Well, yes and no
Ken Livingstone offered a Millian version of multiculturalism in the Indy yesterday.
Multiculturalism versus its opponents is simply one manifestation of the age-long struggle between liberty and its opponents. It is not about personal differences of opinion but between the values of an open and a closed society.
Yes but which side is for the values of the open society and which is for those of the closed? Things don’t necessarily line up the way Livingstone claims.
The foundations of liberalism and multiculturalism were outlined with great clarity in what is justifiably the most famous political essay in British history, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty…Every individual who exists is unique, and wishes to pursue their life in a different way. The individual must be able to choose for themselves…Multiculturalism has nothing to do with an assertion that there are no universal values. The very statement that people should be able to do only such things that do not interfere with others is clearly an assertion of a universal value. It merely states that insofar as they do not interfere with others, people should be able to choose freely which values they wish to pursue and they may not have these imposed on them…What is prohibited is one group or person imposing their will on others…Female genital mutilation is another such imposed act of violence and equally should not be tolerated.
Good; admirably clear and forthright; but that’s not actually what everyone understands by multiculturalism, and that’s why multiculturalism has opponents who are in fact not enemies of the open society. There are cultures – and they are neither few nor obscure – which do not agree that all individuals must be able to choose for themselves; on the contrary. That being the case, multiculturalism does not have quite the same freedom-loving ring to it that Livingstone seems to think it does.
Update: article in Guardian about Livingstone’s attack on Trevor Phillips.
I do feel that as with Hattersly, Ken is someone who remembers all too well the overt racism which was used commonly to victimise minority immigrants, and the cynical way in which the media manipulated racism until only recently.
That those tenets underpinning the protection of minority rights and equality in life can be misconstrued or abused by reactionary interest groups of today who hide behind them while they abuse others, doesn’t shake these guy’s convictions that it was a bloody long hard struggle and it was worth every minute being involved. It’s not sentimentality, more of a battle-worn pride and badge of honour. But it can blinker them sometimes.
Minority rights are recursive. A minority should not deny pluralism internally. Otherwise they undermine the conditions of their own existence as a (self-)identifiable group.
That and the “democracies can vote for dictatorships but this doesn’t make dictatorships the exemplification of democracy” thing. Someone denying someone else their freedom is not a wonderful example of freedom. Millian liberty and Berlinian pluralism’s perceived cosiness obscures the fact that they are actually pretty resolute in their stance against coercion.
And Linvinstone, in his article, seems to be subscribing to the “only the whites are racist/nasty” argument – he says …
“What is prohibited is one group or person imposing their will on others. The endorsement by Christian churches of slavery was a barbaric infringement of the rights of others, regardless of whether its acceptance was a “cultural norm” – as it was. Female genital mutilation is another such imposed act of violence and equally should not be tolerated.”
Well, full marks for part 2, Ken, but he seems to have forgotten/ignored the equally horrid slave-trading of the muslim arabs, and the rulers of what is noe Nigeria, Ghana, etc. Without their co-operation there would have been no slave trade. I agree the Europeans decided to sink as low as the native peoples, and join in the slave trade, and expand it. But …..
And as Ophelia, or someone says in the intro: “Tell that to Al-Qardawi and the Taliban, and all the others.
Nick writes:
That those tenets underpinning the protection of minority rights and equality in life can be misconstrued or abused by reactionary interest groups …
Thank you, vielen Dank, Jawohl, I am a one-man reactionary interest group – my ‘interest’ being equal opportunities for all, not equality of outcome for the good, the bad and the indifferent. What passes for ‘minority rights’ is, in the real existing world, the reservation of privileges for ‘underrepresented’ groups, and particularly people of colour or Islamic origin – the absurd default assumption being that any such ‘underrepresentation’ is the result of discrimination rather than the natural outcome of selection processes in which the less talented tend to be less successful.
Some minorities are of course ‘overrepresented’, despite an undeniable history of discrimination (e.g. Jews, Chinese). How come discrimination allegedly adversely affects some groups but not others?
Liberals, put on one of your ‘exceptional cases’ hats, please — you have so many of them to choose from. Or: how the same cause can have opposite effects whenever it suits us because we will never admit that we might have lost the argument.
More details in my Catechism of Reactionary Arguments for Any Blogging Occasion, Rubric No C-689 (meritocracy, consequences of) — coming some day if I get round to it.
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P.S. Gwendolyn, for once I find nothing to complain about in your comment. Have the godbotherers stopped bothering you of late, or what?
[Ken Livingstone] is a crude-thinking opportunist ..
Clearly Alan Esterton has been reading my mind again (just as in the Einstein-‘bis’ dispute below) — but he got in before me while I was typing up my previous comment.
That’s MY idea! Stop STEALING my thoughts. That’s PLAGIARISM!
You’re just like those Greeks who stole all that Black Athena stuff and then claimed to be ‘original’ thinkers. Plato, Aristotle etc.
Sorry, Cathal. Please accept my profuse apologies for my actions, and for those of all my ancestors. Grovel, grovel.
And let me one of the first to support the campaign to force Italy to apologise for their vicious invasion and enslavement of the Britons a few centuries back. All we want is an apology, not even reparations for an occupation that put back the growth of an indigenous state for centuries. So let’s all rally behind the slogan: What did the Romans ever do for us?
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=933
Cathal, you devil you. I pretty much agree there, but it’s interesting how many mature economies are dominated by ethnic minorities within those economies and how that may influence our long-term global stability.
Vis: ‘minority rights’. An old-fashioned fool, I was thinking more along the lines of those first and second generation Asians and West Indians and Ugandans who routinely got attacked in the streets and their homes wrecked in the 60s and 70s by violent white dimwits, who I loathed and despised then and now. My view of Ken’s politics was formed then. Those ‘minority rights’ I perhaps now crudely allude to are simply the right not to have the crap beaten out of you or a job denied simply because your daddy’s from Bangladesh. Unfortunately those rights now do mean to some ‘respect me on my creed, not merit. Or I’ll blow this bus up’.
Allan
Rose tinted mebbe – by having been an unashamed lefty in the 80s – you have nailed the present Ken, but I’m not sure his entire career has been based on having an eye on the main chance ?
Perhaps I should get with the current trend and try to sue someone for emotional damages. The Tories. Hmm… Class Action anyone ?
“In the 21st century, we remain hostage to our sense of grievances, and to feelings of entitlement…Our narratives have become our prison, paralyzing discourse and hindering understanding.”
It’s from Kofi Annan about the Israel/Palestine dispute, but it could equally be added to my comments above in relation to many of the black organisations that Jasper and Livingstone are supporting in opposition to the (revised) Phillips-inspired Commission for Racial Equality viewpoint on multiculturalism.
In his Independent article Livingstone refers to viewpoints that are “intellectually disreputable” in relation to ideas on multiculturalism of which he disapproves. (I grant that Ken is an expert on intellectually disreputable arguments. He’s full of them himself.) He points to “the approach reflected in the CRE’s conference this week, including sessions such as ‘Rivers of Blood: Did Enoch Powell get it right?'”
I’ve searched this week’s CRE Race Convention brochure, and can’t find any session with that title. Can anyone help out on this?
http://www.cre.gov.uk/downloads/Race%20Convention%202006%20Brochure.pdf
Now if there had been (or was) a session with that title, it should be obvious to anyone with a brain bigger that the pigeons Ken is trying to clear from Trafalgar square that it would be intended to be provocative, and that it was another way of raising the question of whether assimilation (in the broadest sense) of immigrant groups is possible without some kind of violent reaction in some quarters. (The way Livingstone puts it, anyone would think the sessions were lectures in which someone was going to put across a Powellite view, rather than discussion sessions.)
In any case there were *forty* sessions at this Convention, but Livingstone picks out the one with this (alleged) title as if it “reflected” the position [as if there was a “position” at such a series of discussion groups with a huge variety of listed speakers] of the Convention. As I say, Livingstone is an expert on disreputable arguments.
Very interesting; thanks, Allen.
Googled title: see an item on the search page that says that session was dropped. Will read item and other items, report back.
From an article in The Voice
http://www.voice-online.co.uk/content.php?show=10340
“The two-day event takes place on November 27 and 28 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London. The convention came in for some criticism recently however, after it was revealed that one of the workshop sessions was originally entitled: The law and integration: ‘Rivers of Blood’ did Enoch Powell get it right? That session has been dropped from the final line up, however.”
Interesting piece in Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1958955,00.html
about Livingstone ranting away at Trevor Phillips. I think I’ll add it to N&C as update. Doesn’t quite belong in News.
Thanks, Ophelia. That item on “The Voice” website is dated 23 November. Livingstone’s article was published on the 28th (the second and last day of the Convention). Are we to believe Livingstone hadn’t heard of the cancellation, that not one of his advisers had heard and reported it to him? Or is it not more likely that Livingstone knew perfectly well it had been cancelled but chose to write that sentence (or keep it in) because it was just too good an opportunity to miss?
Opportunist? Dishonest? Ken? Nah!
There’s an amusing bit in the Guardian article where Ken says Trevor Phillips thinks success is getting into the newspapers…
In the article cited by Ophelia above there is a quote from a letter Livingstone wrote to Phillips last week in which he refers to the “intended” workshop with the title “Rivers of Blood: Did Enoch Powell get it right?”. Would he have used the word “intended” if he hadn’t known it was to be cancelled?
Alright, screw him, at least he doesn’t drive a 4X4. Does he ?
But I do!
A proper Land-Rover, actually – large, green, box-shaped, carries huge amounts, and environmentally friendly, because it won’t wear out, and need replacing every 5 years …..
Ken is pathetic. From that Guardian article:
‘In September Mr Livingstone accused Mr Phillips of lurching so far to the right “that I expect he’ll soon be joining the BNP” after the CRE chief criticised the Notting Hill carnival’.
Why should he be taken seriously when he makes puerile comments like that?