Articles
Posted on Fri 23 August 2024
Our country must take pride in itself only that can bring communities together
When people, from different parts of the world, began arriving to settle in Britain, they should have encountered a nation that knew what it was and how it had come to be what they saw and heard.
Instead, they came across well-meaning but naive policies of multiculturalism which were as much about self-doubt as about accommodating new arrivals.
The unintended but foreseeable consequences of this was that in place of integration and cohesion, communities were encouraged to maintain and nurture separate identities. This led to isolation from one another and, instead of mutual give-and-take and learning from one another, to suspicion, fear and sometimes downright hostility.
All right-thinking people will surely condemn the riots we have witnessed this last week. There can be no excuse for violence or attacks on homes, businesses and hotels. This should not allow us to forget that every state has the duty to consider the well-being of those already within its borders and to decide how many new arrivals the social and physical infrastructure will sustain, in terms of housing, schools and the health service. The news that the numbers of legal migrants coming here is beginning to fall will be welcomed by all who are concerned about the creaking services and the high worklessness among sections of the host population.
But there seems to be no let-up of those coming here illegally, especially in small boats and no discernible plan that would effectively halt such arrivals and the significant drain on the economy caused this failure.
We must continue to fulfil our moral and legal obligations to those who are genuine refugees. But Britain cannot be seen to have a monopoly on receiving refugees, especially those coming from safe countries. We need a new international agreement on nations accommodating refugees.
Numbers, while important, are not the only factor to consider. There is the more difficult to quantify question of social cohesion and integration.
It is sometimes suggested that the fact that some ethnic communities doing very well economically and educationally shows that Britain has being successful in the integration of those who have come move recently. This is a welcome feature of our national landscape. It is not enough, however. Integration cannot be reduced merely to economic and educational indicators.
A socially cohesive society will be able to call, for instance, on a common memory, on a shared history and the cumulative beliefs, traditions and values which arise from such history and memory. This is particularly true of a nation like Britain which has an evolutionary rather than revolutionary Approach to developments in law, government, social attitudes and much else. The emergence of the Common Law tradition In England, the Bill of Rights and the successive repeal off the Test Acts all stand witness to a cumulative tradition in which the wisdom of the past is used to address issues in the present and what may emerge in the future.
Much of this way of thinking and doing has its roots in, and has been mediated by, the Judaeo-Christian Tradition and its insistence on both personal freedom and social responsibility, as set out in the Ten Commandments, Jesus’s summary of them and the most well-known of his parables, that of the Good Samaritan. Even the most secularised of values can be traced to the pervasive influence of this tradition.
If there is to be any hope of maintaining and enhancing social cohesion, those coming here to live and work should be required not only to have some knowledge of the English language but also of the history, beliefs and values which have formed British society. This can be strengthened as they prepare for citizenship.
Knowledge is one thing, sympathy is another. We should expect those wanting to live here to have sympathy for the country’s history, traditions and values. Rather than the separateness encouraged by multiculturalist approaches, government policy should seek more than just common language for social discourse. Housing policy, schools, community facilities and even higher education must all actively avoid ghettoisation and reward social mobility and the mixing of different communities.
Integration does not mean assimilation without remainder. Communities like the Jews, Huguenots and East African Asians have shown how there can be integration while maintaining their cultural and religious distinctives.
There is also a need to attend to those sections of the indigenous population which have become economically, educationally and socially deprived. There is no “white privilege” here. Without addressing their needs, it is unlikely that we will be a society at ease with itself. Strengthening family life, with father and mother contributing in their particular ways to the welfare of their children, is crucial. Single parents do a heroic job in bringing up their children, but they would generally be the first to admit that it takes two to bring up human offspring.
There must be better provision and discipline in schools to improve educational attainment, and better vocational training, leading to secure and decently paid work. Such an educational renaissance, alongside investment for jobs and improvement in social facilities, can transform communities without hope into ones with a positive outlook for the next generation.
If we want to be a cohesive society at ease with itself, there is much work to be done.