What does it mean to be an anti-racist? I become an anti-racist because I
thought it unjust that people should be treated differently simply because
they happened to have a different colour skin. I still do. The problem of
racism is discrimination; the solution equal treatment.
Today, though, to be treated differently is just what many anti-racists want.
Rather than fight for equal treatment, anti-racists now demand respect for
diversity. Where I've always wanted to be treated the same as everyone else
despite my skin colour, people now want to be treated differently because
of it. Britain has become a multicultural nation and the celebration of diversity
is seen the best means of enhancing social cohesion and giving everyone a
voice. 'It's good to be different' might well be the motto of our times.
Diversity, of course, has brought great benefits to Britain. Mass immigration
has opened up British society, transformed its culture and created a nation
far more vibrant and cosmopolitan than would have seemed possible half a century
ago.
But diversity has become more than simply a way of describing the expansion
of our experiences. It has also become a dogma about how we should live that
has become as stultifying as old-fashioned racism - and often as divisive.
Far from liberating us from racism, multiculturalism has become a trap, imprisoning
people within narrow ideas of what their culture should be.
The Arts Council, for instance, recently launched decibel, its campaign for
promoting cultural diversity. A noted Asian playwright recently wrote to me
to explain what this means. 'As an Asian', he wrote, 'I am expected to write
plays that deal with "the family". What I can't write about (as
no venue will produce it) are plays that could be about anyone, but just happen
to have British Asians in the leading roles.'
And completely out of bounds are issues that may interest him but have no
'ethnic component'. 'For example', he wrote, 'if I wanted to write a play
say on a passion of mine, the moon landings, that would be totally unacceptable.'
The result is that the British Asian artistic community is consistently held
back and cutting edge challenging theatre viewed as the exclusive monopoly
of whites.
Such ghettoisation has more serious consequences too - segregating communities
far more effectively than racism ever did. Take, for instance, Bradford. From
the beginnings of mass immigration in the 1950s racism has helped create deep
divisions in the city. But it also helped generate political struggles against
discrimination, the impact of which was to create bridges across ethnic, racial
and cultural fissures. In response to the militancy of these struggles, the
local council in the early eighties rolled out its multicultural programme,
including a 12-point race relations plan which declared that every section
of the 'multiracial, multicultural city' had 'an equal right to maintain its
own identity, culture, language, religion and customs'. Council funding became
linked to cultural identity, so different groups began asserting their differences
ever more fiercely.
The consequence was to strengthen the hand of the most conservative elements
in the communities, especially the religious ones. It also helped entrench
the divisions created by racism, and made cross-cultural interaction far more
difficult.
Today, cultural segregation in Bradford has become so profound that the local
education authority has started bussing children from all-Asian schools to
all-white schools, and vice versa. The so-called 'Linking project' aims to
break down barriers between children, many of whom have never interacted with
a child from the other community. Half a century ago the American authorities
were forced to bus black children to break the stranglehold of racism in the
schools of the Deep South. Did anyone ever imagine that local authorities
in Britain would be forced to follow suit in 2003 to break the stranglehold
of cultural segregation?
The problem is that the quest for equality has been abandoned in favour of
the celebration of diversity. Campaigning for equality means challenging accepted
practices and believing in the possibility of social change. Conversely, celebrating
differences between peoples allows us to accept society as it is - it says
little more than 'We live in a diverse world, enjoy it'.
Diversity has become a meaningless mantra. So much so, that even the British
National Party have become multiculturalists. According to the BNP 'races
are neither equal nor unequal, but simply different'. What we need, it argues,
is to preserve 'cultural diversity' – and that's why it fights for 'whites
rights' and 'white identity'. It is perhaps the biggest indictment of the
contemporary celebration of diversity that it allows an organisation such
as the BNP to turn racism into a form of cultural identity.
The real question we need to ask ourselves is why we should value diversity.
There is nothing good in itself about diversity. It is important because it
allows us to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles,
make judgements upon them, and decide which are better and which worse. It's
important, in other words, because it allows us to engage in political dialogue
and debate that can, paradoxically, help create more universal values and
beliefs.
But it is precisely such dialogue and debate, and the making of such judgements,
that multiculturalism attempts to suppress in the name of 'tolerance' and
'respect'. The very thing that is valuable about diversity - the clashes and
conflicts that it brings about - is what multiculturalists most fear.
Rather than cut ourselves off, each in our own multicultural ghettos, it would
be far better to help build a dynamic common culture to which we all contribute
and from which we all partake.