- The Guardian,
- Friday September 3 2004
You claim (Rightwing thinktank's school aims to teach traditional culture, August 31) that the school to be established by Civitas "will raise concerns that the school will promote a kind of insidious racism". The aims of the New Model School are socially inclusive. It will provide the best possible education for children from all backgrounds. Fees are being kept low and we anticipate that many of the bursaries for disadvantaged children will go to children from ethnic minorities.
The school will pass on to students a knowledge of the history and institutions of this country, a story, among other things, of the centuries-old struggle for a free and democratic society. In what sense could this approach be construed as racist? You appear to think all cultures should be given equal respect and that anyone who says otherwise can be branded a racist. This is to suppose that respect for individuals is the same thing as respect for the groups with which some people identify. Our heritage of freedom rests on the moral equality of individuals and implies support for human rights to protect individual conscience from the abuse of power.
But some group cultures are highly illiberal, attaching little or no weight to individual conscience. Salman Rushdie's experience surely taught us that. The challenge for the left is to face up to an uncomfortable fact: a culture that celebrates submission to authority is incompatible with our heritage of human rights. This reality means that we should not grant equal respect to all cultures, as multiculturalism implies. We should uphold our own culture of liberalism, rooted in moral equality, liberty and reciprocity.
Dr David Green
Director, Civitas
