The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu has announced that the English people must stop being embarrassed and apologetic about their past and must move past this to celebrate their identity, report the Church of England newspaper. The comments come in the week prior to the Archbishop’s enthronement in York next week on Nov. 30th.
In the summer a critique of multiculturalism was written up by the Head of the Commission of Racial Equality, Trevor Philips. Dr Sentamu has added his support to this critique during an interview with The Times newspaper. In the interview he called for a rediscovery of English cultural identity.Dr Sentamu said, “Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but don’t let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles its joys, its pains,” according to the Church of England newspaper.
The Times interview revealed Dr Sentamu’s sentiments that he would not be where he is now were it not for the British Empire and the many missionaries sent out from the UK throughout its history.
“I speak as a foreigner really. The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done. They have done some terrible things but not all the Empire was a bad idea. Because the Empire has gone there is almost the sense in which there is not a big idea that drives this nation,” said the Archbishop of York.
Dr Sentamu has been a prominent speaker on multi-cultural issues in the UK, and he has often commented that the balance of multiculturalism had gone too far.The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done.
Dr Sentamu, Archbishop of York
Backing this view, Rev Rose Hudson Wilkin, who is the Chair of the Committee for Minority Ethnic Concerns said, “A large part of the problem in this country is that white people lack confidence in their roots -- that’s why we get idiots like the British National Party and the National Front. True multiculturalism is everyone respecting and appreciating their own roots and other people’s roots as well.”
She added, “Britain is never going to be lilywhite again, but let’s move on, all acknowledging our different roots and where we’ve come from. Our children are going to play together, marry each other and have children together. The world we create for our children and grandchildren should be one in which they are all proud of their ethnic identities.”
The Archbishop of York further added his opinion that in mission to the country, the Church of England had to develop a sense to engage at deeper levels with its English culture.Dr Sentamu commented that the English people often lacked any specific-ness about its identity: “It is a culture that, whether we like it or not, has given us parliamentary democracy. It is the mother of it. It is the mother of arguing that if you want a change of government you vote them in or you vote them out.
The word ‘tolerance’ was highlighted by Dr Sentamu, and he said that its use in relation to the various different cultures in the UK was one of the problems.
He said, “I was raised in the spirit of magnanimity. That is a better word than tolerance. If you are magnanimous in your judgements on other people, there is a chance that I will recognise that you will help me in my struggle.”
In conclusion, the Archbishop told how Christianity in the country had a central role to play in English culture. He argued that the Church had to take on whole-heartedly the role of “midwife, bringing to birth possibilities of what is authentically very good in the English mind.”
Dr Sentamu will be enthroned into his position in a service next week, Wednesday Nov. 30th, 2005.
