Does Multi-culturalism Work? No.

I should put this to ChatGPT to check the logic but it seems pretty straight-forward.

So in a Multi-Cultural society there is respect for all the cultures. The authorities work to promote and protect minority groups and aim to give people the freedom to express their culture.

But there is a problem: it has to occur somewhere and usually cultures and identities are geographically located so the host culture is sacrificed which contradicts the aims.

So for instance we might have people saying they are of Indian or Chinese background and of course this represents the material fact that their family originated from these localities.

Why should culture be geographically located?

This will primarily be due to the logic of who you interact most with. You will interact with people you are physically near more often than those far away. You are more likely to interact with the people in the shops down the road than in another country. As a result the shops down your road will cater for your culture more than those abroad. Or to turn that around your culture will be that which your local shops cater for rather than those abroad. An example might be Cheddar Cheese. An English person might expect to find Cheddar Cheese in their local shops, while they would not expect to find lamb's heads. Meanwhile an Arab might expect to find a lambs head and not Cheddar Cheese. The name of the cheese gives an indication also coming from Cheddar which is in Southern England and so deeply embedded in the culture of cheesemaking in this country.

Now it is true with modern transport and communications we are able to come into contact with more people and we might argue that today culture is no longer geographically based. But this leads to two problems:

(1) It means that previous identities like Indian and Chinese cease to have any meaning. We can ignore them,
(2) It means that previous history that was built up in geographical isolation of other cultures is erased meaning that there is no diversity of culture. Without location separating cultures then everyone has access to all cultures.

But these defeat the idea of Multi-Culturalism which was to preserve cultural diversity and identity. There is a contradiction.

The idea of Multi-Culturalism is to maintain cultural differences and identities.

But this leads to another problem. Geographical location means that we might travel to a place to experience that culture at source. A Chinese person might think that travelling to China would expose them to Chinese culture, and an Indian the same by travelling to India. Now obviously these are huge and diverse countries with subsets of culture within, but as you burrow down into the geography you get more and more refined versions of the culture.

So what of the country that is hosting Multi-Culturalism? What is the culture of that location? Well it is a Multi-Culture. But this defeats the idea of Multi-Culturalism which was to preserve diversity and cultural identities.

In the example of England, the culture of England is best expressed by England. There is by definition no where else in the world you can visit to get English culture. But England hosting other cultures actually compromises English culture. Yet those other cultures coming from other places in the globe are not destroyed by the interaction as Chinese still have China and Indians still have India but England no longer has England.

The very idea of Multi-Culturalism is self defeating.

So what can you do with immigration?

Well as is often mentioned why would you travel a country where you do not like the culture and have no interest in adopting it. It would be very strange to travel to England for example and not learn the language, so why not learn everything else. And if you do not like England then why put yourself through the suffering of living here. I work for a company dealing with the stress caused by immigrants moving to England and having language and cultural problems as a result.

Now I think a lot of people move to England for the jobs. And England welcomes them because it likes cheap labour. But this is really selling your soul both for immigrants and England. Nothing good can come from this relationship. Immigrants lose touch with the original culture and become no-bodies neither fitting into England and neither fitting in at their original location.

I like to argue that if immigrants were really proud of their place of origin they would do it the service of staying there and making it a better place by for example working for improvements in infrastructure or the role of women, or even taking up arms to fight for a better future. The English have spent centuries doing all of these things which is why England is the way it is. Only generations of women fighting for freedom in England have given the women of England the freedom they have. Only generations of people working hard and inventing things and creating modern economics, and even fighting hard wars has given England the freedom and richness that it enjoys and the power it has exerted around the globe. It did not happen over night and if women or workers leave their home countries to enjoy the freedoms here they are abandoning their home countries. Now if people are willing to abandon their own countries and travel abroad then they really abandon their culture and identity. They cannot then arrive in England and pretend loyalty to their place of origin and their background. In running away they have admitted they are English and need to adopt the culture of the place they chose to live.

So the broad argument here is that if people wish to protect their own culture and identity then they must work to protect the culture and identity of the place they live. This generates a contradiction that can only really be solved by living in the place you feel you belong to.

Obviously this is not a hard and fast rule. People often travel for work, and marriages often combine people of different parts of the world. No one should persecute individuals who chose to live in parts of the world that conflict with their own identities and culture. And obviously cultures travel and England for example is the global home of the curry: a dish created in England by Bangladeshi immigrants. Fusions create rich and complex cultures. And through the empire and the British winning of many wars it was able to colonise and spread its culture around the globe. But that idea is frowned upon now and Britain prefers to respect cultural diversity, which while diminishing the influence of English culture around the world has the converse implication of a strengthening it at home. 

But the lack of hard and fast rules means that legislature cannot enshrine "Multi-Culturalism." A country like England is English and it speaks a certain language, and has a certain religion and a certain history and certain food and a certain attitude to life and how to live. This is not a hard and fast blue print that everyone in England knows or understands any more than a Chinese person knows what "Chinese" really means. But we do understand that a Chinese person claims their identity is Chinese and in some way the culture that lives in China and an English claims their identity is English and in some way the culture that lives in England. To deny the English a claim to English culture and an England for this culture to flourish is nihilistic and denies all people of their culture and identity.

Which ever way you turn you cannot find support for Multi-Culturalism and the idea that England is the home of more than 1 culture does not work.