Enoch's rant was racial
From Mr Randhir Singh Bains Sir: In his article on Enoch Powell ('What Enoch was really saying', 24 November) Simon Heffer makes some spurious claims, which need to be challenged.
First, he claims that Enoch Powell's 1968 speech was directed against multiculturalism, not race. This is absurd. The main thrust of his speech was on race, not culture; he predicted race, not cultural, riots in the future; he regarded coloured immigrants, including followers of Christian culture (West Indians), as harbingers of future social instability and paroxysm.
Heffer's second claim, that the current Muslim alienation is the result of multiculturalism, is also only partly true. Multiculturalism is indeed a contributing factor, because it failed to harness Muslim culture to core British values; but it is not the driving force behind Muslim alienation, which lies in the uncompromising and unaccommodating nature of Islam. Both of these factors have worked in tandem to generate an almost total alienation of the Muslim community. Incidentally, it also explains why other religious groups (Hindus, Sikhs. Buddhists, JaMs, etc.), multiculturalism notwithstanding, are relatively more integrated into the British mainstream than are Muslims.
Randhir Singh Bains
Gants Hill. Essex
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