Terrorism

Let’s Talk About Multiculturalism

Samuel Hooper11 Comments

charlie hebdo multiculturalism

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Let’s can the fake outrage and acknowledge a hard truth uttered by Nigel Farage

Eager to start making waves early in 2015, UKIP leader Nigel Farage hit the television studios today, giving interviews on Channel 4 News and America’s Fox News, to offer his thoughts on multiculturalism and the reasons behind the barbaric terrorist atrocity at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

Predictably, most politicians and commentators immediately rushed to criticise Farage, dismissing his remarks without ever stopping to look for the grains of truth in what he said. Was the intemperate rhetoric about a “fifth column” in Britain alarmist and potentially divisive? Yes, it probably was. But Farage and UKIP have continually raised important questions about the trajectory of Britain that others have wilfully ignored, because they preferred to bury their heads in the sand for short-term political expediency. And the fact that an idea is raised by someone with strong and rather pungent political views does not mean that it should not be discussed.

It should be pointed out that Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow provoked Nigel Farage’s extended comments with a teasing question asking whether the terrorist attack didn’t mean that we needed to tear down our borders completely and become one big happy family, poking the UKIP leader where he was sure to get an impassioned reply.

The key exchange on the Channel 4 News went as follows (it’s quite long, but in it lies the clue to the whole problem with the multiculturalism debate at the moment):

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Je Suis Charlie Hebdo

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Jesus And Mo Nous Sommes Charlie Hebdo JeSuisCharlieHebdo

 

And so 2015 begins as 2014 ended – with another murderous terrorist attack on a western city, this time targeting journalists, cartoonists and satirists at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo. For too many people, bereaved family and friends of the twelve victims, this will not be a happy new year.

Having been ill since the start of the year, your blogger was late to hear of the grotesque carnival of violence that played out in Paris on the morning of 7 January. Since that terrible moment, others have already offered moving and stirring words in response, far better than I. But the purported reasons for the targeting of Charlie Hebdo make it important for this blog to take a stand against the noxious idea that the mere act of depicting anybody, religious or otherwise, should be cause for the the huge amount of offence-taking, consternation and hand-wringing that it still is in the year 2015.

The following are therefore a selection of columns and responses that are informing this blog’s thinking at present, and then some closing thoughts.

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