"State multiculturalism has failed, says David Cameron." So reads the BBC online headline.
"The prime minister has criticised "state multiculturalism" in his first speech on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism since being elected. Addressing a security conference in Germany, David Cameron argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to extremism."
In many ways he does seem to be right. In allowing people groups to live together in cultural pockets we have enabled people to come to this country and live in this and country and even grow up in this country, but remain Indian, Jamaican, Pakistani, etc. Is this a bad thing - no and yes. No, because it provides us with wonderful diversity, especially in the cities. In London (where I live) you can be walking down a typical English Victorian terrace, take a couple of turns and find yourself in an Arabic market, or an African shopping street, or a line of Mediterranean cafes. It is a remarkable place to live and work. But it is also bad, because without doubt it provides a place for discrimination, misinformation and misunderstanding to flourish. Cultures clash and arguments flare up through simple misunderstanding - without the need for actual racism or bad feeling. My wife was on a bus the other day where an argument arose about who should give a seat to whom, and what was and wasn't expected. It was between ladies of three different cultures, who each had different expectations. Two were having a go at the third, then one of them said something that the other misunderstood, so they started arguing. It was a mess. My guess is all three of them had spent most of their lives in this country - but in such different cultures that they didn't understand each other.
These kinds of misunderstandings easily produce entrenched views and biased opinions that merge into racism all too easily. Because the communities don't mix there is no forum for these views to be dispelled, and animosity grows in local communities and between local communities. That is the reality of our attempts to be multicultural and to blandly tolerate each other without actually properly engaging and mixing with each other. This lack of mixing has been fuelled by immigration policy that dumps immigrants together in the same place. It may help them in the short term to come to terms with living in a new country. But it helps neither them nor the country in the long term.
Something that I have begun to notice more in our local area is the animosity between local Islamic cultures. In other areas local Muslims come together around their faith and see themselves as one community. But there are so many Muslim people here, from different flavours of Islam, some Sunni, some Shia, some Sufi, etc. that the tensions you see between these groups in the Middle East you see on our streets and in our schools. The school our boys go to draws about 95% of its pupils from Muslim homes. (Yes that’s right, 95% Muslim in the middle of London, England!) What you see in the playground is children saying "I won't be your friend because you don't believe the same as me." And that is from one Muslim child to another. This is a result of our past immigration policy, and is not good.
Something has to change. Here is the PM's solution - "Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism." What he means by that is, a genuinely liberal country which "believes in certain values and actively promotes them. Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights, regardless of race, sex or sexuality. It says to its citizens: 'This is what defines us as a society. To belong here is to believe these things.'"
It all sounds great but all these things must have limits, and Mr Cameron is admitting that within his statement. If your liberalism is muscular rather than tolerant would it not shout down and muscle out anyone who spoke against it. Would a muscular liberalism really defend in a muscular way the right of people to argue against it? You would hope it would, but you fear it would not. Would a muscular liberalism defend freedom to worship an ideology that was racist or sexist or violent? Should it be that liberal? Should not a society that was good seek to stamp out those kinds of things? Therefore will a muscular liberalism affirm equal rights for all or will it limit the rights of those who disagree with it and say, "You do not have the right to say and do that." Surely it will and it must.
For the Christian this will therefore pose a serious threat. Liberalism hasn't perhaps been as un-muscular as the PM thinks or suggests. Already there are areas of orthodox (by which I mean historic, evangelical, Biblical) Christian belief that are frowned on, if not outlawed. A clear example that has recently been in the news is that we stand on the Bible in its affirmation that homosexuality is immoral. How Christians respond to that issue and to people who identify themselves as gay is an area where I think we need to be clearer as a whole. The law currently states that we may not discriminate against people because of sexual orientation. Which in most cases I would completely agree with. We shouldn't be derogatory towards them, stereotype them, etc. On the contrary we should love them with the same sacrificial love that the Lord Jesus has loved us with. But love isn't bland. Love may give a wholesale acceptance of a person without discrimination, but it must also reject the actions and beliefs of a person that damage the body and lead the soul away from God our Father. To use David Cameron's phrase, love must be "muscular", to the cost of self for the benefit of the one being loved.
I fear that if Mr Cameron's muscular liberalism gains and holds sway, then it will muscle out freedom of speech and freedom to worship and equal rights, even as it tries to muscle them in; and it will do that in biased and aggressive way. Really what this country needs is a muscular love or perhaps aggressive grace! The kind of love that is muscular with self, controlling the desire for our own rights in order to uphold the rights of others. The kind of grace that aggressively represses the urge to pay back and pay out, but instead gives out and gives back without expectation of reward. The kind of tough love that may make you unpopular when you tell someone their behaviour is unacceptable (because it damages people, others or self), but that is ready to forgive and where genuine repentance is seen, encourages and welcomes back into society. That’s the kind of love that comes from a holy God who will not brush what is wrong under the carpet with a bland tolerance, but will come amongst us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to give his life for us and for our good.
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