Multiculturalism or Eugenics?

Is multiculturalism another form of eugenics or social engineering? Many of us who are donor-conceived, particularly between the 1930s and 1970s, realise that eugenics played a part in our conception, but another story in the Timesonline 16^th November 2009, is very sad and perhaps related to our plight.

I had heard about the forced migration of children from the UK to Australia but did not realise the true consequences until I heard about the apology from the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and proposed apology from Gordon Brown. These migrations of children from children’s homes or taken from unmarried mothers, occurred during the 1930s to 1970s. They were separated from their country of origin and families, told they would have a better life in Australia and then sent to institutions there.

Children were placed in UK orphanages for a number of reasons, but often because one parent had died and the remaining parent had to work and could not look after younger children. Many of these children had older siblings. In some cases “orphans” were told that their parents had died when this was not true. The institutions in Australia were sometimes much worse than those in the UK and they were physically and sexually abused as well as being exploited for work. In those days Australia, in particular, wanted white migrants from particular areas of the world such as Britain, who could add to the workforce.

As they grew up, the migrants tried to get in touch with their wider families back home but at every stage they were obstructed and often lied to. Seeing these migrants, many of them quite elderly now, was an emotional experience as they still felt, all these years later, the wrench from the life they had known and the separation from their families, culture and history. One woman questioned why they had been sent away while Britain had then later allowed and encouraged so much immigration from other parts of the world. It made no sense to her.

In the last few years there has been a very definite move towards multi-culturalism. Naturally most people in this country think that we should get on with and understand people from other cultures. Racism is nasty and cruel as we all know. However, a lot of these moves to encourage immigration were not only political but also motivated by odd, personal reasons, in order to make Britain a multicultural experiment. In GCSE English exams it was possible to pass an English exam without encountering any English poetry. All the poetry studied was written by non-English nationals. Most of us are proud of the number of different nationalities which go to make up our background but we perhaps question the motives of government initiatives either to restrict or widen our national racial mix artificially for political reasons.

The other themes which permeate this sad tale of forced migration are firstly, the total disregard of the importance of everyone’s genetic roots, nationality, culture, history and family. The second theme which comes to the fore is the total disregard for the children. As children they didn’t matter; they existed to meet the needs of other people and could be used like pawns in a game of chess. Donor-conceived offspring can totally sympathise with their overwhelming sense of loss and their frustration at dealing with hostile authorities who use secrecy to justify their dubious actions.