David Cameron Takes on Multi-culturalism
by Susan Easton
Posted: 03/04/2008 Print This

On February 26, a UK think-tank -- The National and International Security Group -- released its interim report on social cohesion. The findings inspired Conservative Party leader David Cameron to give his strongest speech ever on the pitfalls and failures generated by multiculturalism. The next morning at 12:54 am, a 5.3 earthquake shook England awake. It was the largest temblor to hit Britain in a decade. Mere coincidence?

The Security Group stated outright what many Britons and Americans had concluded long ago: that unrestrained multiculturalism had resulted in attitudes that encouraged differences at the expense of the greater social whole. By stressing such differences, the report asserted, Muslim organizations in the UK had been able to use multicultural ideology to give greater weight to their own views.

The report found: "As Muslim communities enter the third generation of settlement in this country, and in circumstances where a rapidly rising proportion have been educated here, it is anomalous and patronising to individuals to treat them indirectly as members of a group and not directly as citizens in their own individual right on a par with other voters."

Mr. Cameron went a little farther when he accused some Muslim associations of deliberately using multiculturalism to promote an "us versus them" paradigm. These organizations had created their political power bases by fostering “ghettoization.â€