Multiculturalism as Thought Control

The multicultural thought police Nov. 1, 03

The BBC report on the racist police recruits has given new ammunition to those who are curbing our legitimate freedoms, says Leo McKinstry

[. . . . ] For in Britain today we have our own powerful creed — multiculturalism — which is imposed on the public by a political establishment that is brimming with self-righteous fervour. And anyone refusing to accept this dogma is likely to be branded a heretic, bullied and brainwashed until they change their opinions.

Only two decades ago, the central principle of anti-racism was that all individuals in our society should be treated equally, regardless of ethnic origin or religion. Yet through multiculturalism, the malign ideological spawn of anti-discrimination, we have moved far away from that stance. We are now told that, in the name of ‘celebrating diversity’, we must respect every aspect of every culture in our midst. Not only must we act correctly in word and deed, but, more importantly, we must also be trained to harbour no negative thoughts about the behaviour of any other ethnic group.

This outlook is utterly inimical to personal freedom and equality before the law, the very pillars of our civilisation. Far from ignoring racial differences in the search for harmony, it actually seeks to emphasise them. Such an attitude was summed up by the 1999 report of Sir William Macpherson into the death of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence: ‘Colour-blind policing must be outlawed. The police must deliver a service which recognises the different experiences, perceptions and needs of a diverse society.’

[. . . .] But perhaps most worrying of all is the attempt to reclassify racism as a mental illness. In the United States there is now a serious debate over whether those accused of being racists are actually suffering from delusions which require treatment by the state, including the use of anti-psychotic medication. [. . . . ]

Psychiatry has often been used to silence those who refuse to accept the official doctrines of the state. The Soviet Union was notorious for branding political dissidents as ‘mentally ill’, incarcerating them in psychiatric institutions. In communist China it has been estimated that 15 per cent of psychiatric inmates may be in custody for political reasons, many of them suffering from what the gruesome Ministry for Public Security calls ‘political abnormality illness’.

We should remember that, even in our own country’s past, single parenthood and promiscuity in women were sometimes treated as signs of insanity. And today, tens of thousands of children who would once have been seen as boisterous are said to be suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and are treated with the chemical cosh of the drug Ritalin. [. . . .]