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The Big Asterisk Next To Multiculturalism

May 21, 2008
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Politics & Current Events

Resolved: notwithstanding the diagrams that multiculturalism seminar organizers draw on flip charts, a tradition, habit, or belief is not admirable or worthy of respect simply because it comes from another culture or country or from people who look different than us.

Case in point:

Gambia — pardon me, The Gambia — is definitely not fabulous.

Rather, it is frightening.

President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, on Thursday, gave less than 24 hours (until last week Friday) ultimatum to homosexuals, drug dealers, thieves and other criminals, to leave The Gambia or face serious consequences if caught.

The president equally warned all those who harbour such individuals to kick them out of their compounds, noting that a mass patrol will be conducted on the instructions of the IGP and the director of the Gambia Immigration Department to weed bad elements in society. "Any hotel, lodge or motel that lodges this kind of individuals will be closed down, because this act is unlawful. We are in a Muslim dominated country and I will not and shall never accept such individuals in this country".

Though this was a promising beginning if President Jammeh wanted a writing gig at TownHall, he quickly put the hair on the cake:

He pointed to the public markets within KM which are dominated by foreigners, saying "all stores belonging to Gambians and rented to forigners would be seized. We are tired of investing for only foreigners to the benefits."

That's going to lose you your neocons, Prez. But he's clearly a forward thinker on health care:

Last year he horrified scientists by announcing that he had developed a "miracle cure" for HIV/AIDS.

Hundreds of Gambians lined up to be "cured" by President Jammeh, who treats his patients by rubbing a mysterious herbal paste into their ribcages and then instructing them to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.

The therapy is administered repeatedly over several weeks.

According to Mr Jammeh, AIDS sufferers are cured within "three to thirty days."

The President announced his alleged cure in January to a gathering of perplexed foreign diplomats.

"Whatever you do there are bound to be skeptics, but I can tell you my method is foolproof," he said.

"Mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It is a declaration. I can cure AIDS and I will."

Government radio and TV addresses publicised the treatment, which Jammeh provides for free.

It has the backing of the Gambian Health Ministry.

Thankfully there's a vigorous free press in The Gambia to fight all this nonsense, right? Right?

Hey, here's a stern column from The Gambia's Daily Observer!"

Yes, here they go again at the Daily Observer jumping on the President’s bandwagon – we hear some of you moan. Well, moan some more because we think this President of ours keeps saying exactly what we think here at the Daily Observer.

Uh-oh.

Look, we are not interested in stoning anyone, even homosexuals. What our President is saying, and we agree with him totally ("as usual" I hear you moan!) is this: Ours is a society guided by religious principles.

Those religious principles leave no room for homosexuality. Sex and marriage in our culture is between man and woman. Sex and marriage between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, is viewed as irreligious and gross by the vast majority of our people here (just as in the West they would view sex and marriage between a man and a goat)!

So, please respect our religions, cultures and traditions by keeping your homosexuality out of our country.

Wow. It's like the Wall Street Journal op-ed page all over again.

Anyway, there's a multi-culti notion that I'm supposed to respect this, because The Gambia is flourishing its culture or something and I'm imposing my straight dead white rich male values on it or something. Horseshit. This is ugly bigotry. The presence of ugly bigotry of different types in America does not make ugly bigotry in The Gambia any more attractive.

Via.

Last 5 posts by Ken

3 Comments
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3 Comments

  1. Andrew  •  May 21, 2008 @6:35 am

    I'm not sure what "multi-culti notion" you're reacting to here, Ken. I don't see the PC Police breaking anyone's doors down because they criticized the dictator of Gambia as a megalomaniacal freak who controls the press. And I don't recall hearing usual lefty crowd saying that Africa's pervasive homophobia (which extends well beyond Gambia) is OK.

  2. Ken  •  May 21, 2008 @11:46 am

    Which is sort of my point, Andrew. No one is marching on college campuses in favor of clitorectomies or jailing Saudi women who drive. To the extent its adherents claim that multiculturalism is about practices being entitled to respect based on their foreign provenance, they are fudging.

  3. Andrew  •  May 21, 2008 @12:42 pm

    I think you're arguing against a straw man here, though. Multiculturalism as I understand (and try to practice) it is about two things:

    1. Judging cultural practices on their own merits — not valuing or devaluing a given practice just because it is or isn't part of a particular culture (this is the college-kids-protesting-because-the-Armenian-Studies- budget-was-cut side of things).

    2. Believing that a diversity of cultures leads to a richer and stronger society (this is where the cloying, touchy-feely grade school stuff comes in).

    Nothing in there about having to like something just because it's from overseas. I guess there's probably a handful of people in the whinging, multi-culti, lefty crowd who would make that case. But those people are morons. Most of us are reasonably intelligent, whinging, multi-culti lefties.