The Dangers of Multiculturalism
Crimes society refuses to deal with are the ones that go against some deep narrative of the age. I know it. I’ve seen it.
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The world has finally woken up this week to one of the biggest crimes in twenty-first century Britain: the organized gang rape of thousands of white working-class girls, mainly at the hands of Muslim men of Pakistani origin.
Even writing the sentence above would have got me into far more trouble 20 years ago than it will now. Sure, there are still plenty of people trying to police this story, to claim that race and religion have nothing to do with these crimes, or that it is wrong to bring them up. But the stories of the atrocities in towns like Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, and Oxford are now out, and there is little likelihood that they will be reined back. Public anger is too great in the UK, and international attention is too focused, to allow that to happen.
Having written about these cases for many years now, I spent part of the last week being asked, “How did it happen? How could such a crime have gone on?” And the answer is: Because there are some terrible things that society wants to deal with, and there are some it refuses to deal with, and the things it refuses to deal with tend to be those crimes that go against some deep narrative of the age.
For instance, the Catholic Church for many years covered up the abuse of children by priests. The cover-up was appalling, and led to far more children being abused than would otherwise have been the case, and yet for years the church perpetuated it. And that is because many—though not all—people in the Catholic hierarchy were guided first and foremost by the doctrine that the church must not come to harm.
In modern Britain, there is a doctrine, too. Albeit one with much more shallow foundations. That doctrine is that of “multiculturalism.”
In an era of mass legal and illegal migration, most developed countries have tried some form of this doctrine. But in Britain it runs especially deep. “Strength in diversity” was the mantra of modern Britain, as it has been of Justin Trudeau’s Canada, among other ailing Western states. Any story that runs against the narrative—and threatens to bring the cathedral crashing down—has to be suppressed.
That is why so many elements of British society, from much (though not all) of the media, to local councillors, the police, and many (though again, not all) members of Parliament, had to try to make the story disappear. Many people actually told victims and their families that their accounts of abuse could not come out because it would cause tension in their communities and risk social cohesiveness. And so a great evil was allowed, under the guise of doing good. Which is how evil often manifests.
It isn’t just Britain that has seen sexual crimes like this, with attendant cover-ups. After German chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders of her country to migrants in 2015, there was a vast upsurge of sexual crimes across the Continent. As I wrote in my 2017 book, The Strange Death of Europe, not only were these crimes highly visible—as on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany, where hundreds of women were assaulted—they were also strongly suppressed. The European media and political class did not like to focus on what had happened because it would suggest a downside to the religion of open borders and diversity.
The speech I wanted to write about this week is one that stood out to me at the time. It was delivered by a man who dared to speak the truth, long before it was acceptable to do so. In 2016, Mark Steyn found himself at the Munk debates in Toronto, debating the merits and drawbacks of an open-border policy. Opposite him were Louise Arbour and Simon Schama, who spent the evening very much stressing the warm, cuddly upsides of multiculturalism. Steyn and his debating partner, Nigel Farage—now head of the UK’s Reform Party—were stressing some of the downsides.
One of the issues Steyn focused on consisted of the sexual-abuse stories that were already pouring out across Europe. In debating, his opponents used a trick that I heard echoed in some attempts to squash the story about the gang rapes in the UK, even this past week. The trick is to pretend that there is something weird, sinister, disingenuous, or “dog-whistley” about even mentioning such crimes.
When Arbour was asked by the moderator to address Steyn’s comments about sexual abuse, she sneered, implying that her opponents’ concern for victims of violence was cynical. “Let me just address the issues raised by these newborn feminists,” she said. “For those of us feminists—certainly the women of my generation—who came from a cultural, political environment in this country in which religion dictated most of our rights and privileges, we’ve managed to start occupying our place in public life not by pushing and trying to exclude others.”
The moderator then came to Schama—a superb historian and an engaging public speaker who, on this occasion, managed to make a misstep: He tried to laugh at the people who are focused on these atrocities, as if there is something strange about wanting to talk about them.
“I was just struck by how obsessed with sex these two guys are. It’s a bit sad really,” said Schama. The audience laughed. The historian went on to dispute the fact that most of the people from Afghanistan or Libya or Syria who were crossing the English Channel in dinghies were men—before arguing that, if this were the case, it would be understandable, because “it’d be logical to send your brothers and uncles and the men to sea. That’s how it was actually in the 1880s and 1890s.”
Then comes the kicker: “All of those men arriving weren’t arriving with a purpose of upping their rape score either.”
A lesser opponent might have allowed him to get away with the snigger. But Steyn would not. His response is, to my mind, one of the most important documents of the dark era of British history that is now under relitigation. Steyn’s fury, and his pinpoint accuracy, in rebutting the bit of snide from the other side is one of the greatest master classes in public debating I have ever seen. If the debate ring was a wrestling ring, then this was the moment Steyn slammed his opponents to the mat and made sure they stayed out. I wish more people had had his courage. If they had, then fewer people would have suffered.
Here is what he said:
I made a decision tonight that I wasn’t going to do funny stuff. I was going to be deadly serious. And I’m slightly amazed at my colleagues’ ability to get big laughs on gang rape. Madam Arbour scoffs at the newfound feminists over here. I’m not much of a feminist, but I draw the line at the 3-year-old getting raped and the 7-year-old getting gang-raped in a basement. And then Simon tells us that “Oh well, funnily enough, we’re all obsessed with sex, maybe we don’t get enough action in the Toronto singles bars.”
Madam Arbour, as she said, is a feminist of a certain generation. And those feminists were very clear . . . that rape is not about sex, whatever Simon may say. Rape is about power. . . . And we’re not talking about the kind of sex I want to have. I ain’t into 3-year-old girls.
Here’s a random example from 10 days of German migrant crimes in January. Sixteen-year-old boy raped inside Wolfsburg City Hall. Thirteen-year-old girl sexually assaulted near a railway station in Ellwangen. Three girls sexually assaulted at a swimming pool in Ansbach. Fifteen-year-old girl raped at a railway station in Wuppertal. Attempted gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in Gelsenkirchen.
I can go on and on. These are all rapes, gang rapes in public places. Trains, streets, parks, and even city hall. And I congratulate you on getting big laughs with that, Simon, and you, Louise. Because if I’d known that, I’d be doing open mic night on gang rape at a comedy club. It isn’t funny. It isn’t funny.
Click below to listen to Douglas reflect on the words of Mark Steyn:
 Listen now · 7:35 |
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https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-things-worth-remembering-the-dangers-of-multiculturalism-mark-steyn?utm_campaign=email-post&r=rd3ao&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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