One Nation, One Culture, For All

A few months ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism had failed in Germany. For my comments, link here.

On Saturday, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, denounced multiculturalism and declared that it had weakened British “collective identity.” Link here.

In Cameron’s words: “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.  We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong.  We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”

Ever since Justice Brandeis said that state legislatures are “laboratories of democracy” we Americans have believed that new and controversial policies should be tried out in the states before we make them federal law.

Now, we can add that European countries, especially the ones that pride themselves on being laboratories of social democracy, have been trying out multiculturalism, and have discovered that it has forced them to tolerate deviant behavior.

In the name of multicultural tolerance, Germany and Great Britain have allowed themselves to become breeding grounds for Islamic terrorism.

One is heartened to see them have this realization, but one is within one’s rights to ask what took them so long.

Where the Obama administration quivers in fear when called upon to name the terrorist threat as radical Islam, Prime Minister Cameron is not as squeamish.

When he asks why his country has not confronted the cultural horrors that are being practiced in Islamic communities, he places the blame on the fear of Islam, which is rightfully called Islamophobia.

Where Americans tend to think of Islamophobia as an irrational hatred of Muslims, more thoughtful people understand that the term means literally: fear of Islam or Muslims. How did our great minds mistake hatred for fear.

In fairness, Americans who are terrified of Islam rationalize their fear in the name of multicultural diversity. As I wrote in a previous post, it is but another name for “separate, but equal.”

It is fear, Cameron said, that explains: “The failure, for instance, of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage, the practice where some young girls are bullied and sometimes taken abroad to marry someone when they don’t want to, is a case in point.”

Depravity rationalized in the name of tolerance. That may not be what the multiculturalists have in mind, but it is the reality of the policy that they have been promoting.

How does a nation overcome multicultualism? Cameron calls for a “muscular liberalism,” by which he means a concerted national effort to inculcate and to maintain his nation's cultural values.

People need to practice the virtues of patriotism, loyalty, national honor and pride. Love of country is not just something you feel in your heart.

If we look at this problem from our side of the Atlantic, it is surely true that if you want to unite the country in a single culture, that culture and its values must be given pride of place in America's schools.

If schoolbooks are at pains to show America’s faults and flaws, as though they are militating against American national pride, then they are promoting multiculturalism while rendering us all a disservice.

If all cultures are flawed, and thus must be respected, how long will it be before a judge throws out a rape prosecution because Shariah law declares a husband to have supreme authority over is wife. Link here.

The case was decided in New Jersey. Fortunately, the judge’s decision was overturned, but still, it warns us of what might happen if multiculturalism is allowed to be recognized in the courtroom.

A national culture involves customs, rituals, and ceremonies. Ours requires everyone to accept the constitution as the law of the land, and to participate actively in those ceremonies that constitute national identity.

That includes reciting the pledge of allegiance in public schools and at other civic events. Pledging allegiance to the American flag should not be a controversial issue.

Dissent is permitted and protected by the constitution, but people should understand that just because dissent is not unpatriotic, that does not make it a patriotic act. You may have the right to burn the flag, and the nation will not pass any laws making the act illegal. But that does not mean that burning the flag is a patriotic act.

Ultimately, our shared values are transmitted by our leaders. For the first two years of his presidency Barack Obama seemed not to care very much for the role.

A true cosmopolitan intellectual, the embodiment of multicultural values, Obama never made a very conspicuous display of his love of country.

After all, he began his presidency by apologizing for America, bowing down to foreign potentates, and refusing to find anything exceptional about the nation.

Many believed that he shared his wife’s view, and that he could only bring himself to be proud of his country for what it had done for him, personally.

Clearly, this failure to embody the greatness of the nation came back to haunt Obama in the midterm elections. By now, he seems to have caught on, but he should not be surprised if many Americans do not believe him. The more radical and swift the transformation, the less credible it is.