MULTICULTURALISM IS THE PAST NOT FUTURE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Multiculturalism is the past not future

The Olympics has resulted in multiculturalism again being espoused in some parts of the media.

Multiculturalism is frequently confused with diversity but actually means "many cultures", something which this country had long before mass immigration.

Before then we had working class culture, middle class culture and upper class culture.

We had aspiring middle class culture – "keeping up with the Joneses" – middle class culture and faded genteel middle class culture.

We had grimly decent working class culture, "I have absolutely no intention of ever working" working class culture and "proud to be working class" culture.

We had huntin', shootin', fishin' upper class culture, disturbingly smooth and urbane upper class culture and dissolute, idle upper class culture.

We had an astonishing variety of fixed attitudes, received ideas and preconceived notions.

Practically everybody could define themselves in terms of which little box they occupied and which one you did.

The result was that we spent inordinate and regrettable amounts of time in mutual recrimination, internecine struggles and dialogues of the deaf while the country hurtled downwards faster than a lead balloon.

It was generally agreed that our diverse cultures were divisive, corrosive, a futile waste of time and energy and that we had to change.

Multiculturalism is not the future, it's the past.

Russ Ball, Leicester