Muslim Lifestyle

The Fetish of Difference

We live in a multi-cultural society. That is a fact. That is historical, and to this day we have retained lots of traditions, which we see exemplified in the Cornish and Scots, for example. However, multi-culturalism is not a fact but a way of thinking and that is what I mean when I say it can be turned by some into a sort of fetish – a fetish of difference.

When we started talking about multi-culturalism we did so because there was no tradition of accepting incoming diversity in a respectful manner. Today, however, 86% of people don’t believe that you have to be white to be British, which is different to the situation twenty years ago. We now have popular respect for diversity; people can and do live side by side. That battle is nearly won.

Now we face other challenges, and we have to assess where the struggle is now. It is most certainly not the maintenance of a static culture, where we say we have a series of different cultures and they shall always remain like this. The battle is now to

have people from these different cultures in the mainstream of society. When I am calling for people to be British I have not decided that I want “everybody to be white”, but we have to ask ourselves what are we calling for when we demand to hold onto our cultures. We do have attachments to our cultures, but they are not frozen in time. Choices will have to be made. There are aspects of culture which may seem natural in other settings, but are not intrinsically about being a Muslim or about being an Afro-Caribbean. Some of those practices will not be ‘natural’ in England. There are things which are natural in Kingston, Jamaica, but not so in Kingston, Surrey. These things – which are not essential to one’s identity as a Muslim, or essential to one’s identity as an Afro- Caribbean, or from wherever you are, will be shed and something new will emerge: new Britishness.

Defining Britishness is difficult. All of us have more than one dimension to ourselves. We can all hold more than one identity and every one accepts that. However, we can have a core that is common which is authentically British, and at the same time there are differences which are authentic and belong here. I am a Londoner which is completely different to being a Geordie, but there is much that we share.

Britishness isn’t uniform - that is part of the point of Britishness. It is diverse. It is not an author, a book or a building; rather it is a way of doing things. There is a way of behaving which allows us to do things in common. It is easier to know instinctively what being British is than to articulate it. You see examples of people who are balancing identities. I met the other day a Muslim woman in full Islamic dress who was a physicist and spoke with a broad London accent. In many ways she was an unlikely person, except in Britain where it felt perfectly natural! She held these identities so perfectly together. In their real lives people are holding multiple identities; they are naturally British and Muslim. Naturally British and Afro-Caribbean.

There are those who object to this move forward. Yet yesterday’s radical are today’s conservatives. There are those that in the past fought for respect of diversity but now want to ossify that diversity with the predominant white culture surrounded by a few gestures of small satellites of other cultures. We should not be bought off with that. My ancestors helped to shape this country; Islam helped to shape this country and we have been ‘here’ influencing for hundreds of years. We helped shape and create Britain and helped make Britishness what it is today, so why are we surrendering our position? We must be more radical than asking for a little space to play our steel bands and eat our samosas. We want a place in the centre of society.

Instead we are treated differently, and our differences are glorified at the expense of equality. This has practical implications - the Manchester education committee that wants to set up a school in Bangladesh because Bengali parents keep taking their children out of school during term time is doing those children a great disservice. It is not dealing with them the same way as everyone else even though their children’s education is being disadvantaged. Instead it is saying ‘because you are foreigners, and what is most important about you is your culture, not that your children do well at school, we will treat you differently.’ But I am say- ing those very children have a right to a decent education here and we cannot deny them that right.

There are darker elements to this fetish of difference. You have the example of Victoria Climbie. According to internal reports there were 17 occasions in which that child's life night have been saved. Yet I understand that social workers did not intervene on several occasions because they 'did not want to be accused of racism, of not understanding African culture'.

We have to persuade the Muslim youth that the idea of a British Muslim is a realistic one. There are people out there who are trying to persuade them that it is incompatible to be British and to be Muslim. The argument these people make is: “they hate you because you are a Muslim and they will never give you a chance, they will never let you be part of this society so why continue trying. The most important thing is to be part of the ummah and that is at odds with being British.” We need to show that is not the case. You can be part of the ummah, you can have concerns for your brothers and sisters across the world, you can express that concern within Britain and be British. Indeed, it is part of the tradition of civic activity which is very British.

The most uplifting thing that I have seen and crystallised my view about the need to establish a British Islam was the campaign against the war on Iraq. The interesting thing about this is that it was the biggest mobilisation of Muslims at any time in this country. It was completely anti-government, but that opposition was done in a characteristically British way: you go to London, you have banners, you march to Hyde Park, you listen to speeches in the rain and then you read about it in the papers the next day. This is the ‘British way’. That to me was the first big intervention which might begin to define what a British Islam might look like as a civic force. One did not have to agree with the march to be thrilled to see so many Muslims on the same march as Trotskyites, Christians, CND, Jews, Sikhs. That to me is British civic activity and it’s fantastic! We have done that since the Tolpuddle Martyrs, through Jarrow, through the unemployment marches of the 80s. This march was very, very important. It showed you can be British and you can support the global ummah.

There will be those who react negatively towards Muslims, who cannot comprehend Muslims fitting into mainstream society. Those who perceive Muslims as a fifth column here to undermine Queen and country are like those who thought the same of Catholics. This is a fear which has developed in the context of the international situation. Everyone must calm down, and the CRE is discussing with the government about the ways in which they exercise powers under terrorist legislation because they are pretty near the limit in the way it is being used. We have to detach terror from the communities in which people might want to hide and we must support all initiatives such as those of the Muslim Council of Britain which have given courage to British Muslims who have always wanted to be separated from extremist positions. It has given people the impetus to say “we may not like what the government is doing in Iraq, we may think that what is happening in Palestine/Israel is utterly unjust, we may not like Bush, we may not even like Blair, but that’s our right. That does not turn us into terrorists. We can do all of those things and not be labelled as terrorists.” That is what a democracy is about. That is the reasonable position for the mainstream Muslim community to take. Getting that position recognised is a hard task but we have got to do it.

It can be thought to be at odds, especially given the problem of disaffected youths. However, we need to look at the real problems. If the society as a whole treats young Muslims as unequal then it can be thought to be at odds. Inequality is the real driver here – inequality of education, inequality of voice. We don’t talk enough about the fact that though Britain’s Muslims are 1.8m, they are massively under-represented. I don’t just mean in parliament, but in all sorts of places which convey status and authority. Our hospital boards, our school governors, our local authorities (where there isn’t an exclusive concentration of Muslims). All of the places where society says “We give these people status.” This is a very big issue. If I were a young Muslim then one thing that would affect me, sub-consciously if not consciously, is the invisibility of Muslims in public life. In many walks of life I see not just whites, but I see black people playing a big role, I see Indians being influential, but I don’t see Muslims playing quite such a big role as their numbers should reflect.

I hear a lot of people saying we need to deal with poverty, unemployment – this is all true, but the other thing we can do a lot about and very quickly, is thinking whether there are ways we can have more Muslim Britons in places of authority in our society.

I hope that we have begun a debate. We can get people to start talking about it properly. We must talk to government and legislators about things which stand in the way of integration, particularly inequality. We must use our powers and resources to work with the leadership of the Muslim community, which is what we have tried to do, particularly with the Muslim Council and others. We must encourage our local partners, local Race Equality Councils, and other voluntary sector organisations to work not just with racially defined communities but also faith communities. This is a new thing for us but this is beginning to happen. Faith, not just race, will be on the agenda and out of these discussions we must see the emergence of minorities into the mainstream of British society taking their place not as representatives of minorities but as full Britons.