Birmingham Post: Is home where the heart is - or is it just where you live?

Yesterday saw the Birmingham Post print the first of my regular column pieces. Just in case you're interested, it's published in the 'Agenda' section:

"Is home where the heart is - or is it just where you live?"

Questions about citizenship and belonging have never been more intense than they are today. 7/7, immigration, new equality legislation, citizenship tests and the burgeoning war on terror have all had an impact on what it seems we as a society thinks it means to say that you ‘belong’.

Being born in London, it’s interesting to see how my children – all born in the Midlands – unquestionably belong here. They also have a really strong emotional attachment to the place, something I admit I probably lack. Yet nonetheless, I like almost 80% of the population, according to the Government’s Citizenship Survey, feel as though I belong in my local area quite irrespective of whether I have that emotional attachment or not.

Almost unexplainably, my attachment remains with London: Bermondsey in particular. Towards the south-east of the Thames, Bermondsey connects to the City via Tower Bridge (the one an American never bought and never rebuilt in the Arizona desert). It is where I was born, lived and went to school: it’s also where many of family died. Home to the Tabard Inn, a la Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ and regular haunt of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Little Dorrit (was there a ‘Big’ Dorrit?), Bermondsey today is a regeneration oasis of warehouse apartments and ‘Location, Location’ style residencies punctuated by the relics of my Bermondsey, the sprawling council estates that ooze poverty and deprivation. Despite it nearing twenty years since I last lived there, this is the Bermondsey that keeps my heart emotionally attached. My head though tells me that today’s Bermondsey is far from where I belong.

My head then tells me where is ‘home’. Given that I now live here, work here, my children go to school here and may even eventually die here (fingers crossed, later rather than sooner) the Midlands is where I belong. Given that I neither participate in anti-social behaviour nor do I have a penchant for criminal activity – yes, I am that boring – I guess I’m also a ‘good citizen’. All this whilst remaining a Londoner by definition.

To what extent then is an emotional attachment to elsewhere a barrier to belonging? And why do we worry so about people maintaining their identities or keeping a part of the heritage in their hearts? For me, whether the heart is attached to Mogadishu or Moseley, Kingston or Kingstanding, Warsaw or Weoley, Bermondsey or Bournville, it doesn’t stop your head from telling you where you belong. Yet in our quest for greater citizenship and belonging, we make unnecessary demands of those whose hearts may always be elsewhere: to ‘prove’ they belong, to ‘prove’ they are citizens, to ‘prove’ they are British.

For many who have an attachment outside the UK or maybe even just look as though they do - despite them being second, third or even fourth generation British-born - we make their experience difficult. Many will face interrogation and scrutiny, others unfounded mistrust and some even downright xenophobia in trying to make Britain their home. Irrespective of what their heads tell them therefore, it’s what we as a society tell them that will make the ultimate difference.

Due to the climate we currently live in, we don’t give people the opportunity to make this their home. Because of this many will never feel that they truly belong or that they can ever be citizens of a vibrant, diverse and dynamic Britain. And neither their hearts nor their heads will tell them anything different no matter how much we force-feed them messages to the contrary.

BRAP 'DNA' - Does Not Accept - Watson's Racist Ranting

A BRAP release distributed yesterday in response to Dr James Watson's racist outpourings:

"BRAP refute some of the ideas voiced by the American DNA pioneer Dr James Watson. In Britain to promote his new book, Dr Watson - who won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA – has claimed that black people are less intelligent than white people, that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". He also suggests that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He added that whilst he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true".

BRAP have argued in our briefing paper, “The social construction of race” (available to download free from www.brap.org.uk) that there are as many theories to inform the perspective that ‘race’ is a social construct - a view that is backed up by a wealth of recent social and scientific research - as indeed there are those that suggest it is biological.

Perpetuating these ideas under the guise or legitimacy of pseudo-science is extremely dangerous as indeed history has sought to prove. In doing so, Dr Watson is not only fanning the flames of controversy – possibly to generate interest in his new book – but is contributing to the persistence of a discredited and deeply divisive concept. It is a shame that such an eminent individual should allow his own irrational prejudices to overshadow such an acclaimed and distinguished scientific record. It will be even more of a shame if some seek to use this same scientific record to legitimise the notion that ‘race’ is a biological reality.

BRAP is committed to challenging and responding to both our own and to other people’s thinking around equalities and human rights. We see it as a crucial mechanism through which we question our past and current approach to tackling the causes and effects of racism and all other forms of discrimination in today’s society."

A Message to the CEHR

The 1st October sees the launch of the new Commission on Equalities and Human Rights (CEHR). This new body will bring together the work of the now defunct Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) to champion the cause to reduce inequality, eliminate discrimination, strengthen good relations between people and protect human rights. Bringing together, for the first time, all of the various equalities strands – race, disability, gender, age, religion and belief, and sexual orientation – it will seek to take an active role in helping to achieve change to benefit some of the most vulnerable and least well represented people in our society.

Although we are optimistic about the potential for the new Commission to provide our country with opportunities to refresh our thinking and practice on issues of equality, there is evidence that the inequalities gap is widening and we fear that a unique opportunity to make a real difference will be lost. If it is, then so too will the chance to conscientiously address the discrimination and inequality that affect the everyday lives and experiences of those many British people that exist at the sharp end of society. Because of this, discrimination and inequality thus blights all our lives.

To ensure we do not lose this opportunity, we need to move away from the recent preoccupation with ‘identity’ and ‘single’ identity politics: a point made in the Commission on Integration & Cohesion report, Shared futures. The constant focus on ‘Muslims’, for example, has meant that the ‘problem’ of extremism has become something that is seen to be about ‘them’ rather than ‘us’. Not only does this hinder the need for society as a whole to take a shared responsibility for equalities issues, but it also creates misunderstandings and barriers between us. As regards extremism in particular, this preoccupation with identity also obscures, rather than illuminates: acts of terrorism are criminal acts, committed by individuals, quite irrespective of the ideology they allege to purport. For the CEHR, continuing to focus on identity rather than inequality will be both incongruent and counter-productive, weakening rather than strengthening the kind of social cohesion most of us – including the Government - want to see: one where who I am will make me more disadvantaged than who you are.

Transitions are never easy. The CEHR should lead the way, pre-empting the typical knee-jerk responses by identifying the commonalities that exist between us: our commonalities as human beings first and foremost. To be successful, it must address the ‘issues’: those current barriers that prevent all of us from being treated equally. These are not necessarily going to be the same ‘issues’ as before, so letting go of the past will be a major hurdle.

With the establishment of the CEHR, we look forward to the challenges ahead and the opportunity to work together to extend and strengthen our shared understanding of what it is to be a citizen of Britain in the 21st century. To do this, we must not allow the crucial debates to be lost: the stakes are too high and the potential rewards too great.

(This entry will form the basis of a press release from brap due 1 October 2007)

The North Wind and the Sun

The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.
They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.
Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;
And at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak.
And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

Muslim Diversities - volumes II & III

Call for Abstracts
MUSLIM DIVERSITIES volumes II & III: 'Circumstances & Change' and 'Conformity & Conflict' respectively

The 'Muslim Diversities' series offers a comprehensive exploration of the diversities that constitute the contemporary Islamic and Muslim social, political, economic and theological landscapes around the world, challenging and deconstructing the assumption of homogeneity that pervades contemporary understandings of what constitutes today's 'Islam' and 'Muslims'. Each of its three volumes seek to present a wide range of critically engaged and innovatively informed perspectives, drawn from contributors in Britain, Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Australia. With the first volume 'Communities & Contexts' due for publication in early 2008, volume II entitled 'Circumstances & Change' will focus on the transitions that Muslim communities around the word are currently undergoing, in the context of new and historical factors - both external and internal - that have been the impetus for socio-economic, geo-political, geographic and demographic change. Volume III, 'Conformity and Conflict' will critically explore the key issues and tensions that currently affect contemporary Muslim communities, considering the relative bi-polarity of how these are manifested, particularly in terms of those who experience tension or are in a state of flux. With all three volumes scheduled for publication by late 2008, the series intends to stimulate new thinking across a range of relevant and timely issues.

Innovative and interdisciplinary chapters for volumes II and III are now being invited. Focusing upon a specific community (which can be understood in terms of a community, organisation, group or other entity whether broadly or more narrowly), both established academics and postgraduates as well as practitioners from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds are encouraged to submit an abstract of no more than 500 words. To do so, you might wish to consider some of the following indicative - rather than exhaustive - thematic strands in terms of either 'circumstance and change' or 'conformity and conflict':

- 'External' political issues and factors including the geo-political, e.g. integration, assimilation, belonging, globalised 'events' including 'war on terror' (especially localised consequences)
- 'Internal' political issues, factors and movements, e.g. 'Islamification', mobilisation and politicisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Stop the War (Muslim contingent)
- Community issues and foci, e.g. tensions between different communities and/or generations, representation (political and other), sexuality, gender
- Demographic and socio-economic change and influence, e.g. the shift from rural to urban, growing/shrinking communities, 'class'
- Manifestations and expressions of religiosity, faith and identity, e.g. orthodox, liberal, 'moderate' or 'mainstream', 'radical' or 'fundamentalist', 'British' 'Euro' Islam etc
- Communication and media networks, e.g. case studies on how medias represent given communities, the emergence of 'Muslim' medias
- Theological difference, e.g. orthodox forms of Islam and how these impact upon intra-community relationships and understandings, less orthodox forms of Islam, splinter and/or factional movements (abstracts on the Nation of Islam would be warmly welcomed)
- Inter-faith perspectives and relationships especially in terms of conflict and/or co-operation
- Cultural aspects, movements and trends, e.g. new expressions of as well as conflicts around music, art, literature, film
- The influence and effect of geography, e.g. from the simplest understanding of a given geographical location through to the perspective of majority/minority status

Abstracts should clearly set out both the community in focus and the thematic context, along with a short note about how this might be relevant to volume in question. Accompanying this should be a short biography, full contact details and any academic or organisational affiliation.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 October 2007. For those whose abstracts are successful, you will be required to submit a first draft of your chapter by 1 February 2008. To submit abstracts or to request further information, please contact Chris Allen at info@chris-allen.co.uk

(A pdf version of this call for abstracts can be downloaded from www.chris-allen.co.uk for circulating to your colleagues and/or networks)

The Tower: 'Regeneration is a form of ethnic cleansing'

Back in September 1989, Millwall Football Club unexpectedly announced that they were to follow Tottenham Hotspur and float themselves on the London Stock Exchange. In the Sun newspaper at the time, the former club chairman Reg Burr stated that he was not trying to turn the club into a 'yuppie' club.

At the same time, the Club were sponsored by the LDDC - the London Docklands Development Corporation.

The LDDC was a quango agency set up by the Thatcher Government in 1981 to 'regenerate' the Docklands areas of east and south east London. During its 18 year existence it was responsible for regenerating parts of the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Southwark. It helped create Canary Wharf, Surrey Quays shopping centre, London City Airport, ExCeL Exhibition Centre and the Docklands Light Railway, bringing more than 120,000 new jobs to the Docklands and making the area highly sought after for housing.

Having lived in council housing all my life - as all my family and friends did at the time - the LDDC became known to me through their regeneration of the council estates that we lived on. Elim Estate where we lived was untouched due to the fact that it didn't have a 'river view'. But family who lived on Surrey Docks (now Surrey Quays/ Canada Water) and the Amos Estate were less fortunate. The LDDC bought the estate, moved everybody out of the area, giving them no say in whether they stayed or went and leaving Southwark Council with the task of rehousing them in less 'desirable' locations.

On hearing the announcement that Millwall was being floated on the Stock Exchange I was incensed enough to write a letter - well diatribe - to the South London Press to say that the imminent flotation was indicative of what was being played out all around us: the local people, like the local Club itself, were being exploited. The 'haves' were having more at the same time that the 'have nots' were having less.

At the time, nobody took me seriously. But visit the area now and you will see that under the guise of regeneration, the area is split more than ever along the lines of the 'haves' and 'have nots'. Those who can afford quarter of a million pounds apartments living in comfort and luxury to those living in rundown and neglected council housing below the poverty line.

Some 15 years before this, one of the places you might move to once you had a family of your own if you had been brought up on Elim or Amos estate was the Pepys Estate in Deptford. A large, sprawling estate punctuated by tower blocks, the estate overlooked the Thames. My second cousin, whose husband was later imprisoned for 'knee-capping' a Securicor van driver outside the C&A in Peckham, lived on the estate. At the time, we all felt that she was posh because of this.

Today, the Pepys Estate has gone down the route of many other council estates along the Thames and in the Docklands areas. Three years ago, Lewisham Council decided to sell the tower block closest to the Thames to private developers, Berkeley Homes. Since then, again under the guise of regeneration, the block has been emptied of the 144 people living in it so that it can be developed into a highly desirable residence with, as one resident put it, "a million dollar view". Before the private developers moved in, whilst the view was the same, the price would have been significantly lower. The building is now called the 'Z Building'.

From the other tower blocks of the Pepys Estate, the view is similar but tends to be from behind single glazed windows that are obscured by condensation and the mould that accompanies it. Despite offering a similar view, the apartments - known far less desirably as flats - are now far less sought after and instead of housing the wealthy, upwardly mobile elite, house the social outcasts and misfits that have ended up here as a result of their being less fortunate or even lucky.

'The Tower: a tale of two cities' is an eight part documentary series shown on BBC1 on Monday evenings. Filmed over three years, the series is full of real people that live on the estate: both those that live in the council owned blocks and those new residents seeking to make Deptford their new home. As one new resident put it, "The developers will make Deptford a much better place within five years. Just look at what they did with other areas - Hoxton was awful only a few years ago". Poignantly, the images that accompanied her words were of a handful of young black men being arrested by police at the foot of the recently developed building.

The series is a beautifully directed and constructed piece of documentary journalism. There are no whiffs of 'fly on the wall' overacting, no sense of anyone wanting to become 'celebrities', no need to 'doctor' the editing to make things more gritty. Instead, the series delves into the characters that comprise the Pepys Estate: sometimes disparate, sometimes desperate. The direction dips into and then out of different lives, leaving questions unanswered and on the whole, without the need for a silver lining. In many of these, I see the faces and characters of people that I know could be them. And because of this, I find the programme extremely watchable but at the same time, extremely sad which in turns makes me extremely angry. It shows real life - and death - for real people and that is not always comfortable viewing.

A recurrent image that crops up in different episodes is the graffiti of the title of this blog entry: 'Regeneration is a form of ethnic cleansing'. Seeing how people have been unwillingly and forcibly removed from their 'home' - no matter how dire or tragic that might be to the onlooker - the 'regeneration' of these and other areas has been and indeed continues to be little more than a form of ethnic cleansing. Maybe 'ethnic here is the wrong term. Instead, maybe 'class cleansing' is more appropriate.

Since the early 1980s, this form of cleansing has been systematic across much of inner London. Unconsciously we accept this and have done for more than two decades. But where do people like those from the Z Building go when they are forcibly removed from their homes? How many fall below the radar? How many disappear and end up, as the most recent episode captured so well, trapped with little else but to turn to such horrors as heroin, crack and so on?

Twenty years ago, maybe I foresaw the consequences of those such as the LDDC. For those who didn't believe me then, or don't believe me now, there's two more episodes of 'The Tower: a tale of two cities' before the end of the series. Don't miss the chance to see what other people's 'real life' looks like and decide whether 'regeneration' was a good or bad thing.

'Down with multiculturalism, book-burning and fatwas': the discourse of the 'death' of multiculturalism

I have just had a new chapter published in the Routledge journal, Culture and Religion. It is entitled, 'Down with multiculturalism, book-burning and fatwas': the discourse of the 'death' of multiculturalism.

You can download a pdf version of the chapter entirely free from:

www.chris-allen.co.uk

Moses, Jesus, Autobots and Decepticons

From the middle of August, coming to a Wal-Mart near you will be the latest toys from the US - biblical figure action toys. From Moses to Jesus taking in David, Goliath and Daniel (in a lion's den) amongst others, the makers of the 'Tales of Glory' toys will be hoping that their action figures will offer a more wholesome alternative to the Spider-Man and Transformer figures for boys and Bratz and Barbie dolls for girls. As the makers put it:

"If you go in a toy aisle in any major retailer, you will see toys and dolls that promote and glorify evil, destruction, lying, cheating.

In the girls' aisle where the dolls would be, you see dolls that are promoting promiscuity to very young girls. Dolls will have very revealing clothes on, G-string underwear."

A couple of things arise out of this...first, is it OK for Christian toy-makers to go into toy stores and begin checking what type of underwear dolls have (isn't that a little creepy?). Second, will other toy competitors do the same with the Virgin Mary dolls that will no doubt be part of the range (maybe it'll be ok for the Mary Magdalene dolls but the Virgin Mary...???). Third, will the male dolls all be 'smooth' down under like Action Men and by default take the practice of circumcision to a whole new level. Fourth, will there be dolls that have been inflicted with various plagues or a tableau style range that show the mass slaughters attributed to King Herod? Fifth, will there be a waterproof option of the Moses doll for recreating the parting of the Red Sea? And finally, will there be special collector's editions available only at Christmas (e.g. limited edition kings, shepherds, angels etc) and Easter (e.g. Barabas and Pontius Pilate for instance)? What were the makers saying about toys that "promote and glorify evil, destruction, lying, cheating..."?

I guess that if kids eventually get bored with various fantasies around Moses and Jesus joining forces to save Daniel from the lion's den, then a further range of Muslim action figures could be introduced so that they can play out the 'clash of civilisations' for themselves and finally fight the good fight, pitting 'good' against 'evil' in the comfort of their own front rooms.

As the tag-line from the new Transformers movie puts it, "Their war. Our world". I'll leave it up you to decide what I mean...

Beyond difference and towards community: a new approach to equalities

(This entry is a version of an article that will appear in the Birmingham Post within the next week)

Having watched the images of communities overcoming adversity as a result of the recent floods in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, you cannot help but empathise with the problems that the people living in those areas must have been facing. When events like this arise, many are quick to stress the sense of ‘community spirit’ that gets people through such times. In many ways this message can be reassuring, confirming to people that not only do communities still exist but that they are a positive influence and force for good in our rapidly changing society. Very few people would disagree with this. Yet if you look closely at the television images of those queuing for fresh water, you will see that the people themselves are widely diverse and different: a ‘community of communities’ maybe. Yet despite this vast diversity and difference, the same old sense of ‘community’ and what’s good about it appears to remain.

The dictionary definition of a ‘community’ is one where people live together in one place, sometimes with a sense of common ownership. In more recent years however, there has been a tendency to use the term ‘community’ to lump people together on the basis of their identity, stressing this aspect of the definition in preference of those merely living together in one place. This has meant that on far too many occasions, people are seen to be a community because of who or what they are rather than anything else. In doing so, the increasingly popular notion of community overlooks or even eradicates that necessary recognition of diversity and difference that vibrant and real communities – such as those overcoming adversity together in Gloucestershire or in today’s Birmingham - typically contain.

In terms of Birmingham, if we think that the people living together today are diverse, in the coming decade the city and its inhabitants will become ‘super-diverse’. To ensure that Birmingham as community therefore remains a force for good, ensuring that everyone is treated equally will become increasingly central to the city’s ongoing success.

If this is not achieved, then a lack of equality and the division of people into single identity communities could be easily used to not only identify but more worryingly single out and even scapegoat particular sections of society. This is far from being mere speculation, we only have to look back over recent months to see how events in Birmingham cause some to hold their breath in the hope that a concerted backlash against certain groups of people fail to materialise. For Birmingham as indeed elsewhere, this understanding of community can be problematic and can play into the hands of the mischief-makers who want to exploit the tensions and fractures that also clearly exist. When social and community challenges therefore arise, for many in society those challenges and ‘problems’ belong to ‘them’ rather than ‘us’. In doing so, not only do we see ‘them’ as being clearly different from ‘us’, but we also see ‘them’ presenting a challenge to ‘us’ in terms of ‘our’ values, way of life, culture and so on. Because of this, not all people in our community are treated equally.

This attitude and approach to understanding and identifying difference is sometimes reinforced both in politics and also by spokespeople for particular groups, or dare I say it, different ‘communities’. Take for instance the Government’s Preventing Extremism Together (PET) programme that is currently being rolled out across Birmingham in the form of projects (like raising awareness of Islam and training Imams). By funding ‘Muslim’ groups and ‘Muslim’ initiatives only, the programme runs the risk of inadvertently attributing the ‘problem’ of extremism to Muslim communities alone. In this way extremism – and more importantly preventing extremism – becomes something for most people in the city that is more about ‘them’ than it is about ‘us’.

With the emphasis being placed upon what Muslims should be doing, an opportunity is being squandered that might allow society as a whole to take a shared responsibility for ‘preventing extremism together’ through promoting common ownership of the problem. An approach that sees people and communities as having a ‘single identity’ alone was recently identified as problematic in the findings of the recent Commission on Integration & Cohesion’s report. Shared futures, as the report was titled, stressed the need to put an emphasis on articulating what binds communities together rather than the differences that might divide them. In prioritising a shared future over divided legacies, the report stressed that funding single identity groups or single issue projects can be regressive and divisive. Birmingham’s PET therefore seems to go against current thinking about what is good for communities.

In part, the approach to PET reflects the way Government and Local Authorities have sought to engage with black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in the past. This approach was known as ‘representation’ and was on many occasions highlighted as having serious flaws, Often used to advocate and lobby on behalf of the views and interests of those given the opportunity to ‘represent’, this has historically encouraged groups to play up their victimhood as well as their unique cultural or religious identities in a bid for more public funds or greater social influence. In a programme like PET, this can have a number of negative effects. Most significantly, divisions can be reinforced at the same time as encouraging some to believe that Muslims for example are getting preferential treatment. Consider for example the ‘grants for Muslims’ statistics used by the far-right in some of their campaign materials in certain areas of the outer city recently. Ultimately, such approaches can result in all people feeling that they are not being treated equally.

Because of this, few in society ‘buy-in’ to the challenges and problems we face in terms of ensuring all people are treated equally: few share that common ownership necessary to build a community. Yet as we saw in Gloucester, the consequences of the problems that impact upon communities affect us all, quite irrespective of what any of our differences may or may not be. The flood waters therefore failed to recognise ‘them’ and ‘us’ and so impacted upon the lives of white and black, young and old, male and female, Christian, Muslim, atheist and the not sure (as well as those who just don’t care!). Irrespective of who or what the people are that are queuing for fresh water, all that mattered was that everyone was treated equally. Whilst the challenges facing those in Birmingham may then have a different dynamic or focus, what really matters is that all are treated equally no matter what that challenge or situation might be.

Is it time then for a new approach to treating all people equally and by default, strengthening community?

As Director of Research and Policy at BRAP – a Birmingham based equalities and human rights charity – much of this is central to our day-to-day thinking. Because of this, we have been at the forefront of the shift towards a human rights based approach to equalities. Historically, equalities legislation in the UK has been largely driven in response to incidents that have had a nationwide resonance, for example the Brixton riots in 1981 and the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. This has typically led to some form of protection being afforded to particular groups, such as ethnic minorities for example. While this has helped to rightfully protect some people, others have not been able to benefit because they have not met a particular identity or ‘profile’, something that is entirely divisive. And even for those offered some form of protection, it has not always been the case that simply reducing discrimination has been enough to prevent ongoing inequalities.

This is where a human rights based approach to equalities offers some benefits over and above what we already have. Human rights are ‘inherent’, they don’t need to be earned or bought. So groups shouldn’t have to wait for a riot or for somebody to die in order to be afforded the protection they deserve. Also human rights are universal, and all people can have them irrespective of their identity. This approach disposes of the need for knee-jerk responses and may even go some way towards identifying the commonalities that exist between us: commonalities between us as human beings first and foremost.

The slow and albeit tentative shift towards a human rights approach to equalities will gain further momentum later this year with the formation of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) in October. For the first time in Britain, the various equalities strands covering ‘race’, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation as well as religion and belief will be brought together. By moving beyond the single identities that existing approaches have preferred – including PET – we can begin to address the ‘issues’ that stop us from feeling as though we are treated equally and that cause us to blame or scapegoat others as a result.

There remains a long way to go however, but if we want to build a community with a shared future, equalities and human rights might just be the unifier – the common ownership element – that our changing society needs. Building upon what informs our understanding of ‘community’ and what’s good about it might then be the first step in a new direction towards the goal of seeing everyone as ‘us’ in preference of others being ‘them’. To ensure that people see the value of treating everyone equally, those involved in driving equalities will need to effectively communicate what this might be and what a human rights based approach to equalities might look like for all. To do this, we must ensure that we not only speak out when certain groups are scapegoated or unnecessarily targeted but also when programmes such as the PET go against current sensibilities and flout potentially divisive lines. In doing this, community will go beyond being about what you are or on what basis you are lumped together, but more importantly about treating those we live together with equally and fairly irrespective of difference or diversity.

The first decade of Islamophobia

2007 marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking and possibly the most influential document of its kind, the highly influential Runnymede Trust report, Islamophobia: a challenge for us all. Produced by the Commission for British Muslims and Islamophobia, the report stated in its opening pages that, "Islamophobic discourse, sometimes blatant but frequently coded and subtle, is part of everyday life in modern Britain" It went on, "in the last twenty years...the dislike [of Islam and Muslims] has become more explicit, more extreme and more dangerous". Who on the Commission at that time, given the events that have unfolded since the report’s publication would – or indeed could – have predicted the situation everyone is facing today?

Back in 1997, the report spoke of how ‘Islamophobia’ – “the shorthand way of referring to the dread or hatred of Islam – and, therefore, to fear or dislike all or most Muslims” - was necessitated by a new phenomenon that needed naming. Nowadays however, that same term is far from new where it is always seemingly lingering in the murky underbelly of our public and political spaces. Yet despite its wider usage, it remains questionable as to whether the debates concerning Islamophobia today and the way we use the term is any more informed than indeed it was ten years ago. Increasingly the debates about Islamophobia sees one side pitted against an other, where claim and counter-claim, charge and counter-charge dictate what we know and how we voice ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’ Islamophobia.

Why then, despite the Runnymede report being so influential, are we still simplistic in the way that we speak about and understand Islamophobia? Why has Islamophobia failed to go away?

With hindsight, the answer can unfortunately be found in the Runnymede report itself.

At the heart of the report’s notion of Islamophobia was the recognition of what it set out as ‘closed’ and ‘open’ views. So important were these views that the report changed its definition of what Islamophobia was: the Runnymede Islamophobia thus became the recurring characteristic of closed views and nothing more. Conceived by the Commission, the closed views of Islamophobia were seeing Islam as monolithic and static; as 'other' and separate from the West; as inferior; as enemy; as manipulative; discriminated against; as having its criticisms of the West rejected; and where Islamophobia ultimately becomes natural. All of which are useful in being able to identify Islamophobia in certain given situations, as for example in the media, but how for example might the closed views offer any explanation – or even relevance - in other equally important situations, for example in explaining how Muslims are discriminated against in the workplace, in education and in the provision of goods amongst everything else?

In doing so, the Commission failed to offer a clear explanation as to how these might be the case, preferring instead to focus on how say Pakistanis or Bangladeshis were discriminated upon rather than Muslims per se. Not only did this completely miss the point but what with existing equalities legislation rightfully affording protection to those groups such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, so the argument for a specific anti-Muslim anti-Islamic phenomenon was weak and so any immediate legislative or other response was deemed to be unnecessary. And so whilst those who held the power to make the changes were far from impressed, so a precedent was set that negated the reality of Islamophobia as a very real and dangerous phenomenon.

And because of the emphasis upon closed views, so the report established a simple premise from which those who wanted to detract from or dismiss Islamophobia could easily do so by merely suggesting that if ‘closed views’ equalled Islamophobia so one must presume that ‘open views’ equalled Islamophilia. Those who wanted to argue against Islamophobia therefore put forward that the only solution being put forward by the Commission was an abnormal liking or love of Islam and Muslims (philia). Love or hate Muslims and Islam were therefore the only two options available where all those grey areas that exist in between have since 1997 been given licence to gain momentum and form the basis upon which more indirect forms of Islamophobia have found favour in say for example in the debates about the need for better integration, the apparent death of multiculturalism, the niqab as barrier to social participation and belonging, the need for universities to ‘spy’ on the students and the need for parents to look for the ‘tell-tale’ signs of their radicalisation.

It is these unaccounted for grey areas that has contributed to a climate where those such as the BNP are have found favour and gained an increasingly listened to voice. One result of this was that in last year’s local council elections, the BNP won 11 of the 13 seats they contested in Barking & Dagenham last year. Making history in being the first time that a far-right political party has ever been the official opposition in any council chamber in British history, on the evening of the first council meeting in the area that was attended by the BNP, whether coincidentally or not, so an Afghan man was repeatedly stabbed outside barking tube station where he was left on the pavement, his body draped in the union flag.

Since 2001, the BNP have become increasingly sophisticated and nuanced in the way in which it speaks about and refers to Islam and Muslims. Unfortunately, the same has failed to occur as regards Islamophobia and so in the Commission’s last report published in 2004, little change was in evidence where the report persisted with its existing notions of Islamophobia, using the same language, ideas and meanings throughout. Continuing to refer to Islamophobia is such simplistic ways is therefore detrimental to understanding where the dualistic ‘either or’ system of closed and open has reflected how Muslims have increasingly become understood in wider society. Whether ‘mainstream’ or ‘extremist, ‘moderate’ or ‘radical’, as Ziauddin Sardar noted shortly after 9/11, Muslims have since been seen in one of two ways, either as apologetics for Islam or terrorists in the name of Islam. Take this further and the closed and open, apologetics and terrorists easily fall into that simplistic trap of being either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. As such, if you’re not a ‘good’ Muslim – moderate, mainstream and open – then you can only be ‘bad’. What is known and understood about Islamophobia therefore rests upon the naïve premise that ‘Islamophobia is bad only because it is bad’ and nothing more.

As noted at the outset, the Runnymede report’s views of Islamophobia were at their most useful in the media. Despite the report’s apparent usefulness in terms of its ease of identification in the media and its associated recommendations to better the media’s representation of Muslims and Islam, the situation has since the publication of the report dangerously deteriorated. If soon to be published research is anything to go by, the amount of coverage in a ‘normal week’ relating to Muslims and Islam in the British press has increased by a dramatic 269% in ten years. More worryingly, of this just over 90% of all press coverage is entirely negative typically rooted in stories relating to war, terrorism, threat, violence and crisis. If this is where the report was most useful, what then has the Runnymede report achieved over the past 10 years?

The first decade of Islamophobia has therefore ended in a climate of ever worsening the mistrust, misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Whilst the Runnymede report stated in 1997 that Islamophobia was becoming ‘more explicit, more extreme and more dangerous’, so in 2007 the same phenomenon has become more natural, more normal and because of this, far more dangerous than it has been before. The need for a new approach to tackling Islamophobia is therefore clearly required, as indeed is a new language and greater knowledge to both explain and respond to the subtleties and nuances of Islamophobia that are at present overlooked and subsequently allowed to take root and flourish.

Given that the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia is once again in the process of reforming, so the need for a much more radical approach to Islamophobia is required. If the Commission – and indeed Muslims and wider society alike – fail to do this, then it is highly likely that in another ten years we will be speaking of the end of the second decade of Islamophobia. Now is the time to be much bolder and braver, addressing Islamophobia for what it is now and not what it was then. In doing so, we will become much clearer as to what Islamophobia is and more importantly, what Islamophobia is not: something significantly different from a mere shield to deflect those valid criticisms that the wider Muslim communities need themselves to acknowledge and accept.

It is necessary therefore to mark the end of the first decade of Islamophobia with the recognition of the groundbreaking document that was the Runnymede report, Islamophobia – a challenge for us all. But in doing so, we must learn from our mistakes as well as knowing our limitations, allowing us to move forward instead of treading water in order that we might continue gazing into the past.

Critical reflections on the terror attacks

I've done something a little different below and pasted two pieces from the 'Comment is Free' blog. I've done this because I think it's necessary that we have some critical reflection on what is happening around us and also about what the reasons are for this.

Personally, I don't think it's a time for quick solutions and knee-jerk reactions a la the Muslim News today and its circulating of an article that suggests that arrests are wrong and will be shown to be a case of mistaken identity.

These particular pieces therefore made me sit back and think about a number of different issues especially why it is we don't ask the right questions of all concerned and why, we are all so prone to stick our heads in the ground...

"My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror" - Hassan Butt

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.

And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'

He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam.

I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away.

This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory.

Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism. A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam.

But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.

The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam.

Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer.

I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.

If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.

"Not in our name" - Asim Siddiqui

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/asim_siddiqui/2007/07/not_in_our_name.html

The events of the last few days have been sobering for us all. The response from some UK Muslim groups (influenced by Islamist thinking) is still largely to blame foreign policyrevulsion against terrorist acts committed in Islam's name. By blaming foreign policy they try to divert pressure off themselves from the real need to tackle extremism being peddled within. Diverting attention away from the problems within Muslim communities and blaming others - especially the west - is always more popular than the difficult task of self-scrutiny. And what part of foreign policy do the Islamists want us to change to tackle terrorism? Withdrawal from Iraq? (undoubtedly an exacerbating influence but not the cause), rather than marching "not in my name" in

The UK presence on the ground in Iraq is minuscule compared to the US. We currently have 5,500 troops from 40,000 at the start of the invasion. We will reduce them further to 5,000 by the end of the summer. The bulk of which will be located near Basra airport in a supporting role. Next year will likely see the numbers dwindle even further. Our troop presence is far more symbolic than military. It provides the Americans with their "coalition of the willing". The US, by contrast, is the only serious occupier in the country with over 160,000 troops. The government will not (and cannot) admit it, but we have been in withdrawal mode since the end of the war.

And once we've left Iraq, will they be satisfied? Of course not. Their list of grievances is endless: Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Burma ... so long as the world is presented as one where the west is forever at war with Islam and Muslims there is nothing we can do to appease the terrorists and those who share their world view. Instead it is this extremist world view that must change.

Take for example the idea that radical Islamists are concerned about Muslim life (let's ignore human life in general for a moment). Where is their outrage at the 400,000 Muslims slaughtered in Darfur? Where are the marches and calls for action against this ongoing genocide? Where is the "Muslim anger" boiling up amongst British Islamists? It is nowhere to be seen because the Darfurians have been massacred by fellow Muslims, not by the west. Hence it does not appear on the Islamist radar screen as a "grievance". Such is the moral bankruptcy of this ideology.

No, it's not foreign policy that's the main driver in combating the terrorists; it is their mindset. The radical Islamist ideology needs to be exposed to young Muslims for what it really is. A tool for the introduction of a medieval form of governance that describes itself as an "Islamic state" that is violent, retrogressive, discriminatory, a perversion of the sacred texts and a totalitarian dictatorship.

When the IRA was busy blowing up London, there would have been little point in Irish "community leaders" urging "all" citizens to cooperate with the police equally when it was obvious the problem lay specifically within Irish communities. Likewise for Muslim "community leaders" to condemn terrorism is a no-brainer. What is required is for those that claim to represent and have influence among young British Muslims to proactively counter the extremist Islamist narrative. That is the biggest challenge for British Muslim leadership over the next five to 10 years. It is because they are failing to rise to this challenge that the government feels it needs to act by further eroding our civil liberties with anti-terror legislation to get the state to do what Muslims should be doing themselves. If British Muslim groups focus on grassroots de-radicalisation then this will provide civil liberty groups the space they need to argue against any further anti-terror legislation.

Of course I would like to see changes in our foreign policy and have marched on the streets (with thousands of non-Muslims) in protest on many occasions. But blaming foreign policy in the face of suicide attacks is not only tactless but a cop-out that fails to tackle extremism, fails to promote an ethical foreign policy and fails to protect our civil liberties.

Who 'represents'?

Engaging with the ‘Muslim community’ is an extremely complex process and one that requires a great deal of critical thinking and meaningful endeavour on all sides. Not least because of the fact that the ‘Muslim community’ clearly does not exist. Despite this, Government and others – including some from within the ‘Muslim community’ – continue to perpetuate the idea that such a homogenous entity does exist.

Nonetheless, even when this engagement has been initiated the complexities identified and the meaningful engagement required has clearly not always occurred. Instead, many initiatives have seen groups and people thrown together largely because of their proximity to the organizers or those holding the purse strings of a given event rather than what capacity they have or more importantly, what they can contribute. Unfortunately, Government, local authorities and numerous other institutions and organisations seem to always do this and persist – to the detriment of all – to talk to none others than the same old ‘usual suspects’. This has been particularly evident when ‘Muslim’ issues have required to be addressed. It is no surprise then that the perennial question that has been required to be asked is to what extent do the ‘usual suspects’ offer the ‘representation’ required for this increasingly complex community of communities (isn’t that what Parekh described Britain as rather than the Muslim community?).

'Representation' has been the traditional means through which national and local government have sought to engage with black and minority groups in the past. In doing so, Government engaged with minority communities using the very simplistic premise that by employing ‘representatives’ they were in some way putting a safety net in place that ensured that those influencing policy represented the diversity inherent within the local population. However, this approach has been shown to have many drawbacks. For example, if the rationale for representation is to hear all voices, then representatives from all groups should be provided a legitimate platform from which to be heard. If this is the case, then one must ask whether those from the ‘fringes’ (extremists, radicals, fundamentalists and so on in common parlance) should also be given the opportunity for representation? Of course, those in authority would categorically say ‘no’ given that those on the ‘fringes’ might go against the decisions they wanted to make. Of course what is not widely announced is the fact that ‘representation’ works best when those looking for ‘representatives’ find ‘representatives’ who agree with their own way of thinking. And of course, that means being selective about the ‘representatives’ rather than about the alleged benefits of ‘representation’.

More often that not though, ‘representation’ is used to advocate and lobby on behalf of the views and interests of those groups and organisations invited to ‘represent’ and rarely for the wider community they are alleged to offering a voice for. Such a process has also tended to encourage groups to play up their victimhood and reinforce homogenous cultural identities in a bid for public funds and social authority.

What is troubling is that if the same criticism of the methods of ‘representation’ can be applied to the way in which Government has sought Muslim representation over the past few years, then it could be that some of the consequences of this have been not only the encouraging of a more aggressive Muslim identity but more importantly reinforcing the view that a single, homogenous Muslim community exists. In many ways this reflects the ‘silo’ approach to dealing with BME (black and minority ethnic) groups and the wider issue of equalities where people are only ‘allowed’ one relevant identity at a time.

Focusing on single identities makes the task of bringing a diversity of people together all the more difficult. Focusing on ‘Muslims’ rather than the issues therefore can also promote a grievance culture that reinforces division and competition in preference of strengthening the kind of social cohesion Government wants to see. Wrongly emphasising Muslim identities also makes those other communities believe that any perceived ‘problems’ are far from theirs and so responsibility and blame remain squarely fixed at the doors of Muslims and no-one else.

A new approach is now required in the way in which communities and groups are involved – not represented – in decision-making and other similar processes. By focusing on traditional – and previously rejected modes of representation – so such processes are flawed whereby critical opportunities to engage with disengaged and marginalised communities is being squandered. We should be extending and strengthening our shared understandings, going beyond over-simplified and stereotypical forms of ‘representation’ and ‘identity’ to really begin to engage and address the issues facing British society today in a more coherent and cohesive way. To do this, ‘silo’ approaches of representation need to be rejected, the ‘usual suspects’ need to be questioned and those that have the capacity to bring value to the various engagement and decision-making processes need to be driven forward.

To do this, new issues based approaches are desperately required. Such approaches should recognise and respond to the differences within Muslim communities – and indeed all other communities - but not to the extent where faith and associated identities become the sole determinant in who and what is incorporated. This should be as transparent as possible, opening up the engagement processes for all those with the necessary capacity to be as actively engaged as they want to be. To do so, it is necessary to be confident about taking the debates and processes – whether positive or negative – away from the usual suspects and the self-interested ‘representatives’: to bring the debates out from behind closed doors and into the wider realms. More importantly, it is necessary to ensure that those who can influence change and add some value to are actively sought and accommodated irrespective of who or what they are rather than who or what they claim to ‘represent’.

How to integrate and be cohesive in 6 easy lessons...

The Commission on Integration and Cohesion finally published the findings of its year-long consultation into community cohesion this week in the report entitled ‘Shared Futures’. The Commission was announced by Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 28 June 2006 and was established as a fixed term advisory body to consider how local areas can make the most of the benefits delivered by increasing diversity. It was also set up to consider how communities might respond to the tensions that increasing diversity can sometimes cause. Its remit was to develop practical approaches that build communities’ own capacity to prevent problems, including those caused by segregation and the dissemination of extremist ideologies.

Following its year-long consultation, the report amongst other things offered a ‘new’ definition of what an integrated and cohesive community might look like. Being particularly confused about what community cohesion is, I had hoped that this might provide some insight into this for me. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case and so given that community cohesion had been since the Bradford disturbances in 2001 widely employed politically as the ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ (I’ll leave you to better clarify what the ‘problem’ might be) what the ‘solution’ might look like remains quite unclear.

Nonetheless, the new definition (did we have an old one?) was set out as the following six easy definable steps:

“An integrated and cohesive community is one where:

1. There is a clearly defined and widely shared sense of the contribution of different individuals and different communities to a future vision for a neighbourhood, city, region or country

2. There is a strong sense of an individual’s rights and responsibilities when living in a particular place – people know what everyone expects of them, and what they can expect in turn

3. Those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities, access to services and treatment

4. There is a strong sense of trust in institutions locally to act fairly in arbitrating between different interests and for their role and justifications to be subject to public scrutiny

5. There is a strong recognition of the contribution of both those who have newly arrived and those who already have deep attachments to a particular place, with a focus on what they have in common

6. There are strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and other institutions within neighbourhoods”

Great stuff…or is it?

Maybe unsurprisingly, the definition seems to raise many more questions than it does provide answers not least in asking ‘how’ one might measure integration and cohesion? Without this measure, how do we know if we live in an integrated and cohesive community? How can we know when we need to do something, when we need to respond, and of course, when we can sit back on our laurels and say what a good job we’ve done?

Maybe then we should ask – given that the report doesn’t answer this - ‘who’ does the measuring and when will it start?

What is interesting is that in the new definition, it states that ‘a clearly defined’ sense of contribution will be required. Again, how exactly do you measure a ‘strong sense’ of something?

Similarly, the definition also says that there will need to be a ‘strong sense of an individual’s rights and responsibilities’. Is it a good idea to have such subjective statements in a definition that is being established to offer some clarity? If you adopt the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of a ‘definition’ it says that it is “a statement of the exact meaning of a word”…is that what’s on offer here?

To illustrate this point, wouldn’t the BNP say that had a strong sense of responsibility of the individual rights and responsibilities of the ‘aboriginal white communities’ (their words not mine) over and above everyone else in places such as Barking and Dagenham where they are already the official party of opposition in the council chambers?

The problem becomes compounded especially if you consider that the definition states that all in society are to ‘have similar life opportunities, access to services and treatment’. If this is the case, doesn’t this mean that there will need to be a concerted effort on behalf of the Government to address the deep-seated socio-economic inequalities that are evident across vast swathes of our society? If this is the case, then Government – both national and local - is going to be forced to address certain communities over and above others which then seems to go against previous markers of an integrated and cohesive community. The arguments about certain communities being privileged will therefore continue to exist.

And if local councils are going to be required to respond to certain communities in this way, how will that ‘strong sense of trust in institutions’ be any different from how they are now? Or should I say, before we had this ‘new definition’?

The definition therefore is a mish-mash of nice ideas but totally impractical and non-cohesive ones. Take for example how the definition suggests that there should be a ‘strong recognition of the contribution of both those who have newly arrived’. If this is so, local institutions including local government, the NHS, LEAs and so on, will all need to put in place special procedures and policies to ensure that the newly arrived can begin to make that ‘contribution’. Again though this will cause problems because it will merely reinforce the belief that certain communities are being privileged and so those that are newly arrived will continue to be perceived as being privileged.

And with this comes the crunch, the observation that in integrated and cohesive communities ‘strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and other institutions within neighbourhoods’ will exist. When schools are increasingly segregated, when newly arrived migrant workers are being thrown into jobs that local people refuse to do at the rates of pay being offered, when communities do not integrate because of the great disparities between their economic capacity to live together in equitable areas, what realistic chance does this definition offer? Is it merely idealistic and as such should be something society aspires to, or is it a blueprint for change? Given that its initial objective was to make the most of the benefits delivered by increasing diversity, consider the tensions it can sometimes cause and develop practical approaches to achieving this, it could be that ‘none of the above’ clearly applies especially when one of the ‘practical approaches’ was providing new migrants with ‘welcome packs’ that give such information as not spitting in the street and how to queue in the Post Office.

The report is therefore another high style, low substance policy document, one that has become so commonplace in the New Labour era. Constantly trying to locate the ‘solutions’ to the ‘problems’ have been one of the many pastimes undertaken by Blair’s regime. The problem for him though, is that despite putting forward the ‘solution’, rarely does it match or eradicate the ‘problem’.

In this broader landscape then, two additional points of interest emerge from the report. The first is that if as the report suggests it is at the local level where ‘problems’ are made and by consequence need to be solved, why are we forever being told that we need to be more ‘British’? Rather than a national British day a la Gordon Brown therefore, so let’s have national ‘local’ day where we all stress our local identities, Brummie, Geordie, Scouser and so on.

Second, where did multiculturalism go? Whilst most people will acknowledged that multiculturalism has been undergoing a long and painful terminal illness for some time now, it would be fair to assume that its actual passing – and laying to rest - did pass many by.

Given that ‘integrated and cohesive communities’ is then the new solution to the problem, I wonder if I missed that recommendation in the report for euthanasia to be legislated for at the national level? The reason I ask is because if, as would seem to be the case, integrated and cohesive communities is deemed to fail as dramatically as multiculturalism has, let’s hope that the Government can put an end o its misery sooner rather than later.

Is it too premature to offer my condolences to the Commission yet? Integration and cohesion RIP - surely a sentiment to bring us all together...

Boris Johnson and me...!!!

Much to my amusement, I've just noticed a reference to me on Boris Johnson's website. The idea is more amusing than the reality but if you want to check it out, you can do by visiting:

http://www.boris-johnson.com/archives/2005/06/racial_and_religious_hatred_bi.php

The death of multiculturalism: blaming and shaming British Muslims

(This essay has just been published in the Summer 2007 edition of the Durham Anthropology Journal. It is reproduced here with their kind permission)


It has been a decade since the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia was established, a Commission that through its 1997 report, “Islamophobia: a challenge for us all” (“the Runnymede report”) not only raised an awareness of the growing reality of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic hostility in Britain, but also marked the onset of what might be described as ‘the first decade of Islamophobia’. In doing so, the Runnymede report propelled the word ‘Islamophobia’ into the everyday common parlance and discourses of both the public and political spaces. Little could the authors of the report have realised, or even conceived that a decade on from penning the report, which noted that the hostility and hatred towards Islam and Muslims was becoming “more explicit, more extreme and more dangerous” (ibid: 1), that the climate would be, following a series of urgent and historical events, ever more intense and ever more worrying: for these ‘urgent and historical events’, read 9/11, the ‘war on terror’, Bali, Madrid, 7/7, the Danish cartoon furore and everything else in between. However, the situation is not as easy or straightforward as stating that the situation has merely deteriorated or worsened. In fact, whilst the Runnymede report suggested that Islamophobia was becoming ‘more explicit’ it may well be that the reciprocal has also occurred, where contemporary anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic discourses and inferences have been seen to be shifting towards being far more implicit or covert, obfuscated by debates about seemingly unconnected issues and problems.

Beyond, and possibly behind, these urgent historical events a number of other much less explicit debates have emerged and indeed are continuing that are as potentially anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic in their sentiment and meaning as the much more direct approach taken by those such as the British National Party (“BNP”) in their calls for ‘Islam out of Britain’ and the need for a ‘referendum’ on the future of Islam. However, whilst somewhat overlooked, a reference point or source to aid the explanation of the emergence of less explicit discourses can be found in the Runnymede report. As part of it established an eight-point typology from which Islamophobia could be identified – differentiating between ‘closed’ and ‘open’ views of Islam and Muslims – the typology was, with hindsight, in places weak and in others somewhat flawed. As such, it is questionable whether a decade on from publication, the typology stands up to scrutiny and remains valid or relevant. One of those main weaknesses of the ‘views’ typology was that whilst eight views were established, the last three ‘views’ were anything but views. Instead, these last three ‘views’ were much more observations or insights into the situation at that time. Whilst the typology of ‘views’ therefore can be problematic both in conception and function, one of those observations maintains a distinct resonance to the contemporary setting and the less explicit discourses that are being identified. As noting that ‘anti-Muslim discourse [can be] seen as natural not problematic’, the report noted that: organisations and individuals known for their liberalism and anti-racism express prejudice against Islam and Muslims…” before going on to add how “…a deep dislike of Islam is not a new phenomenon in our society. What is new is the way it is articulated by those sections of society who claim the mantle of secularism, liberalism and tolerance. They are at the forefront of the fight against racism and against Islam and Muslims at the same time. They preach equality for all, yet turn a blind eye to the fact that this society offers only unequal opportunities for Muslims. (Runnymede Trust 1997: 15)

It is this observation and argument therefore that this paper will use as its premise from which to consider how in the contemporary climate, anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic discourse has become less obvious, being hidden behind or even embedded within the debates and arguments surrounding issues that might more appropriately be understood as being issues relating to ‘secularism, liberalism and tolerance’. Arguing that these have to a great extent been largely unnoticed or unrecognised, this paper will consider recent debates that have emerged against this backdrop of urgent history about the ‘end’, or even more ominously, the ‘death’ of multiculturalism. Whilst the Danish cartoons furore has highlighted more recently how ‘freedom of speech’ has become an issue that has been employed to question Muslims and Islam, so the issue of multiculturalism has been employed similarly, pre-dating the Runnymede report and also the series of urgent historical events referred to previously. However, whilst this is the case, it is only the post-9/11 context within which this paper will primarily be concerned. In this chapter therefore, two questions will be considered: the first being whether it is ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘Muslims’ and ‘Islam’ that is being questioned; the second, what the solutions put forward by in the recent debates about multiculturalism are and how they might best be understood.

In identifying a start-point to this post-9/11 setting, one might reflect on an article written in 2002 by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Norman Lamont. Writing in The Telegraph, from the title alone - “Down with multiculturalism, book-burning and fatwas” (Lamont 2002) - it would appear quite obvious about what, and by association whom the article was about: ‘book-burning and fatwas’ being a direct reference to the Satanic Verses affair and those Muslims who burnt copies of the book in Bradford whilst the ‘fatwa’, a similarly direct reference to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for the death of Salman Rushdie, the author of the Satanic Verses. That Lamont chose to associate the events of the Satanic Verses affair with the issue of ‘multiculturalism’ is interesting what with the affair not only being an extremely important and influential juncture in the emergence and socio-political acknowledgement of Muslim identities in the British social and political spaces but also in the development and history of debates surrounding the issue of ‘freedom of speech’ and the limits attached to this. As such, not only did the affair mould, shape and inform the context within which Muslims became perceived and understood but so too was the emergence of a ‘Muslim’ identity part of the same process that was non-differentiable from an event that saw the emergence and reification of both contemporary and historical stereotypes. In addition, this also provided the backdrop against which those same Muslims – and Islam in the wider context – were being contextualised and positioned as being in opposition to and intolerant of ‘our’ democratic and liberal ideals and values. For Lamont then, his issues with multiculturalism are nothing more than the latest in a timeline that began in 1989.

A clear frame of reference and context for the article is therefore established from the outset. Yet whilst an analysis of the title would suggest that the article might be overtly concerned with Muslims and their relationship to multiculturalism, a reading of the text would not appear to overly support such a claim. Lamont’s article instead is, on first reading, something of a damning critique of a Blairite/New Labour vision of multiculturalism. For Lamont even the mere notion of Britain being multicultural was something of a point of contestation: “Multiculturalism is certainly a myth when ethnic minorities are only about six per cent of the population, even if the situation is different in London and other big cities”. From here, he goes on to express a similar antagonism towards New Labour’s thinking about British identities, also castigating Lord Parekh for his suggestion that ‘Britishness’ should not be “a fixed conception of national identity and culture” but a much more fluid one, ‘a community of communities’. In the first part of the article, whilst Muslims and Islam are conspicuous by their absence, what is interesting is how Lamont, in opening his attack on Blair, points out “some of the Prime Minister's personal contradictions: an Anglican who attends Roman Catholic services, but who carries a copy of the Koran. The Prime Minister may be clear about himself, but he has managed to confuse the rest of us about the country's identity”. In doing so, what exactly is Lamont suggesting? Is it that the vision of multiculturalism endorsed by Blair is misguided or skewed or is it, in reference to the carrying of the ‘Koran’, a criticism of the influence that the ‘Koran’ - a cultural representation of Islam – is having on that same Blairite vision of multicultural Britain?

Lamont continues to explain the need to be ‘down with multiculturalism’. Quoting from Blair’s favourite philosopher, R. H. Tawney, Lamont highlights how a successful society requires “obedience to the law”. From here, the underlying causes of Lamont’s argument become more apparent. Noting how, “Our laws are based on values, and the state has the right to intervene to protect them. Individuals cannot be left alone in their chosen communities, if that involves forced marriages, polygamy, burning books, supporting fatwas or even fighting against our Armed Forces”, Lamont goes on to congratulate the “West Indians, Africans and Indians” who he saw paying tribute to the Queen Mother whilst she was laying in state. For Lamont, not only was this something that demanded recognition and subsequent praise but it was also testament to those same ‘West Indians, Indians and Africans’ in expressing their allegiance both to the crown and also to a ‘British’ identity, of which – for Lamont at least – the monarchy was one cohesive part of. An interesting amalgam of ideas therefore becomes apparent: the influence of ‘the Koran’, an obedience to the law, a number of things – weighted towards Islam and Muslims – that would appear to present challenges to or exist against ‘our’ values, those communities that require recognition for their allegiance to the crown and finally, the role of the monarchy as part of ‘our’ identity.

But what is most interesting is the way in which Lamont demarcates and differentiates between those that he deems to have been able to become a part of the ‘British identity’, those that file past and respect the monarchy and those that exist outside that same ‘British identity’, those pronouncing fatwas, undertaking book-burnings and fighting against, rather than with, British troops: the latter being those that have brought about the need for Britain to be ‘down with multiculturalism’. Despite neither Muslims nor Islam being directly referenced, from what was not being said rather than what was, Lamont’s argument and justifications were clearly taking shape. It was not those that were already part of a cohesive British identity but instead those that existed outside of it. As Lamont had so clearly demarcated, albeit not explicitly, which groups were placed exactly where, so the blame for multiculturalism’s failings and subsequent cause for its destruction was placed firmly not at Blair and New Labour’s doors, but more accurately at Muslims’, and also with Blair and New Labour’s allowance of this. For Lamont then, it was less the concept of multiculturalism as an ideal that was at fault but instead how certain elements or communities that were a part of today’s Britain were going against that ideal, through a lack of assimilation, a lack of obedience to the law, a lack of respect of ‘our’ values and a lack of allegiance to the monarchy. Whilst never being named, it was therefore Muslims and the requirements that Islam places upon those Muslims that was undermining multiculturalism and subsequently requiring it to be downed and rejected by the wider and more inclusive society. Lamont therefore was attacking the hegemonic Muslim community that he perceived all Muslims to be one part of, rather than the notion or concept of multiculturalism.

From Lamont’s initial rallying cry of ‘down with multiculturalism’, so a plethora of further condemnations and denunciations have followed suit. Weaving tenuously linked threads through a myriad of different commentators, politicians, policy-makers and media voices, the same themes and issues have been covertly underlying much of the recent voracity surrounding those multiculturalism debates and arguments that have ensued in the wake of the ‘home-grown bombers’, the atrocities of the London bombs of 7 July 2006 (“7/7”) and the failed attempts to undertake similar atrocities two weeks later (“21/7”). As Tariq Modood (2005) identified in writing for openDemocracy, in the twelve weeks following the terrorist atrocities, numerous commentators used the events as a springboard from which to espouse their arguments against multiculturalism. As Modood quotes, William Pfaff argued in the Observer that “these British bombers are a consequence of a misguided and catastrophic pursuit of multiculturalism”; Gilles Kepel on openDemocracy suggested that the bombers “were the children of Britain’s own multicultural society” and that this event had smashed British multiculturalism “to smithereens”; Martin Wolf argued in the Financial Times that “multiculturalism must be discarded as nonsense”; whilst Trevor Phillips – chair of the CRE – questioned how, in the context of an “‘anything goes’ multiculturalism”, Britain had “focused far too much on the ‘multi’ and not enough on the common culture” (ibid). Various other forums, journals and institutions with a centre-left or liberal-left bias were similarly identified as holding or sponsoring events around similar themes, some asking “Is Multiculturalism Dead?” and “Is Multiculturalism Over?”, whilst others clearly set their sights into the future and looked “Beyond Multiculturalism”. What with the impetus for all of these events and responses being 7/7 and 21/7, it is questionable whether all or indeed any of these examples were genuinely concerned with multiculturalism or whether it was the ‘problem’ within Britain’s multicultural society that such examples were rather more concerned with.

Although as with Lamont, such arguments preceded 7/7. Take for example David Goodhart’s (2004a) broadside against multiculturalism in Prospect magazine. Having already described the situation in Britain today as being a place where many of us live alongside “stranger citizens” (2004b) – a somewhat unfortunate reference to citizens of non-British heritage - not only did he proscribe multiculturalism’s imminent demise but he also set out a range of arguments to question whether Britain was becoming ‘too diverse’. As a direct consequence of Britain’s multicultural policies, Goodhart also questioned whether Britain could sustain the mutual obligations that were necessary for not only maintaining a good society but also upholding various British institutions, one example being the welfare state. Arguing that “more of our lives [are] spent among strangers”, that our “common culture is being eroded”, and most controversially, “that we feel more comfortable with, and are readier to share with, and sacrifice for, those with whom we have shared histories and similar values”, Goodhart’s arguments were at best xenophobic and at worst, something far worse. Yet aside from a single mention of Muslims when referring to the former Home Secretary David Blunkett, “He has spoken about the need for more integration of some immigrant communities - especially Muslim ones - while continuing to welcome high levels of net immigration into Britain of over 150,000 a year”, Goodhart (2004a), in accordance with the precedent set by Lamont, does not identify either Muslims or Islam as being either integral to or shaping of his decisions about the future of a multicultural Britain. However, as with obfuscated discourse and coded inferences of Lamont, it is possible that a much more accurate meaning of what is being put forward can be gleaned from what is not being said rather more than what is.

This was a point of contention that Trevor Phillips sought to explore in his response to Goodhart in the Guardian shortly after his essay was published. Entitled “Genteel xenophobia is as bad as any other”, Phillips’s (2004) retaliation was a call for more honesty and open-ness from those that were participating in the debates about multiculturalism. As he put it:

"The xenophobes should come clean…They are liberal Powellites; what really bothers them is race and culture. If today's immigrants were white people from the old Commonwealth, Goodhart and his friends would say that they pose no threat because they share Anglo-Saxon values. They may not even object to Anglophile Indians - as long as they aren't Muslims".

For Phillips, behind the rhetoric that was being employed to denounce multiculturalism was a much more insidious process, one where the problem was being presented or shrouded in terms of multiculturalism but was more accurately one that was concerned with the ‘problem’ of Muslims in Britain. For Phillips, Goodhart et al would not be championing any argument against multiculturalism if Muslims were not a significant part of that problem that was seen to be inflicting Britain’s multicultural society. Yet despite Phillips’ protestations, the issue of multiculturalism and its ongoing relevance had once again become a critical and urgent issue for the intelligentsia and beyond into the political spaces where Goodhart’s ideas seemed to gain some resonance and by consequence, credence also.

It was therefore somewhat surprising that within just two months of Phillips’ protestations, he too had joined the debate in a way that was contrary to his earlier position. When asked in an interview for the Times newspaper, “Shall we kill [multiculturalism] off?”, Phillips’ reply was, “Yes, let’s do that…Multiculturalism suggests separateness. We are now in a different world” (2004b). Given that Phillips had recently castigated Goodhart for his attack on a ‘too diverse’ Britain, what could Phillips have been suggesting when he spoke of a ‘different world’? One can only presume that his change of heart and mind had been – somewhat questionably - informed by the Madrid terrorist attacks on 11 March 2004. This point cannot be substantiated but what with Phillips’ volte-face responses to multiculturalism after 7/7, it would appear that there may be some justification for suggesting that as with his predecessors, the ‘problem’ of Muslims and Islam were integral to both his thinking and to his subsequent newfound message. It would also appear that this same newfound message had acquired an even greater urgency. So when asked by Rod Liddle from The Spectator if Islam and its ‘culture’ was an issue for a successful multicultural society, Phillips' response was self explanatory: "Privately I would go quite a long way down the route you're taking". Since then, and despite earlier refutations and protestations, Phillips has insisted that because of multiculturalism, Britain is ‘sleepwalking’ its way to segregation and ghettoisation: segregation and ghettoisation that are being drawn ever more deeply along lines of race and more pertinently, religion.

It is this final recognition that answers the questions that therefore need to be asked about not only what is underpinning the recent demise of multiculturalism but also about what is, in reality, being attacked and questioned by so many commentators. Buoyed by the events of 7/7 and framed within a post-Rushdie, post-9/11, post-Madrid context, opponents of multiculturalism have used the climate of fear and anxiety to have ensued to push forward and in some ways, try and legitimise their agenda. Whilst multiculturalism, such critics argue on the surface at least, elevates difference and therefore enhances segregation, what underpins and clearly informs those arguments and provides legitimisation is the insistence and inference upon the ‘problems’ – perceived or otherwise – of Britain's Muslims. Consequently, Britain’s Muslims become established as something of a Trojan horse where much of the discourse that ensues is undeniably anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic. For those critics that argue against multiculturalism, the argument goes that if Muslims themselves fail to integrate and ultimately assimilate into a culture that one might assume is not ‘too diverse’, then the problems are not to do with anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic discrimination, prejudice or hatred – overt racism in another contextual place and time – but instead, the failure of those communities to integrate and assimilate and little else. And because Muslims fail to integrate and assimilate, it is they that are seen to be undoing and ultimately killing multiculturalism. What is overlooked in this argument however is that neither ‘integration’ nor ‘assimilation’ is a pre-requisite of multiculturalism. Counterposing integration and assimilation against multiculturalism therefore offers only hegemonic solutions to hegemonic problems.

How this manifests itself and subsequently finds form is through an onslaught on Muslims as a hegemonic community, where the religion of Islam is employed as a battering ram: a religion that is conceived and determined to be either uniquely evil or uniquely backward, incidentally both of which were established as ‘closed views’ of Islamophobia in the Runnymede report. What then is the discourse saying: is it an attack on multiculturalism, or is it more so Islamophobia? As Parekh states, attacks on multiculturalism – whether implied or simply assumed – are in the current climate largely equitable with attacks on Muslims and Islam, where the employment of the word ‘multiculturalism’ in the associated debates is nothing more than a code for the ‘problem’ of Muslims and Islam (Parekh:). Underpinning the discourse is as such a clearly anti-Muslim anti-Islamic bias, one that rarely gets identified and named in the public and political spaces but reflects the warning shot fired a decade previously by the Runnymede report. Hidden either covertly or at times overtly, Muslims and Islam are as a result understood and established as being inculpably blamed for all the ills of contemporary society. For those with lingering doubts, a much more explicit example of this is available. Whilst those examples considered have been shown to be much more couched in their response to and argument against multiculturalism, its failings and ultimate demise, a year before the events of 7/7, Rod Liddle in The Spectator was much more frank. Putting forward the thesis that not only was multiculturalism dead, but he also argued that it was ‘Islam’ that was killing it (Liddle 2004). Maybe then it is time for those detractors, as Phillips suggested, to ‘come clean’ about what is really underpinning their arguments and objections and who precisely they are seeking to attack and question.

As regards the second issue raised at the outset of this paper, it is the proposed solutions within the discourse of the end of multiculturalism debates that are of particular concern. So for Goodhart, multiculturalism had created a society that was perilously verging on being ‘too diverse’ that in consequence, has to some degree diluted ‘British culture’. In suggesting this, that which is underpinning the discourse and associated arguments with such a notion of multiculturalism – that is, Muslims and Islam if we take on board the observations made previously – is that which is understood as attacking ‘us’: who ‘we’ are, what ‘we’ stand for, ‘our’ way of life and ‘our’ culture. As such, the language that becomes integral to these debates becomes draped in notions of cultural, racial, ethnic and religious difference that are counterposed to a largely un-fixed concept of Britishness. A useful reference point is to once again return to the premise established by Lamont. As he acknowledged at the outset, there was an apparent ‘fear’ across Britain and beyond about the loss of national identity, a ‘fear’ that needed to be addressed rather than brushed aside. However it is once again the point that Lamont makes about the role of ‘the Koran’ in confusing “the rest of us about the country's identity” that is vital to fully understanding what is being suggested here. Whilst Lamont leaves this observation open-ended and without concrete clarification, one might legitimately presume that what is being inferred is that ‘the Koran’ – as cultural icon for Islam and Muslims – cannot be equated or located within what is ‘ours’. That is, what might legitimately be seen to be and understood as being ‘British’: that which relates to that which is ‘us’, ‘our’ culture, ‘our’ ways and ‘our’ values. As he concludes, “the Queen's Golden Jubilee gives people a chance to celebrate their real identity, not some synthetic version”.

Two interesting points worthy of issue thus emerge. First, how the discourse of ‘new’ or cultural forms of racism are being employed to offer ‘solutions’ to the ‘problem’ and second, how Lamont is suggesting that ‘our’ real identity is inextricably linked with the monarchy. As regards the first point, it might be argued that having analysed Lamont’s discourse, the language and ideas underlying his solutions to the apparent problem relating to multiculturalism function within a remit of what might be termed ‘new’, or more recently ‘cultural’ racism. A phenomenon first identified in the early 1980s by Martin Barker (1981) within the rhetoric and discourse of the early Thatcher government, it is interesting that this was the same Thatcher government that Lamont held a significant position in. In this discourse however, Barker identified that the foci for racism was clearly shifting away from more traditional markers typically founded upon skin colour, to newer markers based upon ‘difference’: ‘difference’ - in all its myriad forms – as defined or conceived as being that which went against or counter to that which was normative and ‘normal’ of being ‘British’. This demarcation of ‘difference’ therefore can be located and identified in the discourse of Lamont and others. Who this demarcation of difference belongs to can also clearly be located and identified: those ‘fighting for the Taleban, [undertaking] forced marriages, polygamy, burning books, [and] supporting fatwas’. Barker also noted in the processes of new racism that difference was so exaggerated that even the mere inference of such differences could be understood as challenging ‘our way of life’ or posing ‘a threat’ to who ‘we’ are and how ‘we’ live.

In today’s public and political spaces, the ‘threat’ that Muslims are most commonly seen to present is typically framed in debates associated with terrorism and securitisation. However, as regards the debates surrounding the life or future of multiculturalism, this perceived ‘threat’ becomes evident along the lines of new racist discourse where ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ are seen to be incompatible with the dominant or perceived overriding culture and its heritage: that is, being ‘British’ and being ‘us’. So prevalent is this that similar processes can be identified beyond Britain where the situation may be even more dangerous and incendiary as in Denmark (cartoons), France (hijab and social disorder) and the Netherlands (Theo Van Gogh) as well as underlying the arguments against Turkey’s accession to the EU. Indeed this might be the ‘Muslim question’ that Parekh is clearly referring to (Parekh). If this is so, then not only is an attack on multiculturalism little more than a coded attack on Muslims and Islam, it is also an attack on who ‘we’ are. The ‘solutions’ therefore that are purported as regards the ‘Muslim question’ – possibly more appropriately the ‘Muslim problem’ – are therefore rooted in the belief that a reassertion of ‘our’ identity and the eradication of ‘difference’ are what is clearly required and indeed necessary.

As regards Lamont’s inference that ‘our’ identity – that is, ‘our’ real identity - is in some way associated with the monarchy, it is worth reiterating the conclusions drawn previously about how ‘a reassertion of ‘our’ identity and the eradication of ‘difference’ are what is clearly required and indeed necessary’. Take for example Goodhart’s suggestion that ‘outsiders’ “should be encouraged to become part of the British ‘we’”, or Phillips’ rhetorical question, “what makes us British?” that he answers by suggesting that because “we’ve focused far too much on the ‘multi’ and not enough on the common culture…” it is now, in a post-7/7 context necessary to “…remind [our people] what being British is about.” For Liddle, it was the need for a “core of Britishness” that would solve the ‘problem’ of multiculturalism. But what is meant when such commentators use the terms ‘British’ or ‘Britishness’, and would this really solve the ‘problem’ of multiculturalism? One answer to this might be located in considering the relationship between multiculturalism and nationalism, a relationship that can be at times awkwardly and dangerously entangled. This relationship is almost inversely proportional: if multiculturalism is understood to succeed, then it could be argued that nationalism and the sense of a coherent national identity has in some ways failed. If however nationalism is in the ascendancy and a surge in national ‘pride’ is identified, then others might counter argue that multiculturalism has consequently failed. In this way, maybe it is the success of Britain as a multicultural society and the subsequent identification of Britain as multicultural that could be that which is contemporarily misunderstood, in that the problems of today’s society are a result of the watering down and eventual eradication of ‘our’ national identity, national pride and national culture: the who ‘we’ are, what ‘we’ are loyal to, and what ‘our’ way of life is. It is possible therefore that it is multiculturalism that is being seen and subsequently understood as not only challenging what we understand as being ‘British’, but more dangerously, dismantling, eradicating and ultimately remaking it in an entirely different image. To fully understand this, it is necessary to understand how the notion of ‘British’ was initially conceived and how this has changed in recent years.

As regards national identity, Durkheim explained how such was founded upon and rooted in the establishment of and adherence to ‘social facts’ (Durkheim 1982: 50-59). For him, ‘social facts’ were those things that any given society or nation become emotionally attached to, for example in the British setting this might be the good old cup of tea or the monarchy as per Lamont. In doing so, social facts function by providing familiarity as well as instilling a sense of nostalgia and security, becoming somewhat natural or normative of who or what ‘we’ are. If one considers the emergence of Britishness as an identity, what with it being coined only in the late 18th century, the social facts that provide us with familiarity and a sense of being ‘us’ are also rooted firmly in this same historical period: a period when the ‘Empire’ and the monarchy were both extremely powerful and highly influential. The notion of ‘British’ therefore emerged at a time when Britain was – in some people’s interpretation – truly ‘Great’. As such, the emotional attachment to Britain’s ‘Greatness’ and what made it ‘Great’ remain fixed to this particular historical time and context and also to what being ‘British’ is all about. Britain, and more importantly Britishness, therefore find familiarity plus a sense of nostalgia and security in such ways that it understands and differentiates itself in terms of being dominant, superior, ‘Great’ and so on.

Following the major changes that have occurred in Britain since the end of the Second World War, most prominently the demise of the Empire and the influx of immigrants from Commonwealth countries, many of the social facts have increasingly diminished, to the extent that some are even invalid, thus leaving the notion of what it is to be British as little more than a series of nostalgic moments in some far-off and distant collective memory. As such, being British and Britishness have been thrown into a state of flux, where the familiarities of the old world order – Great Britain – no longer reflect either the contemporary setting of Britain in the 21st century or its position in an increasingly shrinking world. The social facts about being British therefore do not adequately answer the questions about who and what being ‘British’ is, thus creating a void that awaits being adequately filled. Thus ensues a situation where being ‘British’ and indeed ‘Britishness’ itself are also in a state of crisis where little concrete evidence can be put forward as to who or what ‘we’ are.

Offering a good dose of ‘Britishness’ as a response to what is perceived to be a failing multiculturalism may not necessarily therefore offer the solution to the problem. As Modood explains, ‘Britishness’ is currently trapped within a political struggle:

on the right are exclusivist, even racist notions of Britishness that hold that non-white people are not really British and that Muslims are an alien wedge. On the left is the view that there is something deeply wrong about rallying round the idea of Britain, about defining ourselves in terms of a normative concept of Britishness – that it is too racist, imperialist, militaristic, and elitist (Modood 2005).

So when answers are sought as to what ‘Britishness’ is, so the responses are either culturally or civically insignificant: trapped between the culturally banal and trite – fish and chips, queuing, cups of tea, or even more cynically binge drinking, - and the civically indistinguishable – democracy, free speech, equality and human rights – that almost all other modern nations equally aspire to. In the discourse of the debates to have emerged concerning the demise of multiculturalism, not only are Muslims and Islam put forward as being against all of these, but also that they present a challenge, and more worryingly, a threat to them also. If this is what Britishness is reduced to, so the need to respond becomes potentially forceful and something of a vengeful act of self-defence: self-defence against those who are alleged to be posing the threat and that is none other than Muslims and the presence of Islam in Britain. Repeatedly, therefore, the evidence would suggest that rather than the current debates that are understood to be either attacking or questioning multiculturalism as a concept or political ideal, underlying these same debates is much more insidious and covert attack, one that is focused much more upon the presence, role and responsibilities of Muslims and Islam and the perceived problems that these – rather than multiculturalism – are presenting to the future of Britain and British society.

Irrespective of the nature of the current debates and arguments surrounding multiculturalism, neither Islam nor Muslims are incompatible with either Britishness or multiculturalism. The events of 7/7 and 21/7 were not therefore evidence that multiculturalism was dead nor even that certain communities and religions needed to be vilified. The reality is indeed quite the opposite. As David Hayes wrote shortly after the bombings, the best option available is one of a more ‘radical multiculturalism’ (Hayes 2005). If as the old adage goes, ‘extremism breeds extremism’ then maybe Hayes provides a unique solution. Instead of allowing an atrocity devised by ‘extremists’ to destroy who ‘we’ are and our ‘way of life’ – where Britishness is undoubtedly multicultural and clearly has been for a number of decades – why not then reciprocate this and employ extreme ‘radical multiculturalism’ to not only defeat the extremists – both Muslim and non – in their desire to drive a wedge between Muslims and everybody else whilst at the same time undermining those critics – from both the full breadth of the political spectrum – that insist that Muslims and Islam are incompatible with today’s society. This then will go some way towards the most neglected fact about multiculturalism and that is that multiculturalism is far from dead. Instead, it is an everyday occurrence and reality of millions of different Britons that goes somewhat unnoticed and without any necessary or special recognition whatsoever.

Whilst the Runnymede report is therefore ten years old and the ‘first decade of Islamophobia’ might be coming to something of a traumatic and unclear end, the fact remains that it is still necessary – possibly even more so – to be aware of the processes of and discourse associated with anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic expression. Whilst the report identified that the rhetoric being articulated by those sections of society that claimed the mantle of secularism, liberalism and tolerance was at the time somewhat ‘new’, in the contemporary climate whilst these same sectors are continuing to propagate and perpetuate similar thoughts, these can no longer be understood or determined as something that was new. Yet despite this being the case, the fact that these same sections of society are continuing with such a practice – unchallenged, unchecked and to some degree unacknowledged – highlights potentially how over the past decade such rhetoric and discourse has become ever more natural and even less problematic. Less problematic that is as regards the acceptance and resonance of such a discourse and its meanings where Islamophobia has become – and possibly continues to become – ever more naturalised and normative. And because of this, those that are at the forefront of liberalism, those that lurk in the shadows of such political inventions as ‘progressive nationalism’, those that are espousing tolerance, those integral and vitally placed in the bludgeoning equalities and human rights sector continue to pursue their campaigns against injustice and all forms of intolerance at the same time as they too wage war and embed their prejudices and discriminations towards Islam and Muslims further and further into so much of their rhetoric. Still, ten years on from being initially warned about the very same fact, they and many others overlook the fact that society continues to offer only unequal opportunities for Muslims. Still, ten years on, that which is underpinning much of what continues to be articulated from within these sectors of society – a process that cuts across traditional political divides of right and left – remains rooted in the blaming, problematisation and dislike of Muslims and Islam. Whilst the Runnymede report therefore stated that the hostility and hatred shown expressed about Muslims and Islam was increasingly ‘more explicit, more extreme and more dangerous’. In the increasingly urgent contemporary climate, it might be more appropriate to suggest the same being maybe rather more implicit, more naturalised, but just as equally dangerous.


Works Cited
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Goodhart, David. February 2004a. Too diverse? Prospect.
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