TD, From Melting Pot to Stir-Fry

From Melting Pot to Stir-Fry

Whatever our foreign policy should be - whether we believe we ought to promote the welfare of others or merely to pursue our interests - there is no reason at all for us, indeed there is no real possibility for us, to be multiculturalists at home, if by multiculturalism is meant the granting of legal and social equality, recognition and protection to all the customs, traditions, beliefs and practices whatsoever of immigrants, as if multiculturalism were merely a kind of fusion cooking. Of course, we will spontaneously take from immigrants aspects of their traditions that we find congenial, but this will be an informal assimilation, not mediated by governmental decree. Multicultualism as a doctrine is just another instance of the tendency of a portion of the intelligentsia to exhibit its virtue and generosity for all the world to see, as well as provide a minor if lucrative source of employment to cultural bureaucrats.

As anyone who has ever tried it knows, understanding another culture is a Herculean labour, even when that culture is comparatively close to one’s own. My wife, who is French, speaks English perfectly, but it took her many years of residence to appreciate that the English used words according to context in very different ways, which range from the literal meaning to a meaning precisely the opposite of what they appear to mean. Even now, after a quarter of a century, it surprises her that ‘It’s been most enjoyable, we must meet again soon,’ actually often means ’Under no circumstances do I wish to see you again, and if I did, I would be most put out and embarrassed.’ A native would understand this instantly.

If it is not easy for the British and French to understand one another, though they are separated by only twenty miles of water and have been studying and reacting to each other for hundreds of years, and when their cultures are in many respects so similar, what chance is there for people to understand, in any but the most superficial way, the hundreds of extremely diverse cultures from which immigrants now come to our shores. To understand Amharic culture in any detail is the work of a lifetime for a highly intelligent person of American or European background who is determined and motivated to do so; for one person to understand Bengali, Somali, Yemeni and Vietnamese cultures as well (and these are only a handful) is impossible.

It follows from this that is it for immigrants who do us the honour of coming to our country to understand us, not for us to understand them - which is impossible in any case. It is for them to make the mental, intellectual and cultural adjustments, not us. It is a simple as that.

In special circumstances, it is well that certain people should try to learn something of the culture of immigrants. But it is humanity that should demand it, not bureaucratic multiculturalism. As a doctor in an area with many immigrants, I found the fact that I had visited many of the countries from which they came to be a great advantage, for it created a rapport that would not have been easy to create otherwise. It takes little effort of the imagination to understand the relief of a Congolese in a large British city to meet a doctor who had travelled through the Congo (and loved it). And it was very necessary in my work that I should understand the situation of Muslim girls brought up in Britain and forced into unwanted, indeed repellent, marriages to a first cousin in a village in Pakistan. But understanding and sympathy cannot be decreed, besides, the ultimate answer to the problems of the multicultural society is the melting pot, not the solution preferred by bureaucrats and their intellectual allies, the salad bowl (which perhaps one day in Europe at any rate will turn itself into the stir-fry).

In case I should be accused of insensitivity towards immigrants, I should like to point out that I am descended on both sides from refugees, whom integration brought about informally, without any official direction, served magnificently. Multiculturalism was not a doctrine in their day, a fact for which I am grateful, for otherwise I should now be in the clutches of social workers, housing departments and assorted political entrepreneurs.