OpenDemocracy has an article by Tariq Modood, Professor and founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at Bristol University , reflecting on the complexities of multiculturalism, integration and Britishness post 7/7. Extract:
The argument against multiculturalism and for integration has....an even longer lineage in critiques from both left and right in the 1970s. But its post-2001 manifestation was new in a crucial respect: it came from the pluralistic centre-left, and was articulated by people who previously rejected polarising models of race and class and were sympathetic to the “rainbow”, coalitional politics of identity and the realignment and redefinition of progressive forces that it implied.
By 2004, it was common to read or hear that the cultural separatism and self-segregation of Muslim migrants represented a challenge to Britishness, and that a “politically-correct” multiculturalism had fostered fragmentation rather than integration. Trevor Phillips, then as now chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), declared that multiculturalism had once been useful but is now out-of-date, for it made a fetish of difference instead of encouraging minorities to be truly British (see Tom Baldwin, “I want an integrated society with a difference”, Times, 3 April 2004).
He criticises many on the left for:
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 – and that the goal of seeking to be British in the present and the future is silly and dangerous, and indeed demeaning to the newly settled groups among the population.
He argues correctly, in my view:
Perhaps one of the lessons of the current crisis is that multiculturalists, and the left in general, have been too hesitant about embracing our national identity and allying it with progressive politics.
Then he says:
The reaffirming of a plural, changing, inclusive British identity, which can be as emotionally and politically meaningful to British Muslims as the appeal of jihadi sentiments, is critical to isolating and defeating extremism.
I hope he actually means that 'a plural, changing inclusive British identity' can be more meaningful than 'the appeal of jihadi sentiments' rather than 'as' meaningful. However, he raises issues many on the left have run away from.
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