Multiculturalism vs national unity

Note from Ed.: Walt is feeling a bit indisposed this holiday weekend -- the Bacardi flu perhaps -- so I will substitute excerpts from an editorial headed "Multiculturalism has undermined unity".

I am reminded of that famous verse from Sir Walter Scott’s long narrative poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, which begins, “Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,/Who never to himself hath said,/This is my own, my native land!” This verse is a rebuke of [the] wretched individuals who have little or no love for their country.

But in the period since...1967, the politics of multiculturalism...have contributed to widening ethnic divisions in a country of immigrants.... However charitably we consider the good intentions that launched multiculturalism as a policy..., the consequences — especially when examined since the events of Sept. 11, 2001 — have increasingly undermined the ideal of [national] unity.

The worm inside the doctrine of multiculturalism is the lie that all cultures are equally embracing of individual freedom and democracy. The concerted assault by Islamists on the West and its values is proof of this lie.

Moreover, multiculturalism by reinforcing hyphenated identities...keeps alive divided loyalties....
Multiculturalism demonstrably promotes politics based on ethnic loyalties in a multiethnic country — countries built by immigrants arriving from different parts of the world are by definition multiethnic and not multicultural — and, thereby, sharpens ethnic quarrels it was supposed to dissolve.

We need to liberate ourselves from the lie with which multiculturalism amplifies our differences and greatly threatens the unity of our country.

Sorry about all the elipses. If you click on the link and read the entire article, you'll find the writer was referring to Canada and the One Canada Vision of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, "the first Canadian". It applies also the the USA and the UK -- in spades.

You'll also discover that the piece, complete with what some will say are anti-Muslim sentiments, was written by Salim Mansur, a Muslim who immigrated to Canada roughly four decades ago.