When tolerance becomes intolerable

To what degree must a society be expected to abandon its age-old cultural norms in the name of 'diversity' and 'inclusion'?

Apr 08, 2024

Imagine you supported (as many of you will do) a football club. For years, you’d trek along to the stadium on matchdays; you and your fellow fans united by the common thread of your loyalty to the club’s colours, your passion for its anthems and history, your love of the terrace chants and banter, and ultimately your backing for the team on the pitch.

All of these things made you feel part of a collective – the experience, as it is for football fans the world over, as much a cultural as a competitive one.

On matchdays, a small section of the stadium would, quite reasonably, be given over to away fans, who would be perfectly welcome to display their own team’s colours and recite their terrace chants. But everyone recognised that, when it came to the official proceedings, the customs and traditions of the home team were paramount inside the stadium and would predominate on matchdays.

Some idiots on each side would occasionally spit abuse at the other team’s supporters; but most fans were decent folk who understood the arrangement and were happy to rub along together.

But then imagine that your club’s owners decided that it was no longer sufficient simply to extend a welcome to away fans and grant them the freedom to support their team and sing their songs and so on. Instead – and in keeping with the spirit of the age – the owners insisted that, henceforth, the club must officially recognise the identity of the away fans in other ways, and that the customs and traditions of these fans must be given greater expression throughout the stadium.

So, on matchdays, the away team’s colours and flags would be displayed and its chants rung out throughout all parts of the stadium, including sections of the home terraces, too. In addition, the regular ‘walk-on music’ of both sides would be played over the PA system before the match, and the usual post-goal celebratory music blasted out regardless of which team had scored. Oh, and half the printed matchday programme would contain material about the away team.

All fans would be expected to embrace this new arrangement. The away fans were a minority inside the stadium after all, and ‘inclusion’ was a good thing. It was important that ‘tolerance’ was shown and all footballing cultures celebrated. ‘Diversity is our strength’ and all that. These were now the club’s ‘values’. And, anyway, football was ultimately entertainment, wasn’t it, so why would anyone object?

But for most – probably all – home fans, these measures would almost certainly be a step too far. Being accommodating and hospitable to away fans was one thing, but didn’t there have to be a general recognition that the club’s own history and traditions should be the only ones officially recognised and promoted inside the stadium? Wouldn’t the owners’ new edict in fact mean that the entire ethos and identity of the club would be substantially – and possibly irreversibly – altered?

But what if these objecting fans were branded ‘narrow minded’ or ‘intolerant’ or ‘bigoted’ or labelled as something with the suffix -phobic attached? Wouldn’t that be grossly unfair?

Where, you might ask, am I going with this? Well, the above scenario occurred to me in the wake of various media stories that attracted widespread attention over the recent Easter period. The link with Easter was not incidental, for the stories went to the heart of the debate that continues to rumble on over the topic of multiculturalism and, in particular, the question of to what degree a society must be expected to set aside its own age-old social, cultural and religious norms – and to formally embrace others – in the name of ‘tolerance’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’.

First, there was the story that Ramadan lights were to be displayed in central London over the Easter weekend. Then it was revealed that the Scottish first minister had arranged for an Islamic call to prayer to ring out from his official residence in Edinburgh. And then on Easter Saturday we saw a ‘Ramadan break’ in a Premier League football match.

Some will have learned of these things and been quite relaxed about them, content that they – alongside countless other examples – showed a country that was becoming more tolerant, inclusive and diverse. Others will have been less sanguine, regarding each occurrence as further confirmation that Britain is undergoing a profound cultural transformation – and one with which they aren’t entirely comfortable.

My own view is that while in isolation these sorts of events do not appear to be anything to get terribly worked up about, they do more broadly stand as evidence that a deep-seated shift is indeed occurring inside our nation. I also believe that many people who are in every respect kind, decent and tolerant are justifiably uneasy about that shift.

There is, I think, a sense among these people that the far-reaching cultural changes we are witnessing do not enjoy the consent of either themselves or millions of their fellow citizens, and are invariably foisted upon us by a liberal-progressive elite that wields so much influence these days within our institutions and throughout public life generally (and for whom full-fat multiculturalism stands as a luxury, high-status belief). And this enforced transformation – which few dare openly oppose, lest they be tarred as some kind of ‘deplorable’ – duly creates a simmering resentment within many of our communities.

It would be hard to imagine, even just a decade or so ago, Ramadan lights being on official display in our capital city during the Easter period. In fact, until recently, it would probably have provoked quite a backlash. After all, one doesn’t have to be a practising Christian (I’m not) to recognise that Christianity has over many centuries been bound up with our nation’s culture and traditions – not only in the matter of personal worship, but also our laws, music, architecture, literature, customs and language – in a way that is simply unmatched by any other religion and therefore demands the primary festival in its calendar ought not to be overshadowed by anything associated with those other religions.

This was a fact recognised by even the commander-in-chief of the atheist army, Professor Richard Dawkins, in an interview he gave to LBC on Easter Sunday. Dawkins said that he was ‘slightly horrified’ to hear of the Ramadan lights affair and went on to describe Britain as a ‘Christian country’ and himself a ‘cultural Christian’ who loved hymns and Christmas carols. Though ‘not a believer’, Dawkins felt ‘at home in the Christian ethos’ and thought it would be ‘truly dreadful’ if Christianity in Britain were supplanted by another religion. Asked if he considered it problematic that Islam was expanding across Europe while church attendance was plummeting, Dawkins replied, ‘Yes, I do … If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time. It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion, in a way that I think Islam is not.’

The professor attracted some flak from Christians on the grounds that a Christian culture could hardly be expected to survive if the founding narrative on which it rests – namely that Jesus Christ was the son of God and rose from the dead – is dismissed as false. Well, perhaps. But I suspect that millions across the country actually share Dawkins’ sentiment that the moral precepts and culture of Christianity can and should be embraced even if its miracles and mysticisms are denied. I also suspect that these millions believe that, while freedom of religion is a fundamental right that must be cherished and defended, we should be unapologetic about saying that if any religion is to be officially recognised and promoted inside our country, such as by our state institutions, that religion should be Christianity and no other.

And I might ask: what is so terribly wrong with that? Why should a nation that is still a Christian one – at least in a formal sense – feel compelled to constantly bend the knee to alternative religions and cultures? Why aren’t we bold enough to say, ‘This is our history and culture; we unashamedly rank it above all others; and we encourage every citizen to share in it.’

If there were no downsides from the alternative approach of actively promoting separateness and difference (for that is what state-sponsored multiculturalism ultimately amounts to), we could perhaps afford to be relaxed about things. But we all know, if we are honest with ourselves, that there are considerable downsides, and we see them played out daily.

I’m not talking about ‘no-go’ areas, or ‘powderkeg’ communities, or that kind of unhelpful alarmism. But it is undeniable that our country is, in a social and cultural sense, more fragmented than it has ever been, and that social solidarity – the ingredient so vital to a cohesive, high-trust society – is waning, as people feel they have less and less in common with their fellow citizens. Different ethnic and religious groups inhabiting the same town will often lead entirely parallel lives, not necessarily being hostile to each other, but simply not interacting, and occasionally eyeing each other with suspicion.

Not only has public policy over many years failed to arrest this shift, it has positively fomented it. We went for the salad bowl over the melting pot and are now paying a heavy price for it.

So far has the axis moved on this debate in recent years that to even draw attention to these realities, and to argue that we need to get back to promoting a universal culture and fostering common bonds, is to stand accused of adopting the politics of the far-right. But that charge is nothing short of fatuous. Look, for instance, to a country like Japan, which unapologetically defends its culturally homogeneity and does not obsess about promoting alternative cultures at every turn. No-one could argue that Japan is a far-right country. On the contrary, it is a highly-civilised, peaceable and largely safe country governed by the rule of law and whose constitution enshrines freedom of assembly and association and expressly outlaws racial and religious discrimination.

Or we could listen to the words of author and political commentator Konstantin Kisin, who grew up in the Soviet Union before settling in Britain with his parents. In a recent interview with the former deputy prime minister of Australia John Anderson, Kisin denounced the whole concept of multiculturalism. He saw a multi-ethnic society as a good thing, but argued that such a society could not work if ‘everyone is encouraged to stick to their own and think the way that their parents thought in the country from which they came. It works if there is an overarching identity, and we say, “I may have been born in Russia; you may have been born in Australia … and we all come to Britain, and we become British.”’

Kisin went on to describe how, when the family arrived in England, his parents had discouraged him from mixing only with a small group of fellow Russian speakers at his school and had told him, ‘You didn’t come here to be a “Russian in Britain”. You came here to be part of this society.’

In Kisin’s view, ‘Multiculturalism has failed because it has failed to recognise the difference between a multi-ethnic society where everyone is encouraged to be one thing and a society where we have no desire for you to integrate.’

Who dare suggest to Kisin, a successful immigrant who understands what it means to integrate and plainly feels a deep affinity with Britain, that he has got it wrong?

All of which brings me back to football. For I’m not sure that the two scenarios – between a football club and a nation – are terribly dissimilar. In particular, both give rise to the fundamental question of to what degree adherents to a dominant and longstanding culture should be expected to put up with the deliberate dilution of that culture and its associated traditions and customs not because the majority have chosen for that to happen, but simply in order to promote diversity and inclusion.

Paul Embery

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