Michael Henderson: Rotherham- The Toxic Legacy of Multiculturalism
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11063885/Rotherham-and-the-toxic-legacy-of-multiculturalism.html
At the end of a shameful week it may not be a bad idea for one of those liberal Lefties to offer a mea culpa
The sickening sound we heard from Rotherham this week was that of chickens coming home to roost. The doctrine of multiculturalism has been enforced with such zealotry in Britain, and in the northern town, over the past three decades that we must cast the net far wider than the police and social workers to find all those culpable of fomenting this mass deception. Perhaps we can make a start by looking at what Denis MacShane, the former Labour MP for Rotherham, admitted upon the publication of Professor Jay’s report.
He hadn’t said anything at the time, he said, because “as a true Guardian reader and liberal Leftie”, he hadn’t wanted to rock the multicultural boat. Some people might interpret that statement as a timid first step towards begging forgiveness for his sins of omission. Others might think it an attempt at a self-deprecating joke, and not a particularly funny one. MacShane was never a funny man and since he was detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure he has found even less to laugh about.
Rotherham’s murky Asian subculture is not unique. All over England, but particularly in the north, towns have been transformed out of all recognition in the last generation because people failed to act upon the evidence of their eyes. People preferred not to rock the boat.
At times there’s something to be said for boat-rockers. Ray Honeyford was one. In 1984, when he was headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford, he wrote an essay in The Salisbury Review in which he argued persuasively that separate development – allowing different cultures to remain separate – in schools could only lead to greater fragmentation in society. For his pains he was denounced, hounded, suspended and reinstated before, fed up with the argy-bargy, he stood down.
Honeyford, people shouted, was a “racist”. Never mind the fact that he was a working-class man who spoke with the authority that comes with first-hand professional experience. He had offended the apostles of multiculturalism so had to go.
But separate development remains a fact of life in towns such as Bradford, where George Galloway now sits as an MP, spreading sweetness and light. It is separate development that has led to the scandals of Rotherham, Rochdale and Derby; to the Trojan Horse stalking Birmingham schools; to allegations of vote-rigging in Tower Hamlets; and to the cultivation of home-grown warriors who skip off to Syria at the drop of a hat.
It is possible to say these things because the vast majority of immigrants and their offspring do not want to live separate lives. But there is a significant minority who, sensing the weakness of so much liberal thought, have encouraged and exploited a sense of resentment and exclusiveness.
The modern liberal mind is a puzzling phenomenon. A columnist on MacShane’s favourite paper once referred to “little icky Christianity”, the kind of phrase she would never dream of extending to any other religion. She probably thought, in her fearless way, she was doing her bit for tolerance.
There is tolerance, and there is indulgence. At the end of a shameful week it may not be a bad idea for one of those “liberal Lefties”, who wilfully misread Honeyford’s words, to offer a mea culpa. Now that he has acquired a degree of self-knowledge, if not yet humility, MacShane might be that man. Rock the boat, old chap.
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