Britain: “We want to die—faster, please!”

In America radical multiculturalists have from time to time proposed that multicultural curricula be extended beyond history, social studies, and literature to inform every subject field and every lesson within that subject field. To my knowledge, this insane totalitarian idea has never been fully instituted. But today in Britain, it is not just some whacked-out minority multiculturalists, but the British government itself, represented by Lord This and Sir That and Minister Such and Such, that is seeking to require such a radical multicultural approach for every school in Britain.

Because of the maddening vagueness that characterizes both British government statements and British journalism, it is not possible to tell for sure from the Daily Mail’s article if these changes have been ordered, or are merely being proposed. Thus the first sentence of the article says:

Children will be taught race relations and multiculturalism with every subject they study—from Spanish to science—under controversial changes to the school curriculum announced by the Government.

“Changes … announced” by the government sounds like a done deal. But a little further on the article says:

Under the recommendations—put forward in a report by former headmaster Sir Keith Ajegbo—teachers will be expected to make ‘explicit references to cultural diversity’ in as many subjects as possible.

“Recommendations” in a “report” is not a done deal. The ambiguity evidently never occurred to the Daily Mail’s reporter and editors. Today’s journalists process words the way pigs eat slop. I’m sorry to insult pigs, who are admirable creatures, by comparing them to journalists.

However, while such “super-multiculturalism” genuinely expresses the desire of the British elites that Britain die, I think the proposal is so extreme and unworkable that it will never be instituted. There are, after all, limits to what human beings can pull off.

Here is the article.

New curriculum will ‘make every lesson politically correct’
By LAURA CLARK 25th January 2007

Children will be taught race relations and multiculturalism with every subject they study -from Spanish to science—under controversial changes to the school curriculum announced by the Government.

In music and art, they could have to learn Indian and Chinese songs and instruments, and West African drumming.

In maths and science, key Muslim contributions such algebra and the number zero will be emphasised to counter Islamophobia.

And in English, pupils will study literature on the experiences of migration—such as Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, or Brick Lane, by Monica Ali.

One critic accused Education Secretary Alan Johnson of ‘politicising’ lessons with the new agenda. Tory MP Douglas Carswell, a member of the Commons education select committee, said schools will be vehicles for multicultural propaganda and classrooms turned into ‘laboratories for politically-correct thought’.

Mr Johnson was also attacked over attempts to put Britishness on the curriculum as it emerged that suggested core values are so woolly they could apply to many countries.

With concerns that standards in the three Rs are unacceptable, ministers will also face accusations that they are diverting attention away from vital subjects.

Under the recommendations—put forward in a report by former headmaster Sir Keith Ajegbo -teachers will be expected to make ‘explicit references to cultural diversity’ in as many subjects as possible.

A new central theme covering ‘identity and diversity’ will be added to citizenship classes, which have been compulsory since 2002.

Pupils should be encouraged to discuss topics such as immigration, the legacy of the British Empire, the Commonwealth and the EU.

Teaching on immigration, including recent population movement from Eastern Europe, should touch on the benefits it brings to the economy and society, while also bringing ‘political discontent and criticism’.

Pupils could even be tested on their attitudes to diversity in A-level and GCSEs, which will be redrafted to ensure they include ‘issues related to diversity’.

But Professor Alan Smithers, of the University of Buckingham, asked: ‘Do the Government have in mind a Britishness test for youngsters born in this country, as they do with people who arrive from other countries?’

Meanwhile, information technology lessons would involve joint Web projects or video-conferencing with youngsters around the world.

Sir Keith, whose report was commissioned following last July’s suicide bomb attacks in London, warned that brubrils could become ‘disaffected’ and ‘alienated’ if they felt unable to discuss cultural issues in subject areas. [cont.]

- end of initial entry -

MJ writes:

About your post on British “multi-culturalist” education, I have already seen something along these lines at a friend’s house. This was a British textbook which taught science teachers how to teach science from a “non-racist” perspective. The textbook was some years old.

I thumbed through the book and found an interesting segment on sanitation and sterializing water. The “lesson” was to show children that British methods for sterializing water were really “no better” than traditional African methods, by showing them how much bacteria still remained in treated British tap water.

No mention of course that cholera and other deadly water-borne diseases rage in Africa but not in Britain.

The textbook was truly insane, on the level of something you would see out of Soviet Russia in the 1930s, celebrating the scientic “successes” of TS Lysenko, the famous Soviet scientific fraud.

The purpose of course is not only to destroy our Western civilizational confidence, but also our technological advances—which stand in stark contrast to the technological achievements of the rest of the world over the past 600 years.

Larry G. writes:

“In music and art, they could have to learn Indian and Chinese songs and instruments, and West African drumming.”

Ignoring their own classical British music, such as that of Elgar, which I find among the world’s most beautiful.

“In maths and science, key Muslim contributions such algebra and the number zero will be emphasised to counter Islamophobia.”

Yes, the Arabs produced the zero, and they have continued to produce zero ever since. (Unlike the author, I know it was the Indians who invented zero, but then the joke doesn’t work.) Enough students are afraid of algebra already, I doubt it would help for them to start seeing bloodthirsty jihadists behind it all.

“And in English, pupils will study literature on the experiences of migration-such as Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, or Brick Lane, by Monica Ali.”

Ignoring Harding, Kipling, definitely Orwell, and all the British classics.

“Under the recommendations-put forward in a report by former headmaster Sir Keith Ajegbo …”

THERE’S a great British name. (Not.) So the future “well educated” Britain will be the perfect subject for his totalitarian overlords. He will know lots of pseudo factoids about things that don’t matter at all to his life or his nation, while the remnants of his nation’s heart and soul will be actively kept from him, except when needed to serve as an object of hatred.

I’m more convinced than ever that the second Muslim country with nuclear weapons will not be Iran, but Britain.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 27, 2007 10:28 PM | Send