Cultural relativism is a sham

The rape gangs scandal has exposed the failures of multiculturalism.

It’s very easy to judge the past, particularly when you’re on the ‘right side of history’. What supreme confidence it must take to assume that all previous generations had got it so wrong, and that humanity was simply waiting for you to turn up and set them straight.

And yet isn’t it curious that so many who like to judge the values and behaviour of people in the past are also rarely willing to turn that critical eye on other cultures that exist today? According to the principle of cultural relativism, all societies and ways of life are equal. So we must not assert that we are morally better to a culture that permits the genital mutilation of children or that denies women an education, but we may assume that we are highly superior to the Ancient Greeks.

This debate has become particularly relevant with the recent explosion of interest in the rape gangs scandal. A report by Professor Alexis Jay in 2022 determined that more than 1,400 young girls were raped and abused in the period between 1997 and 2013 by what became known as the ‘grooming gangs’, so called because of the manipulative tactics that were employed to gain the victims’ trust. These groups comprised mostly of men of Pakistani heritage, which led many authorities to overlook the severity of the crimes.

Consider this example from a speech delivered by Andrew Norfolk, reporter for the Times. When police discovered a 13-year-old girl, drunk and mostly naked in the company of seven Pakistani men, they arrested her and failed to question any of the adults.

Police have admitted that such failures to investigate were largely down to a desire to avoid allegations of racism. The Jay report noted that several members of local council staff ‘described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so’. Politicians and media commentators were more concerned with maintaining the fantasy that multiculturalism has been a success, rather than taking seriously their obligation to safeguard children. When Julie Bindel - the first journalist to investigate the grooming gangs - tried to publish her findings, she faced resistance ‘because some editors feared an accusation of racism’.

The Labour government has shown itself incapable of making amends. Jess Phillips has rejected a request for a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham. And Keir Starmer has stated that anyone interested in a full-scale inquiry into these failings is jumping ‘on a bandwagon of the far right’.

This acute form of tone-deafness would, in any sound political climate, be cause for immediate resignation. While it is true that racists will be quick to weaponise the criminal behaviour of a minority, there is nothing remotely ‘far right’ in taking an interest in the wellbeing of children and wishing to see those who abuse them held to account. But Starmer is a banshee of a prime minister; he makes a terrible noise but is completely lacking in substance.

Something may change with the release this week of crime league tables according to nationality. Up until now, there has been tremendous political resistance to releasing such statistics, with police in many European countries not recording such details at all in order to preserve the daydream of multiculturalism. And yet those that do keep such records have revealed a clear trend. Data from the Danish government, for instance, has shown that although non-Western immigrants constitute only 9% of the population, they account for 25% of convictions for violent crime. According to the Telegraph, in Sweden immigrants are ‘three times more likely to be registered as a suspect for assault than the native population – which grows to four times for robbery, and five times for rape’.

And now, in the UK, data from the police forces, the Home Office and the Office for National Statistics has been analysed by the Centre for Migration Control. The results are startling. We now know that foreign nationals are three times more likely to be arrested for sexual offences, and twice as likely for all other crimes. This table from the Home Office shows the top rates of arrests according to nationality (per one thousand of the population).

This presents a challenge to those of us who believe in liberal values. We might factor in relative poverty as contributing to the rates, but this in itself cannot possibly account for the wild disproportionality. Our history of supporting those fleeing from war or oppression is something we should cherish, but at the same time citizenship should be contingent on successful integration. This isn’t to say that immigrants ought to dispense with their own beliefs or practices, but it does mean that they must adapt to the rule of law of the host nation.

We all know that multiculturalism has failed. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said as much back in 2010, before she embarked upon a disastrous policy of unchecked immigration. Too often ‘multiculturalism’ is mistaken for ‘multiethnicity’, when they could not be more different. A multi-ethnic society is one in which people of all races are able to coexist together in peace and cooperation as equal citizens under the law. A multi-cultural society is one in which people are encouraged to ghettoise themselves according to national or cultural identity.

This has been a catastrophe not only for social cohesion but also for individual agency. In 2016, when prime minister David Cameron announced a £20 million fund for English lessons for the 22% of Muslim women in the UK who could not speak the language, he was accused of ‘stigmatising’ a marginalised group. In truth, he was doing the opposite. Women in Islamic communities are disproportionately impacted by the failed multicultural system, because encouraging parallel societies only benefits the most powerful within them. Sharia courts in the UK, for instance, have always favoured men over women, and yet they are allowed to continue.

Cultural relativism has never been defensible. We are right to condemn slavery wherever and whenever it has existed, and we should have the confidence to do so. Likewise, we should be assertive in our view that a culture that treats women and gay people as subhuman is not morally equivalent to one that does not. This is not about asserting ‘supremacy’ of either a racial or religious kind, it’s about treating all human beings in the same way, irrespective of their place of origin or immutable characteristics.

Some cultural values are superior to others, and it should not be controversial to say so. True inclusivity and equality means holding everyone to the same standards. This realisation has come too late to save the victims of the rape gangs scandal, but at least the illusion of multiculturalism as a societal good has finally been dispelled.

---