Multiculturalism (whatever that may be, as my mother once said snootily when confronted by an alien concept) is not popular.
Most people don’t like it at all. Not David Cameron, who said it had failed, nor Aidan Burley Tory MP who famously dismissed Danny Boyle’s opening to the Olympics as “leftie multicultural crap”.
In London right now we live in a multicultural miracle in which less than half the population are what is described as “white British”. Yet London is pretty well universally described as the most exciting city in the world having a dazzling array of artistic and cultural triumphs.
So what did it do right?
Let’s start with a positive attitude to diversity. Here’s what American G. Pascal Zacchary (and author of The Global Me: New Cosmopolitans and the Competitive Edge - Picking Globalism's Winners and Losers) said:
“Diversity spawns creativity, nourishes the human spirit, spurs economic growth and empowers nations.”
Under two successful London Mayors London has embraced a successful immigration policy for the rich and the poor, the ambitious and the brilliant….at all levels. Restaurant service used to be the worst in the world - now it’s amongst the best. The diversity that Zacchary talks about spans continents, colour and culture.
When Ballet Black was formed by Casso Pancha MBE she wanted to prove a point she’d argued in her dissertation at University that black dancers (given the chance so long denied them) could dance ballet.
Now twelve years later no one disagrees with her. At the Linbury Theatre in the Royal Opera House a week ago she had a very successful show featuring work from rising choreographers - EGAL, Dopamine (you make my levels go silly), The One Played Twice and Christopher Marney’s War Letters .
These featured five Afro-Caribbean, one Japanese and two mixed race dancers. The designers and choreographers were mixed race and from France, Venezuela, Britain and Japan.
It was a triumph of multiculturalism and a spirit which proclaimed and proved that anything is possible.
As Malcolm Gladwell shows in his seminal book “Outliers” it was the work their Beatles did night after night for three years in Hamburg that provided them with their artistic foundation - multicultural beginnings for a cultural phenomenon.
And then there’s the spirit of adventure. In Brighton where there’s a fashion exhibition at the Museum and Art Galley - Biba and Beyond: Barbara Hulanicki – taking us back to the 1960s and to London at the V&A from the end of this month where David Bowie’s archive is revealed, each of these showing how different cultures reflected on and defined our fashion and pop heritage.
Finally to Marseille, city of culture 2013, which has more Muslims than anywhere else in Europe. But where there are also 80,000 Jews, 80,000 Catholic Armenians and Greek Catholics and where there is less racial tension than elsewhere in France.
It’s a port and has thrived on welcoming people from different societies. It’s also been a centre for refugees, from Italy, Spain and Germany. There’s been a tradition of diversity going back from a century or more. Plus the fact that there are beaches – natural escape valves for tension.
For Marseille write, in smaller script, Brighton where there are more languages spoken (there are over 145 language schools) and more cultures than anywhere else in Britain apart from London.
So what is multiculturalism?
It’s the way the civilised world started when people started to travel, meet and learn from each other. As Matt Ridley the science guru described creativity “it’s when ideas have sex”. It’s when different cultures have sex – as simple as that. And it leads to great art.
It would be hard to think of Shakespeare, for instance, as a one nation Briton.
“What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty"
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment