BRITAIN HAS DECIDED TO BRING BACK BRITISHNESS BUT HAS FORGOTTEN WHAT IT IS

The obvious failure of multiculturalism (seen in race riots etc) in Britain has made even the Left realize that uniculturalism is needed, now that they have done their best to destroy it:

"The government has been busy developing policies to enhance citizenship and nurture 'Britishness'. Distinguished academic Bernard Crick chaired an advisory group to produce a set of recommendations for citizenship curricula in all schools, initiating ceremonies for new citizens, and citizenship tests, through which potential Britons are tested on their proficiency in the English language, and knowledge of British history and culture.

Commentators have welcomed this new 'tough' approach to immigrants, arguing that they should make more of an effort to adopt a British identity, learn English, and abandon cultural customs which are unacceptable to the mainstream, in particular religious practices such as female circumcision. The ultimate question of 'whose side are you on' came last week with the Muslim Council of Britain's call to British mosques to report terrorist groups working in their midst. British Muslims are seen to be particularly reluctant to adopt Western identities and fall prey to the appeal of Islamic fundamentalism.....

If you want to find the inspiration for the exclusion of young British Muslims, forget searching in the Koran, and look at the government's citizenship curriculum. In there you will find all the confusion, ambiguity and emptiness of what modern society offers to young people. There is no positive assertion of values, even less a celebration of the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, secularism and knowledge. There is instead a 'key stage assessment' that students can 'demonstrate personal and group responsibility in their attitudes to themselves and others when participating' and, 'accept the value of others'. This is a polite way of saying 'your ideas are your own, so do not dare tell anyone else who disagrees that they are wrong'.

The attempt to cohere society will fail time and time again due to one factor - nobody knows, or wants to assert, what society should be about today. In devising a citizenship test, you need to have a sense of what being a citizen means. Many have pointed out the absurdity of asking new citizens to swear an oath to the Queen, when a large number of citizens born here would probably refuse to do the same. Likewise, a test on British culture and history would likely be failed by a significant section of the population already here. The citizenship test may have begun a lively debate in the media in the mode of 'I Love Britain', but no conclusions have been reached. The only thing that politicians seem confident in asserting about our society is its tolerance. But tolerance does not build a society. Tolerance is indifference by another name"

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