Modest Success
December 16th, 1997
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 16th December 1997.
Graham Turner (news feature, Dec. 12th, 13th) may feel confident after visiting 17 primary schools, mainly in the London area, that there is no plot to destroy British identity, but the evidence of those who have been fighting the pernicious effects of multiculturalism for years in hundreds of schools is all against him.
Carole Evans may say that British identity isn’t important to her. She might reflect on the opening lines of André Maurois’s concluding chapter of Histoire d’Angleterre:
“The History of England is one of Mankind’s outstanding successes. It is instructive to probe the secret of a destiny as impressive as that of ancient Rome.”
Miss Evans might then think it is her duty as a teacher in England to pass on the tremendous national tradition which Maurois describes and which all her pupils, English and Asian, are heirs to.
Likewise, Jide Odusmia from Nigeria might try voicing impertinent opinions about Nigeria in a Nigerian newspaper and discover that free speech is still a rather special British tradition.
Marjilt Rai might reflect on the morality of promoting a language spoken by 0.2 per cent of mankind, rather than teaching children who have fled the chaos and misery of Somalia the language of their adopted land, spoken by practically every educated person on earth.
The concensus of denigration of Britain is now so widespread among teachers that only an instruction to fly the Union flag and teach and sing regularly the national anthem in schools, as in America, will start our country back on a long journey to national self-respect.
If our teachers examined the vanity of other peoples, they might appreciate the essential modesty of their own.