What’s wrong with multiculturalism?
February 7th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Last weekend in Munich, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech in which he pronounced:
“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.”
In his speech, the Prime Minister did not define multiculturalism but appeared to equate it with a kind of cultural separatism. His remarks have rightly attracted criticism for being unhelpfully vague (is he really attacking multiculturalism?) and badly timed (he did not choose to make it on the day of a major demonstration by the English Defence League but he did choose not to condemn the EDL).
My understanding of multiculturalism is that we accept and even support the preservation of different cultures as expressed through means such as art, food, lifestyle, language, and religion. I witnessed an example of such multiculturalism at its best on Sunday when I attended celebrations of the Chinese New Year in central London. Chinese and non-Chinese alike enjoyed Chinese fireworks, music, and food.
Britain – and most especially London (where I live) – in enriched by such multiculturalism. One of the major reasons that I love living in London is that it is such a cosmopolitan and multicultural city. Some of our closest neighbours are Irish, Indian, Pakistani, Polish and Lebanese. Some of our closest friends are Jewish or Chinese. My newsagent is Sri Lankan, my doctor is Indian, my hairdresser is Kosovan, and my dentist is Iranian.
The problem with multiculturalism only comes – as David Cameron highlighted – when it becomes a form of separatism in which different ethnic groups live separate from, and perhaps in opposition to, mainstream society and its values. Just because forced marriage or wife beating or genital mutilation might be culturally acceptable in some ethnic groups does make make them acceptable in the UK.
I guess what we have to distinguish is what we expect all groups to believe and how we expect all groups to behave from what we accept is a matter of choice and diversity. So it is right to expect everyone living here to accept democratic values and the rule of law and to know some of the English language and something of the British culture. But we don’t all have to be Christian or eat black pudding or like football (none of these apply to me).
I see multiculturalism as part of the the seemingly conflicting forces of assimilation and differentiation in society and I see the answer to its challenges as revolving around acceptance of different identities as I’ve explained in this short essay.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Watching “The Promise”
February 7th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
This evening, I watched the first of a four-part, seven and a half hour drama on the Arab-Israeli conflict called “The Promise” and broadcast on Channel 4. It is written and directed by Peter Kosminsky.
A couple of weeks ago, the “Observer” had a good article on the making of the series. It concludes: “Whatever The Promise makes you think or feel about Israel, it is a beautiful and peerless example of what television can still do when it tries.”
I found the programme well-researched and thought-provoking and it raises many issues – both historic and contemporary. You can learn more about the programme and the issues here.
I have read several books on the history of the conflict in the Middle East and I have made a visit to Israel when the situation was a matter of regular discussion.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
Happy Chinese New Year (2)
February 6th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
As I explained would be the case in an earlier posting, today Vee and I joined our wonderful Chinese ‘family’ – Zhihao, Hua and Joshua (almost 4) – in celebration of the Chinese New Year in central London.
We were in Trafalgar Square for the noon explosion of hundreds and hundreds of firecrackers, but there were so many people crammed into the square that we found we could not move and had to make a slow retreat. Round the corner in Chinatown, the ‘jumping’ lion and clashing symbols soon meant that we could barely move there either.
But Zhihao had booked us a meal at the “New China” restaurant which was heaving with customers with many more quequeing for a meal. We had five dishes with rice for a delicious lunch. We decided to move somewhere quieter for dessert and found a good Italian place off Tottenham Court Road.
Of course, Tottenham Court Road is known for its electronics shops and Hua acted as my technical adviser for the purchase of a new camera before our forthcoming holiday. I bought a Sony DSC-W380 for a good price.
So, all in all, a really fun day.
Who is that funny man in the scarf?
Joshua makes a new friend in Trafalgar Square
Vee, Hua, Zhihao & Joshua in Chinatown
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Word of the day: gamification
February 5th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Earlier this week, I attended Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for England (ACE) in my capacity as the member for England on the Communications Consumer Panel (CCP). Ofcom plans to abolish both ACE and the CCP, but meanwhile we endeavour to track consumer behaviour and promote consumer interests.
ACE member John Varney gave a fascinating presentation on the latest developments in consumer electronics including not just pad computers & their apps and 3D & IPTV but also such esoteric notions as gamification, personal digital curation and open source robotics.
Gamification can be defined as “the use of game play mechanics for non-game applications, particularly consumer-oriented web and mobile sites, in order to encourage people to adopt the applications”. The potential for modifying consumer and citizen behaviour in a ‘gentle’ manner is enormous and, besides current uses, I can forsee applications in environmental change and political participation.
It fits well with the idea of ‘nudge’ which is developing in behavioural economics and political change – see here.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
Save our libraries
February 4th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
So far, cuts in public expenditure have threatened the closure of over 400 libraries throughout Britain. On the Isle of Wight, 9 out of 11 are scheduled for closure. There’s a piece in today’s “Guardian” G2 supplement about these closures with particular reference to Ventnor library on the island.
Now we have some great friends on the Isle of Wight and Tess is a professional librarian at – you guessed it – Ventnor. On our last visit to them in the summer, we looked in on Ventnor library, met the staff, and saw the great work that they do.
Locally and nationally, there are campaigns against the closures. You can check out the local campaign here and the national campaign here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Baby Catrin: progress report (1)
February 4th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
It’s Day 18 in the young life of my beautiful granddaughter Catrin and I visited her for the fourth time today. The poor thing is not looking her best because she has milk spots so no photographs here for a while. But she’s doing really well and already weighs 9lb 6 oz.
Richard & Emily would like me to babysit so that they can have dinner out around Valentine’s Day, so I needed to be trained to change Catrin’s nappy (it’s at least 30 years since I last changed one). Rich showed me how it’s done and later on I did one myself, so I’m all set to go.
When Rich was born in 1976 we received a congratulatory letter from Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan because at that time I was a Special Adviser working for the Labour Government. Today I saw a letter to Rich & Emily from Labour leader Ed Miliband congratulating them on the birth of Catrin (both parents served as a Special Adviser in the last Labour Government).
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (5)
Happy Chinese New Year (1)
February 3rd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
For at least one and a half billion people around the world and at least a few readers of NightHawk, today is the Chinese New Year. It is the Year of the Rabbit, the year of our Chinese ‘daughter’ Hua.
On Sunday, we’ll be celebrating with Hua and her husband Zhihao and son Joshua. There will be events in central London’s Trafalgar Square and then we’ll have lunch in nearby Chinatown.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (3)
Activism + the Net = revolution
February 2nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
It seems that increasingly political change – especially revolutionary change in authoritarian regimes – is helped by online tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Look at Tunisia and now Egypt.
This is something which I’ve explored in my latest – the 65th – of my regular series of columns on Internet issues. It’s called “The Political Power Of Social Media” and you can read it here.
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How much crime in your area?
February 2nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
From today, citizens in England & Wales are able to find out which crimes have taken place on or near their street within the past month and which officers are responsible for their area. Information on crime is broken down into six categories – burglary, robbery, vehicle crime, violence, other crime and anti-social behaviour. Local police appeals and details of police community meetings will also be published alongside the maps.
All this information is on a new web site which has a home page as simple as that of the Google search engine. On its first day, the site has been so popular that it has received up to five million hits an hour or some 75,000 a minute. There have been some (presumably temporary) glitches.
This is an example of how government can make use of Web 2.0 tools to empower citizens and we can expect more to come.
You can check out the site here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
The Arab world in turmoil (2)
February 1st, 2011 by Roger Darlington
On Saturday, I did a posting about some of the rapid and dramatic developments in the Arab world and specifically mentioned Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. I speculated that we might see a successive falling of autocratic regimes in the region as happened in Eastern Europe in 1989.
Today the BBC web site has wondered about a domino effect in the region in this piece. Countries specifically mentioned are Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Jordan and Morocco and a table compares the youth population, the unemployment and the poverty in 11 countries.
These are exciting but dangerous times for Arabs and Muslims. There is the possibility of a more democratic and more prosperous state, but there is the real risk of revolt being crushed or of the revolution being taken over by Islamists. There will probably be no grand pattern but different resolutions in different countries.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)