Accepting Difference

The speech on multiculturalism, delivered in Munich by British Prime Minister David Cameron on 5 February 2011, has been generating a good deal of discussion in the press.  Comments like ‘We need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years’ have gathered a good deal of support from some papers (e.g. The Times) while being greeted with suspicion by others (e.g. The Guardian).  Cameron was, of course, primarily criticising alleged tolerance of one very particular and small subculture, i.e. ‘extremists’ of the Islamic faith persuasion.  But multiculturalism (depending on how you define it) encapsulates far more than this one single issue.

So what does multiculturalism have to do with the usual topic for discussion on this blog, i.e. matters related to mental health?  The answer to that lies in the issue of ‘difference’.  Difference of the cultural variety may not seem obviously related to mental health.  When presented with the word ‘culture’, I suspect many of us will think either of ‘high culture’ (e.g. opera) or something vaguely connected with ‘national culture’.  But many groups have their own cultures, such as families or members of a particular profession.  And other groups are often seen as though they were a culture, such as the so-called ‘disabled community’. 

Society, very broadly speaking, can sometimes appear to regard people with mental health problems – or past sufferers of mental health problems – as if they were an identifiable cultural group.  In this way, a whole swathe of people with little or no connection to one another get marked out as ‘different’.  

David Cameron has said, '[W]e have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream.' 

Cameron was not, of course, talking about mental health.  But he may as well have been.  Because many people with present or past mental health difficulties are marked out as different by society (as are many people of certain national, ethnic or faith backgrounds) they are not really welcomed into the mainstream.  As such it is only natural that some should choose to live separately from those around them.  And by segregating themselves, they become even less welcomed by the mainstream, and so they segregate themselves further.

What has prompted me to post these observations is hearing the story of a physically disabled woman (whom I will not identify) who is so fed up with the verbal abuse she receives when venturing out into public areas that she often avoids it, feeling very uninclined to ‘integrate’ with the mainstream.  This is, no doubt, an experience she has in common with people with many conditions – mental and neurological, as well as physical.

Cameron says, ‘We need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years.’  Given that so many people, through no fault of their own, are not tolerated by much of society – passively or otherwise – leads me to conclude that this was a very unfortunate statement.  Clearly I am interpreting it in a way that was not intended, but surely politicians should be aware that the ‘enemies’ they target are not always the ones who take the hit.  I am sure this is not what Cameron wants, but many people will get (and, apparently, have got) the message that it’s good and proper to be intolerant of difference.

So when it comes to people with mental, neurological or physical difficulties (along with many other people), I say that what we need instead of ‘passive tolerance’ is ‘active acceptance’.

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Delivered Unto Lions by David Austin is published by CheckPoint Press

ISBN 978-1-906628-21-5

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