Move over St George - Time for 'Diversity Day'
I HOPE you enjoyed St George's Day.
Sadly, not everybody was allowed to.
You may have seen that one local council banned St George's Day celebrations for fear that they would be 'divisive'.
No flags could be flown from the town halls, red-and-white bunting was banned from public buildings, and headteachers had to fill in a 'diversity awareness' form to show they had not celebrated St George's Day.
A spokesman for the council said: "Traditional St George's Day celebrations are inappropriate and divisisive. Instead, the council will hold a special Diversity Day this summer.
"Schools will be encouraged to suspend regular classes for the day while pupils recite passages from the Qur'an and sample traditional South Asian cuisine."
You couldn't make it up.
I did make it up, of course. But in some ways I kind of wish I hadn't.
Because this story is the kind of thing newspapers wish they could report, knowing there's an intense public appetite for it.
I seem to remember a non-story in Kirklees a while back, with councillors of one party accusing their opponents of banning the Union Jack from town halls.
It turned out there was no such ban.
But you can imagine if you were an opposition councillor, how delighted you'd be if the ruling party did ban the Union Jack out of deference to 'diversity'.
It would be like the highest of horses had been saddled up just for you, to ride all the way to electoral victory.
Some people are never happier than when they can work themselves up with the perception that their way of life is threatened.
If St George's Day was celebrated in a more self-conscious manner this year it could be because many people do feel their way of life is being diluted by other cultures. That 'diversity' is a cause for celebration is not necessarily a given.
I've come across people who simply don't like it that what was once their local fish and chip shop now sells takeaway curries.
When you point out that they can still get fish and chips two minutes' walk down the road, or that the curry place does pretty good fish and chips, this is no consolation; the change itself is bad news.
I'm a passionate supporter of our right to insult, ridicule and offend other cultures. But I'm glad I live in a country that has many people unlike myself in it. And I think it's important that we learn about other cultures and religions. It does non-Muslims good to visit a mosque now and then - so long as they retain the freedom not to admire everything they might see there.
I suppose that makes me a fan of 'diversity', although I think there's something a bit un-British about 'celebrating' it (just as aggresively celebrating St George's Day doesn't seem very English).
Multi-culturalism can only work when all sides resist the urge to impose their way of life on others and accept each other's right to be different.
Diversity is a fact of modern Britain. It might even be a virtue, though we can hardly expect everyone to see it that way.
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Weather for Cleckheaton
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -6 C to 2 C
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Sunny spells
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