Posted on 01/21/2005 2:15:18 PM PST by quidnunc
The Government has announced that it may introduce citizenship ceremonies for all 18 year-olds, in which they would take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, listen to speeches and receive certificates to mark their coming-of-age as British citizens.
This is part of an official drive to improve ‘community cohesion’ — which, decoded, means that ministers are frightened rigid by growing tensions between Britain’s different ethnic groups and the prospect of national unity breaking down.
As ever, though, they have taken a serious problem, failed to address it properly and then attempted to cover up this failure by a prime example of gesture politics.
Their concerns about ‘community cohesion’ were ignited by the race riots in northern English towns such as Bradford and Oldham in 2001, when Muslims, Hindus and white people fought each other on the streets.
A subsequent consensus held that the problem was caused by a serious lack of integration by the Muslim community, which was in turn used by neo-Nazi groups to whip up racial hatred.
This lack of integration was highlighted this week when David Bell, the Chief Inspector of Schools, expressed concern that many Muslim schools were not teaching their children how to live in a liberal, pluralist society.
But instead of tackling this difficult problem upfront, the government is pretending it doesn’t exist by producing a cosmetic citizenship ceremony which all 18 year-olds will be expected to undergo.
Although this initiative has been devised specifically to deal with the problem of certain minorities, ministers are too frightened to say so. As a result, the rest of the population are to be employed as ethnic camouflage.
-snip-
Even if what they are doing about it isn't quite the needed solution, at least they recognize the problem. We face something similar here. Being British used to mean something. Being American meant supporting American Ideals.
As long as that's a part of it, I'd tell the The Government to go screw itself. No citizen of any country should ever have to swear an oath of allegiance to an unelected monarch.
-Dan
Rats! Been there, done that. The German people thought the Hitler Youth was a good thing too. You think they would remember after only 60 years.
God bless our troops wherever they may be.
Rats! Been there, done that. The German people thought the Hitler Youth was a good thing too. You think they would remember after only 60 years.
God bless our troops wherever they may be.
Throw the Welfare Cases that are the House of Hannover/Windsor into the English Channel.
The place hasn't been the same since the Romans left.
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