...Consider, after all, the comic irony that abounds when the de facto minister for multiculturalism, parliamentary secretary Andrew Robb, avoids using precisely that word beginning with "m", which defines his portfolio. In fact, he's on record as favouring scrapping the term "multiculturalism" entirely from the Government's revamped ethnic policy...
And so here we are: navigating through the fog of a new cultural battlefield, as the earth reverberates from the shockwaves of Islamist terror elsewhere in the world.
There's fog because the words that frame this still-tentative debate — "integration", "values", "cultural diversity" and so on — are necessarily nebulous. And precisely why we must have this debate in the first place is yet to be properly explained.
...Yet the Government insists the new measures are not aimed at Muslims. Is this all an elaborate dog-whistle, an appeal to the would-be Hansonites whose support can sway elections? Whatever the truth, it surely leaves the public feeling something less than relaxed-and-comfortable.
Read full article
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment