Seven years ago, on March 22, 2011, Australian Senator Cory Bernardi gave a brilliant speech in Parliament warning Australians about the unintended consequences of multiculturalism.
“I don’t want to see Australia go down the path of so many other Western democracies that are now struggling to maintain their national identity,” the Senator said. Using the United Kingdom as an example, Bernardi quoted Britain’s chief rabbi who said:
The British started seeing their own history as an irredeemable narrative of class, snobbery, imperialism, racism and social exclusion. It was in this atmosphere that, in the 1970s, multiculturalism was born. It said, there is no need to integrate and this led to the disintegration of national identity.
Multiculturalism, entered into for the noblest of reasons, has suffered from the law of unintended consequences. By dissolving the national identity, it makes it impossible for groups to integrate because there is nothing to integrate into. And by failing to offer people pride in being British, it forces them to find sources of pride elsewhere.”
You can listen to the full speech in the video below or download the transcript here.