Being political Hindus in the West #7: Multiculturalism and the Implicit Understanding

“For the multiculturalist, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are prohibited, Italians and Irish get a little respect, blacks are good, native Americans are even better. The further away we go, the more they deserve respect. This is a kind of inverted, patronizing respect that puts everyone at a distance.” Slavoj Žižek a self-declared Marxist philosopher talked about Multiculturalism.

 

 

 

In the previous article, we discussed multiculturalism, its benefits, and its drawbacks. In this article, we will discuss the implicit understanding behind multiculturalism in the west as well as the Grooming Gangs issue in the UK.

 

Also Read: Being political Hindus in the West #6: Multiculturalism in the West and the Hindus 

 

Multiculturalism is an extremely liberal (in a classical liberal sense, not in the modern pseudo-liberal sense) phenomenon for any society or polity. It allows the host society to improve by mixing deeply with people from distinctly different cultures across the world. It makes the host society resilient, less orthodox, and more forward-looking. It also makes their economy much stronger with an influx of cheap labor. For the Immigrants coming to such societies, it provides economic opportunities, freedom to follow their own customs and religions, and wider acceptance in the host society. It is literally a win-win for everybody involved. But this win-win situation can only be achieved by having some implicit understanding. The understanding that the west is a culturally Christian society and only the edifice of multiculturalism in the west relies firmly on this fundamental implicit understanding. In all the western countries where multiculturalism is celebrated explicitly, the implicit understanding is always Christian nation culturally. In the USA, no President has ever got elected who is not a Christian. Even within Christianity, John F. Kennedy and the current President Joe Biden are the only two catholic Presidents. All the rest of the 44 Presidents were Protestants, out of which 43 were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs. In the UK, the King or Queen has to be a Protestant Christian as he or she becomes the head of the church. One of the titles of Monarchs is “Defender of the Faith”. The purpose of citing these examples is not to say that these are the only two countries that have such an understanding. But because these countries are the loudest to advocate their explicit multiculturalism. Similarly in various mainland European Countries, Church plays a major role in the politics of their respective countries. The implicit understanding that the Church will play a dominant role and that the country will remain a protestant or catholic country respectively has never changed in any of these countries. Multiculturalism works, only when the majority/dominant culture of the country remains the majority/dominant in any respective country. That is the implicit understanding on which the edifice of Multiculturalism stands.

 

Also Read: Being political Hindus in the West #5: Who supports and Opposes the CRT? 

 

Now, when this implicit understanding is not followed, it creates some serious law and order issues in the host countries. When a culture tries to contest the dominant Christian culture, it generates sharp reactions from the host society. In a similar scenario, the Grooming Gangs in England have divided society on the issue of multiculturalism. The grooming gang was a group of men who were convicted of sexual offenses against girls in Huddersfield, Sheffield, Bradford, and Dewsbury. It is the largest gang ever convicted for sex abuse in the United Kingdom. The offenses took place between 2004 and 2011. Twenty-seven men were accused of sexual offenses including rape and trafficking against 18 girls aged between 11 and 17. Most of the gang were Pakistani Muslims. This law and order issue of apparent criminality was turned into a strawman argument against Multiculturalism by the far right in the UK. The far-right and the far-left both claimed that the perpetrators did so as it was a part of their culture. Both sides said this with completely different intentions. The far left said so, in order to ask for leniency towards the Pakistani Muslims to secure and appease their Muslim vote bank. While the far right did so to demonize the other religion. The far right's intentions were clearly xenophobic and to evoke hatred in the WASP majority of the UK against the Muslims. In this particular incident, it was not the Islam or Islamic texts which motivated the perpetrators, but the criminal mindset did. But the fact that a group of brown-skinned men of a different religion did this was enough for the far right to demonize everyone of brown skin and of a different religion, including the Hindus. The fear of retribution from the Islamic extremists prevented the Far right in the UK from naming them and instead targeted multiculturalism itself, which unnecessarily included the Hindus. This is where the first quote by Žižek comes into the picture. As Žižek said, “This is a kind of inverted, patronizing respect that puts everyone at a distance.”

 

Also Read: Being political Hindus in the West #4: Critical race theory and the Hindus 

 

Multiculturalism, Critical Race Theory, and Wokism create a system where “ white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are prohibited, Italians and Irish get a little respect, blacks are good, native Americans are even better.” But eventually, all are judged by the standards of WASPs. The system not only keeps the WASPs at the top of the food chain in western societies but also provides them with the solace of “doing the right thing”.