Minority Ethnic and Religious Communities: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, for this debate. The Zoroastrian community is small, yet has made a significant contribution towards the economic development of the countries in which it has settled. Its members have also excelled in other diverse areas of our civic life. Their diversity, supplemented by their culture and faith, has added richness to our multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multicultural society.

History throws an interesting light on the Zoroastrian community, and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has spelt this out. We now know that there are around 250,000 individual Parsees worldwide, and some 5,000 in the UK. Zoroastrians are a small but significant minority, setting an example of tolerance and diversity. We have long cherished and considered the development of a value-driven society as a core goal. Over the years, there has been a confused debate about multiculturalism in Britain. We often shelter under expressions like, “community cohesion”, a concept which, to my mind, lacks strategic thought. Some argue that it is important to articulate a shared sense of national identity in contemporary conditions of flux and change. If so, how can we reconcile this with diversity, openness and pluralism of belief and practice?

We should look no further. The Zoroastrian community is an example we could all follow. Fixed notions of shared identity, even if they could be agreed on, are less necessary than promoting individual identity, pluralism and genuine multiculturalism. We should be proud of Britain's record in race and community relations. It is now a few decades since the establishment of the Race Relations Act 1965. We have been at the forefront of legislative and other machinery to establish equality of opportunity for all our citizens with a strong emphasis on disability, gender, age, faith and sexual orientation.

We now need to move to the next stage. We need to examine changing patterns within all our communities. True multiculturalism is proactive and means that equality and diversity is at the core of everything we do, from government to individual responsibility. We need to take a much more pro-active stance towards combating racism and discrimination, really tackling inequality in all aspects of our society in social and economic matters and in civic participation, positively valuing—not merely tolerating—the contribution of different cultures and perspectives, and treating them with respect.

Increasingly, the globalisation of the economy relies on the skills of people wherever they are available, and international migration is a key feature of ensuring that Britain benefits from the phenomenon. We have seen a steady development of the concept of human rights and the very positive step of incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law through the Human Rights Act 1998. For too long we have simply assumed that our liberties are protected by a set of traditions and customary activities assisted by a general consensus within our society about the liberty of individuals. The Zoroastrian community demonstrated that common values cannot and should not be assumed in a multicultural society. The cosy assumptions of a homogeneous consensus in which we rooted our liberties simply will not do. Cultures do not remain static. Communities change. Conflict often occurs of matters of gender, generations, religion, language and the community's relationship with the wider society.

There is nothing to be frightened about. We are already witnessing fusion in music, arts and fashion. These new emerging cultures will be exciting. Equally, the emerging third, fourth and fifth generations are British to the core. Let us accept this. In years to come, we shall ask the question, “What was all that fuss about multiculturalism?”.