Open Writing

There are moves afoot by certain parties to try to make a single culture out of all who live in Great Britain, Australia, the United States of America, and, possibly, many other places with significant immigrant populations. The opponents of multiculturalism insist that everyone within their national boundaries take up the same culture, customs, language, thought, and dress as the long-standing population. Apart from my natural dislike of fascism as a mode of thought or government, I have another reason for favouring the richness and diversity of multiculturalism, and it is something I learned in the kitchen.

Kitchens are not particularly noteworthy as temples of inspiration for giving birth to political philosophies. Bathrooms and even smaller cubicles are often mentioned as having been the locus of Eureka moments, but the kitchen has lost out as a place of meditation and revelation. Yet, it was in a kitchen that the argument for uniculturalism was crushed, and the case for a multicultural approach to society took shape and was soon thereafter confirmed as my preference.

My experience might not have been as mystical and dramatic as Luther's "Tower Experience" in his study within the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg, but its effect was just as electrifying. Luther's encounter came as he studied Paul's letter to the Christian church at Rome, and mine came in the wake of a sudden onset of Temporomandibular Joint Disorder, TMJD for short, but other than their discrete principal elements they had striking commonalities, especially in their consequences.

Waking one morning to find my jaw tightly closed, yielding to a very slight opening that was hardly wide enough to suck air, and even that on condition of the most intense pain that I had known since my Christmas 1996 heart attack, I sought the counsel of a man of medicine who, while he did not laugh, at least not in my presence, told me that it was a classical disorder of persons advancing in age and would cost six thousand dollars to fix. It might as well have been six million dollars. I had to just get along with it the best I could until I died of starvation!

As for breakfast, I have always been an aficionado of multiculturalism. I like to take the egg of an hen, a slice of best back from a bacon pig, a cluster of fungus, a sweet red fruit of the tomato vine, and sizzle the lot in a pan until everything is crisp and to my taste. To the mix, I add some rich brown fruit sauce, a dash of sea salt, and a grinding or ten of black pepper. The result is as paradaisical as a meal can get in a place where tripe and trotters are not easily obtained.

Once my plight became known, a kind-hearted Tennessee Rose, Kathy Roberts, lent me her blender so that I could liquidise my food and suck it through a straw. That would at least stave off malnutrition. The dawning of my understanding came when I decided to liquidise a full English breakfast. I did, I told myself, deserve it and no TMJD would keep me from my merited repast. Into the blender went the perfectly cooked refection, sauce, and condiments accompanying.

Whirrrrrr, went the metal blades, and in a nonce turned the delicious confection into a mass of what can only be described as gloop. Not only did it look like gloop, but it acted like gloop, and tasted like gloop. I had made gloop out of perfectly good and edible individual components of a great Great British institution. It was as if I had taken Leonardo's Mona Lisa, ignited it, let it burn to ashes, and then sought to find in its dust what it was about it that was remarkable, artistic, and inspirational.

My breakfast was a concoction of drab and tasteless sameness that did not reflect the individual glory of its discrete parts. By themselves and in combination with their fellows they were a feast fit for a king, blended together so that every trace of their individuality was obscured in the scum the blender produced made them fit only to be consumed by the drain.

The same thing happens on the palettes of inexpert daubers who mix all their colours in one spot. The result is a muddy grey nothing. Great art is produced by artistic placing of discrete colours in juxtaposition in composition that transforms a lifeless tabula rasa into a vibrant creation that not only has life in itself, but also serves to give life and meaning to others. Mixing together the vivid colours of the rainbow, each of which is beautiful in its singular character, produces more mud.

As with foodstuffs that impart unique sights and flavours, so it is with people. The opponents of multiculturalism are social Philistines (if that is not being too hard on Philistines) whose demands that everyone looks, acts, sounds, thinks, and speaks alike should be force fed on tons of gloop for a month or so to see if they can snap themselves out of their injurious philosophy before they turn their nations into places without joy by their attempts to render pluribus into an unum that is nothing more attractive or stimulating than a sickening gloop.

For those not at ease with my kitchen epiphany, on grounds that people are not victuals, and victuals are not people, a statement with which I wholeheartedly agree, I offer an alternate theory of multiculturalism, which is based on individual worth, and individual rights of free choice to live their lives as they wish, according to their traditions, to continue to wear clothes in the custom of their homelands, and to speak the languages of their birth nations until such time as they choose to do otherwise. This right I hold to be self-evident for each person as confirmation of his or her individuality and self-identity.

If we are to countenance moves towards forcing them to adopt a definitive national character, we might as well remove their clothing, dress them in striped prison livery, take away their names and tattoo numbers on their forearms, and herd them like brute beasts, turning them this way and that as we assume complete control of their minds and bodies. God forbid!

While I do not believe that every cultural phenomenon in this wide world of ours owes its origin to the God of Heaven, I do believe that those who would force all into the monocultural Bed of Procrustes owe their inspiration from someone held to inhabit a dark region in the opposite direction of heaven. Procrustes had a house by a busy road and offered free lodging to weary travellers. His bed, he told them, fitted all who slept on it. This it did because if they were too short for his couch, he stretched them to fit it, and if too long, he severed their legs.

A similar approach to make everyone have an identical culture will be equally painful to many and possibly fatal to not a few. It is the notion that everyone should be, nay, must be, mixed and made to fit by passing them through a cultural processor that robs them of what it is that makes them - and you - unique, and which defines their humanity even as it defines your own. If you think the kitchen blender approach to multiculturalism is a good thing, then why not try my commingled Full English Breakfast and see for yourself. I guarantee that your epiphany will be just as striking and convincing as was mine.

I know that my doctrine of positive multiculturalism will not please everyone, but I have learned that there are times in life when a person of integrity has to risk taking a loss for holding fast to their principles. At those times, one has the choice of keeping one's principles and losing one's friends, or keeping one's friends by abandoning ones principles. In those trying moments, I opt for the rich and satisfying weave of the tapestry of life enriched by flowers from many gardens. Here I stand: I can do no other, and God is my witness.

Take a moment to peer through the kaleidoscope of my multicultural world, and I will tell you why I embrace it as dearly as life itself. I love the colour and bedazzlement of the Asian Mela, the swirl of the Bagpipes, Braw Bricht Moonlit Nichts, the confident swing of the Kilt, Greek Omelettes, the skirl of Northumberland Pipes, Sacred Choral Music, Irish Pipes, Yorkshire Pudding, Italian Opera, Pandas, Scots Dialect, Great Organs and Grand Pianos, George Jokl, Belgian Groenendaels, Wolves, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sharan, Jamaica Salt Fish and Ackees, Didgeridoos, Iris Murray's Bangalore Curried Chicken, Wagner, Norfolk Jackets, Shakespeare, Yurts, John McCormack, Fish and Chips, Honky Tonk Music, Shahida's Samosas, Banjos, Irish Brogue, Mahalia Jackson, Giant Saguaros, Cesar E Chavez, French Piano Accordion Music, Mariachi, Chinese Chicken and Cashew Nuts, Male Voice Choirs, Bakewell Tart, Edith Piaf, The Sands of Egypt, Richard Tauber, English Border Collies, Welsh Rarebit, George Formby, Eagles, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Mice, Hawaiian Baked Tilapia, Bangra, the View from Castle Hill, Bats of all Nationalities, Victorian Ballads, Arroz con Pollo, Irish Stew, Beethoven, Ukuleles, Cypriot Orange Orchards, Horned Lizards, Mullgathany Soup, Silken Saris, Quesadillas, Bach, Bar Mitzvoth, Smorgasbord, Willie Nelson, Mohandas K Gandhi, Spike Milligan, Irish Dancing, Purcell, Elephants, Cheongsams, Mascarpone, Frederick Ferrari, Montana, Welsh Bonnets, Eisteddfodds, Chow Mein, Folk Music, Donkeys, Broad Yorkshire, Bouzoukis, Southern Fried Fruit Pies, the Welsh lilt of Subcontinentals speaking English, Zydeco, Custard Tarts, Arab Music, Koalas, and a thousand and more gleaming spectacles, soaring sounds and tantalising tastes that are funnelled into my life by my brothers and sisters of all nations, tongues, and traditions.

Do I want to exchange all that for a gray mess of potage à la gloop? Non, gracias.

Copyright© 2006 Ronnie Bray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED