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Published on open Democracy News Analysis (http://www.opendemocracy.net)

Multinational and Multicultural Britain

By Philip Hosking
Created 2008-06-27 17:00

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat [1]): In light of the heated debate around
multiculturalism [1] and following recent racist incidents [2] in our Cornish duchy the letter
extract below from the Cornish branch of the Celtic League [3] - An Kesunyans Keltek Kernow -
concurs with a number of contributors to OK who like myself have called for intercultural
dialogue between regional/national cultures and new minority groups. The Cornish, Scottish,
Englishness, Welsh and perhaps English regional identities do not have to be exclusive, let
there be a thousand Cornwall's and a thousand ways of being Cornish. In the same manner as
Britishness they could be valued and used as the back bones to civic and inclusive societal
projects, with the added bonus of course of having no imperial connotations and a lot more
historical precedent than the UK, a Kingdom rather than nation.

The healthy rivalry between the home nations binds their communities together. Could a nest of
competing and cooperating civic national projects within these isles integrate new peoples in a
more effective manner? Worries that this would make Britain redundant are largely unfounded;
we are an archipelago after all which necessitates cooperation and perhaps also a shared
insular identity of a love / hate nature.

The extract:

The Celtic League out rightly condemns any racist attack against members of other ethnic
communities in Cornwall and elsewhere, even if they are only, for the moment, in the form of
graffiti. Even though it was probably only a small number of people who were responsible for
dubbing the graffiti and that the vast majority of people in Cornwall would equally condemn the
attacks, it may nevertheless be prudent for Cornwall Council, along with members of the Devon
and Cornwall Police Constabulary and other public bodies, to begin a campaign or series of
events to encourage members of Cornwall's public to engage in intercultural dialogue.

As you may be aware, 2008 is the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue and is also an area
that the European Union has been promoting for many years within Europe and beyond. The
aim of the project is to forge and develop good relations between members of different cultural
groups. (More information, including some ideas, can be found at the link below). Relating to the
Year for Intercultural Dialogue events could be organised between members of different ethnic
groups throughout Cornwall, in an attempt to promote cultural dialogue and understanding. In
the other Celtic countries, where such programs have been implemented, the results have been
very encouraging.

We are aware of some small scale programs in Cornwall that aim to promote intercultural
understanding e.g. Redruth Polish Society, but the Celtic League believes that a Cornwall wide
approach is needed to overcome the bigotry and prejudice among some people that has
manifested itself in the graffiti at Quenchwell.

The Celtic League is committed to combating racism and in 2001 at its AGM in Cymru endorsed
the aims and objectives of the (United Nations) 'World Conference against Racism [4]'. Rhisiart

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Tal-e-bot
General Secretary

Source URL:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/philip-hosking/2008/06/27/
multinational-and-multicultural-britain

Links:
[1] http://thecornishdemocrat.blogspot.com/
[2] http://mebyonkernow.blogspot.com/2008/06/attack-on-quenchwell-chapel.html
[3] http://celticleague.net/
[4] http://www.un.org/WCAR/

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