man came in. Dressed in pheran – the Kashmiri version of the shalwar kameez – with a taqiyah scull cap on his head – he spoke his own language into his smartphone, and to the counter assistant, reverting to fluent English when he talked to a pharmacist.
We are seeing a lot more young men dressed in this garb. Even in the home country (Kashmir) it is regarded as a fashion statement and, in particular, as part of the Kashmeri identity. In Indian Kashmir, there has been a move to ban it.
Back in England, worn by someone – to judge from his Yorkshire accent – who was educated (and quite probably born) in this country, the pheran is precisely a statement of identity. But it is more than that. It embodies a rejection of British values and may even signify something more sinister.
Perhaps unaware of the irony, for people who are so aggressive in their embrace of traditional clothing, one invariably sees that their rejection of modernity does not extend to footwear. More often than not, they will be wearing expensive, branded trainers.
We see the same with the women. Many – especially the older ones – wear the traditional garb and veil. But increasingly in younger women we see the full-blown niqabs being worn. They are always black and seen close up, often high-quality cloth and quite evidently tailored. This is not traditional garb. The wearers are sending a message – they are not our kind.
As far a social cohesion goes, therefore, it is diminishing and occurs only on the fringes. Whites and Kashmiris largely live in their own areas, speak their own languages, practice their own religions (we still have a Catholic church and church schools), and dress in distinctive ways. More dangerously, though, integration is going backwards. Social cohesion is dying on its feet.
Thus, to have Dame Sara Khan, the prime minister’s adviser for social cohesion, calling for universities, charities and public bodies “to defend those who are being cancelled and harassed”, and prattling about “a new form of harassment that is corroding the social fabric and threatening Britain’s democratic freedoms”, is really – if one may be so coarse – pissing in the wind.
Khan seems to recognise this. She tells us that previous cohesion reports and reviews have identified a range of other factors that are important to social cohesion, and she has chosen not to repeat what those reports have stated.
These include the importance of quality housing, deprivation, encouraging social mixing and preventing ethnic segregation, immigration and the importance of new migrants learning the English language, etc. Arguably, she says, some of these issues could merit a review in themselves.
She also looks at the problems which arise when differing freedoms and rights come into conflict, arguing that “a multitude of different approaches will most likely be needed including improving societal and educational awareness”.
Bullshit like that pervades her report but it does not even begin to go anywhere near the essence of the problems that we’re seeing in our northern towns and cities, stretching down to the Midlands and to the likes of Luton.
Simply, you can neither legislate for, nor encourage, social cohesion in immigrant communities which have turned against the idea of integration and are rejecting the values and standards of their host country. Away from multi-cult, “diverse” London, that is the reality of our unwanted multi-ethnic society.
It does not end well.