Class, Race, Identity

Norfolk Community Action Group has no interest in working alongside the liberal left who cry racist at the drop of a hat. The ‘racialisation’ of politics, as well as the new identity politic so all encompassing of the left today, has nothing to do with benefiting working class people.

Many people are concerned for example, that ‘cheap foreign labour’ can make it impossible for individuals in our community to compete in the jobs market or that housing is being lost to asylum seekers ‘jumping the queue’.

Irrespective of the reality behind these arguments-and working class people have every right to argue them, just because somebody brings these subject matters up does not necessarily make them racist, and the left have failed consistently by accusing people of being just that.

Either we have these debates with people or we walk away and leave them to be radicalised by the far-right. Ignoring contentious issues is of no benefit to any of us.

Likewise we see Labour’s multicultural experiment as having been divisive and has caused major difficulties in our community. Well meaning or not, problems with this particular political model are plain to see.

There is a need to be clear here. Do not confuse ‘multi-culturalism’ with ‘multi-racialism’ something many on both the left and right are prone so often to do!

We are referring to direct government policy to keep communities segregated along cultural lines, where anybody can turn up and say ‘I represent such and such a community’ when these people often have little support at all in their areas but do have ‘wealth and power’. Sickeningly many of these individuals who style themselves as leaders of said communities are only interested in profiting from ‘multi-culturalist’ government policies.

Likewise..

If there is such a thing as a black community, or a Muslim community, or a Vietnamese community, there is by definition surely a white community. And just as ‘community leaders’ emerge to represent the Muslim community and to lobby on its behalf, we cannot proclaim ourselves to be shocked when someone steps up to say they represent the ‘white’ community. Whatever THAT is. Paul Stott.

Norfolk Community Action Group is only interested in fighting for one community, one working class community, a community with no colour be it black or white, a community not divided by race or religion, where working class kids go to schools to learn to educate themselves about the world around them rather than the world a priest, rabbi or imam would have them live in.

We are not interested in being politically correct only to end up becoming politically impotent. If our opinions and views upset some people’s middle-class values then we are quite possibly on the right track!

Multiculturalism is the product of political defeat. The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the left, the defeat of most liberation movements in the third world and the demise of social movements in the West, have all transformed political consciousness. The quest for equality has increasingly been abandoned in favour of the claim to a diverse society

The irony of multiculturalism is that, as a political process, it undermines what is valuable about cultural diversity. Diversity is important, not in and of itself, but because it allows us to expand our horizons, to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles, and make judgements upon them.

In other words, because it allows us to engage in political dialogue and debate that can help create more universal values and beliefs, and a collective language of citizenship. But it is precisely such dialogue and debate, and the making of such judgements, that contemporary multiculturalism attempts to suppress in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect’.

A truly plural society would be one in which citizens have full freedom to pursue their different values or practices in private, while in the public sphere all citizens would be treated as political equals whatever the differences in their private lives.

Today, however, pluralism has come to mean the very opposite. The right to practice a particular religion, speak a particular language, follow a particular cultural practice is seen as a public good rather than a private freedom. Different interest groups demand to have their ‘differences’ institutionalised in the public sphere. And to enforce such a vision we have to call in the Thought Police.

Multiculturalism is an authoritarian, anti-human outlook. True political progress requires not recognition but action, not respect but questioning, not the invocation of the Thought Police but the forging of common bonds and collective struggles. Keenan Malik.

Norfolk Community Action Group could be described as being a ‘multi-racialist’ organisation, but NOT a divisive ‘multi-culturalist’ one.

Do not be confused. We have no time for organised hate groups that spread division and fear based on race or religion in the community, and will engage in actively organising against them, whoever they may be.

Further Reading http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/against_mc.html