Monday 1 September 2014

Off the shelf explanations will not do


Further to my piece earlier on the bullshit of multiculturalism, the reason I'm so blatantly trolling my readers is that the doctrine of multiculturalism is not at all new, it is long established, and it has become an article of faith. It is not an off the shelf answer for what is a multifaceted problem which in this case has specifics that require more than the application of generic theories. For starters, this is less about multiple cultures and about a very, very specific singular culture from a very specific locality.

If you want to understand an issue, the first thing you do is slay the sacred cows and revisit old theories however well established. The multiculturalism explanation is a well worn narrative that has been rinsed to death for over ten years by various journalists, and was long promoted by Melanie Phillips and latterly the BNP and then Ukip as it became a more politically mainstream view. As sure as apples fall from trees, if something becomes the mainstream view and is dusted off to explain something like the Rotherham scandal then it is most likely wrong. This is no exception.

I take the view that in this is primarily an economic issue coupled with a massively degraded system of governance. The fact this particular problem is mostly a problem with Pakistani Kashmiris ought to be largely irrelevant if we had a functioning system of local government, policing and effective border control.

Yes there is a major cultural aspect to consider in this specific case but the fact that such grotesque lapses happen across all government tells you that whatever is wrong in Rotherham is not happening
elsewhere by sheer coincidence. Bad and ugly things are going to happen as a result of policy failings we cannot change. But how we respond to them is something up for debate and when the state has abdicated its most basic duty to protect then clearly the problem starts with us and our broken system of government.

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