So much of what is commonly understood to mean multiculturalism has in truth been class warfare by other means. A great deal of it has entailed affluent, white middle-class types telling the white working-class that their culture and values are of unexceptional or lesser worth. Much state-sanctioned multiculturalism has been an exercise in scolding the proletariat for being unenlightened, denouncing them as bigots and racists when their behaviour fails to fall into line with modern, cosmopolitan, metropolitan mores.
This kind of gesture can be seen as an irresponsible provocation towards the working class
This tendency and tension was on full display on Saturday at Elland Road, home of Leeds United, when thirteen minutes into the game against Manchester City, play was stopped to allow Muslim players to break for their Ramadan fast after sunset. In response to the stoppage and a notice on the stadium’s big screen explaining that ‘play has been paused briefly to allow players to break for their fast’, sections of the home crowd began to boo and jeer.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is one of many to have expressed his disappointment with the crowd’s reaction. ‘It is a modern world, right?’, he said. ‘Respect religion, diversity, that is the point.’ Yet rather than be shocked or perplexed by the voices of dissent in the stands, we should instead be asking questions of the authorities who deemed it smart to make this decision in the first place – and to consider their real motives for this frankly provocative gesture.
In case those in charge of Leeds United hadn’t been paying attention, on the other side of the Pennines there took place an event last week, the Gorton and Denton by-election, which laid bare with awful clarity the failure of multiculturalism in this country, both as a lived experience and as an ideology which encourages difference rather than seeks to transcend it.
That event not only reminded us the degree to which some South Asians in England now live parallel lives, detached from a society and unable to speak English, but it reminded us of the alienation of England’s white working-class, the demographic who have been multiculturalism’s biggest losers. That Reform UK, essentially a hard right, quasi-nationalist party, should do so well in Manchester, a city which boasts a strong left-wing ethos, is an unmistakable reflection of this particular groundswell of discontent and rancour.
Yet still the establishment want to shove multiculturalism in people’s faces. This is especially so in its most common and corrosive variety: asymmetrical multiculturalism. This essentially involves not respecting all cultures equally, but giving preference to cultures which originate from outside this country, and affording lesser respect to the culture of the historically indigenous population. To many spectators at Saturday’s game, this is what that break for Ramadan epitomised: predictably aloof behaviour from a spineless establishment so desperate to say and do the correct thing that it remains oblivious to their feelings and concerns.
Rather than be shocked by their response, or issue inane homilies about ‘diversity’ and ‘respect’, we should instead be questioning why those in positions of authority are still obsessed with parroting trite mantras and indulging in conspicuous displays of rectitude. Such gestures as we saw this weekend do little to facilitate understanding and integration. Instead, they do far more to heighten the self-regard and social standing of the middle-class types who sanction them.
It’s as if liberals actually hope they fail the test, so they can bellow with self-righteousness how racist the proles are
The response by the anti-racist body Kick It Out was telling and typical. It called the behaviour by some Leeds fans ‘disappointing’, sighing that ‘football still has a long way to go in terms of education and acceptance’. It was a statement that oozed patrician condescension. Yet it’s a microcosm of an attitude entrenched among an upper echelon of society. If ‘disappointing’ reminds you of the kind of word your teacher or parent once used to reproach you, that’s no coincidence. These people appear to view the hoi polloi and the gammons as mental infants who need ‘education’ lest they revert to the state of nature.
At worst, this kind of gesture can be seen as an irresponsible provocation towards the working class, in a sport and way of life they still consider their own. As with the previous mandate for footballers to ‘take the knee’, a custom eagerly adopted by a footballing establishment still feeling guilt at the racism that did genuinely spew from the terraces in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s an action designed to test the moral integrity of the working class. It’s as if liberals actually hope they fail the test, so they can bellow with self-righteousness how racist the proles are. Such gestures only increase tensions in society. Ethnic minorities never benefit from such posturing and provocations.
As for the noises of resistance emanating from the stands at Elland Road? Let’s hope this signals the start of something new. Let’s hope that the proles now really are revolting – in the active and not the passive sense of the word.
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