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CRC Policy Conference speech by Kenan Malik
Kenan Malik
CRC Policy Conference, 27th April 2006
We're All Multiculturalists Now observed American sociologist, and former critic of pluralism, Nathan Glazer in the title of a recent book. And indeed we are. Few things define our age more than the belief in the benefits of cultural diversity. Words such as 'respect', 'tolerance' and 'diversity' trip off virtually every politicians tongue. The celebration of difference, the promotion of a pluralist society, tolerance for a variety of cultural identities - these are seen as the hallmarks of a decent, liberal, democratic, non-racist society.
The starting point for any multicultural policy is the belief that for a diverse society to function and to be fair, both individually and collectively we need to show respect for other peoples, cultures, and viewpoints. It is therefore be incumbent on people to act responsibly by refraining from giving offence to other groups and cultures. And should it be incumbent on governments to legislate not just to guarantee equal treatment for all people, but also to ensure that all cultures are allowed to flourish and that everyone behaves in a tolerant and respectful manner to people of differing cultures. Hence the promotion over the past few decades of race relations laws, legislation against hate speech, and public funding for social and artistic diversity.
Such laws and regulations have been introduced with the best of intentions. Their consequences, however, often been to create the very problems they were meant to solve. Rather than establishing an open, democratic, diverse society, multicultural policies have in many cases helped fragment society, create new divisions and conflicts, and box people in into narrow identities. A Shared Future points out, 'Multi-ethnic societies that work well… recognise that the complex make-up of each individual is what gives us our identity'. This identity 'is something that… evolves over time… not something that is unchanging that seals us off from those who are different'. In 'Multi-ethnic societies that don't work', on the other hand, 'individuals are reduced to simple group stereotypes, which easily turn into enemy images.' The impact of much multicultural policy, unfortunately, has precisely been to create such stereotypes and enemy images. I am going to be talking not about Northern Ireland but largely about the British experience. The lessons, however, are, I think, universal.
Part of the problem is that discussions of multiculturalism confuse descriptions and prescriptions. The term 'multicultural' has come to define a society that is perceived as particularly diverse, usually as a result of immigration. It has also come to define the policies necessary to manage such diversity. The concept of multiculturalism, in other words, has come to embody both a description of a society and a prescription for managing that society. Multiculturalism is both the problem and the answer, and this, as we shall see, is highly problematic when it comes to policy-making.
There is a second and equally troubling confusion: between the concept of multiculturalism as lived experience and multiculturalism as a political process or ideology. When most people say that multiculturalism is a good thing what they mean is the experience of living in a society that is less insular, less homogenous, more vibrant and cosmopolitan than before. And in that sense Britain is a much richer place for the impact of mass immigration.
Those who advocate multiculturalism as a political process are, however, talking about something different. Multiculturalism, they argue, requires the public recognition and affirmation of cultural differences. An individual's cultural background frames their identity and helps define who they are. If we want to treat individuals with dignity and respect we must also treat with dignity and respect the groups that furnish them with their sense of personal being. 'The liberal is in theory committed to equal respect for persons', the political philosopher Bhikhu Parekh argues. 'Since human beings are culturally embedded, respect for them entails respect for their cultures and ways of life.'
Social justice requires not just that individuals are treated as political equals, but that their cultural beliefs are also treated as equally valid, and indeed are institutionalised in the public sphere. The influential sociologist Tariq Madood draws a distinction between what he calls the 'equality of individualism' and the 'equality encompassing public ethnicity: equality as not having to hide or apologise for one's origins, family or community, but requiring others to show respect for them, and adapt public attitudes and arrangements so that the heritage they represent is encouraged rather than contemptuously expect them to wither away.'
I want to suggest that this vision of multiculturalism as a political process actually undermines much of what is valuable about multiculturalism as lived experience. We can see this if we look historically at how multicultural policies developed in Britain. One of the enduring myths is that multicultural policies were introduced because minority groups demanded that their cultural differences be recognised and be afforded respect. In fact, far from being a response to demands from local communities, multiculturalism, was imposed from the top, the product of government and local authority policies aimed at diffusing the anger created by racism.
First and second generation postwar immigrants to Britain were concerned less about preserving cultural differences than about fighting for political equality. They recognised that at the heart of the fight for political equality was a commonality of values, hopes and aspirations between blacks and whites, not an articulation of unbridgeable differences.
In the sixties and seventies four main issues dominated the struggle for racial equality: opposition to discriminatory immigration controls; the fight against racist attacks; the struggle for equality in the workplace; and, most explosively, the issue of police brutality. These struggles politicised a new generation of activists and came to an explosive climax in the inner city riots of the late seventies and early eighties.
It was against this background that the policies of multiculturalism emerged. Led by the then Greater London Council, local authorities organised consultation with black and Asian communities, drew up equal opportunities policies, established race relations units and dispensed millions of pounds in grants to community organisations.
At the heart of the strategy was a redefinition of racism. Racism now meant not simply the denial of equal rights but the denial of the right to be different. Equality no longer meant treating everybody equally despite their racial, cultural, ethnic or religious differences but treating people differently because of them.
These policies transformed the character of antiracism in two major ways. First, because political power was channelled through ethnically-based organisations, so people began to organise themselves around ethnic issues. In other words, identity became linked primarily to ethnicity or faith because asserting such identity gave people greater political power.
A good illustration of this is the changing relationships between ethnic groups in Birmingham. In 1985 the city was rocked by the Handsworth riots, when black, whites and Asians took to the streets together in violent protest against poverty, unemployment and, in particular, oppressive policing. Last year the Lozells area of the city, next door to Handsworth, was again torn apart by riots. But this time he violence pitted not the community against the police but blacks against Asians. Communities that had fought side by side in 1985 fought against each other 20 years later.
The root of the 2005 riots was a rumour that a group of Asian men had gang-raped a young Jamaican girl. No evidence has been found to substantiate the claim – and no victim has ever turned up – but so deep has become the distrust between the two communities that most African Caribbeans in the area believed the rumour to be true. Why the shift in attitudes over the past 20 years? Largely as a result of multicultural policies introduced after 1985.
In response to the original riots, the council set up nine so-called 'Umbrella Groups' to speak for different ethnic communities in the city – such as African Caribbean, Chinese, Irish, Pakistani – as well as specific faith groups – Black-led churches, the Bangladeshi Islamic Project, the Hindu Council and the Sikh Council of Gurdwaras. The aim
was to draw minorities into the political process, to give them a voice and a degree of political power. The reality, though, was to create conflict where none had existed before. As one academic study of Birmingham's race relations model put it, rather than developing 'cross-community equality agendas and responses to policy problems… the structure led to competition between Umbrella Groups for scarce resources.' The city's policies 'promoted 'competition between black and different ethnic minority communities as each 'attempted to maximise their own interests'.
Once policy makers started to think of the local community in ethnic and faith terms, and to allocate resources according to ethnicity and faith, then inevitably people began to view themselves in those categories. Far from responding to ethnic differences, in other words, multicultural policies often create them. The tensions between Birmingham's black and Asian population have not always been there but have been sparked in large part through the implementation of multicultural policies.
The second major impact of multicultural policies in the 1980s was to shift the focus of anti-racist struggles from political issues, such as policing and immigration, to religious and cultural issues. Take Bradford. In the late seventies, young Asians took to the streets in protest at racist attacks, deportations, and police harassment. In response, the council unrolled a series of multicultural policies largely on the GLC and Birmingham model. A 12-point race relations plan declared that every section of the 'multiracial, multicultural city' had 'an equal right to maintain its own identity, culture, language, religion and customs.' By the mid-eighties the focus of anti-racist protest in Bradford had shifted from political to religious and cultural issues: a demand for Muslim schools and for separate education for girls, a campaign for halal meat to be served at school, and, most explosively, the confrontation over the publication of The Satanic Verses.
Political struggles unite across ethnic or cultural divisions; cultural struggles inevitably fragment. As different groups began asserting their particular identities ever more fiercely, so the shift from the political to the cultural arena helped create a more tribal city. At the same time, since every group was now defined by its culture, militancy came to be seen as the demand for greater cultural authenticity.
When I was growing in the 1980s, there existed a strong secular movement within British Muslim communities which challenged both racism and traditional Muslim values. The Asian Youth Movement, founded in 1977, gave voice to a radical secular tradition. AYM activists did not distinguish themselves as Muslim, Hindu or Sikh; indeed many did not even see themselves as specifically Asian, preferring to call themselves 'black' which they viewed as an all-inclusive term for non-white immigrants. They challenged not just racism but also many traditional values too, particularly within the Muslim community, helping establish an alternative leadership that confronted traditionalists on issues such as the role of women and the dominance of the mosque.
But as the focus shifted in the 80s from political rights to cultural authenticity, so secular Muslims came increasingly to be seen as betraying their culture while radical Islam became not just more acceptable but, to many, more authentic. This process was strengthened by a new relationship between the local council and the mosques. In 1981 Bradford council helped set up and fund the Bradford Council of Mosques in 1981 and looked to it as a voice of the community. This helped marginalise secular radicals - the Asian Youth Movement eventually broke up - and allowed religious leaders to reassert their power. As the secular tradition became squeezed out, so the only place offering shelter for disaffected youth was militant Islam. Hence the rise in the late 80s of fundamentalist Islamic organisations, such as Hiz-ut-Tahrir.
Cultures are not homogenous, but if policy makers treat them as such, then they can come to be perceived as so, from both within and without, and with dangerous consequences. In Britain, the economist Amartya Sen suggests in his new book Identity and Violence, multicultural policy has created not diversity but what he calls 'plural monoculturalism'. Much discussion about multiculturalism warns against the view of social groups as sealed boxes. Yet in practice, multicultural policies assume that society is made up of a series of distinct, largely homogenous cultures that dance around each other; indeed not just assume this but help create such a society.
In cities like Bradford and Birmingham multicultural policies have helped segregate communities far more effectively than racism. Racism certainly created deep divisions in these cities. But it also helped generate political struggles against discrimination, the impact of which was to create bridges across ethnic, racial and cultural divisions. Multiculturalism, on the other had, has not simply entrenched the divisions created by racism, but made cross-cultural interaction more difficult by encouraging people to assert their cultural differences.
The real question we need to ask ourselves is why we should value diversity. Diversity is important, not in and of itself, but because it allows us to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles, make judgements upon them, and decide which are better and which worse. It is important, in other words, because it allows us to engage in political dialogue and debate, a process whereby different values are put to the test, and a collective language of citizenship emerges.
But it is precisely such dialogue and debate, and the making of such judgements, that the political process of multiculturalism attempts to suppress in the name of 'tolerance' and 'respect'. The very thing that is valuable about diversity – the clashes and conflicts that it brings about – is what many policy makers most fear.
Over the past few months there has been considerable debate about the limits of free speech in a plural society, particularly against the background of the Danish cartoons controversy and the introduction of a new law in Britain against incitement to religious hatred. Much of the discussion has assumed that free speech must necessarily be less free in a plural society. 'If people are to occupy the same political space without conflict', the Tariq Modood points out, 'they mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others' fundamental beliefs to criticism.'
I believe that the opposite is true. In a truly homogenous society in which everyone thought in exactly the same way then giving offence would be nothing more than gratuitous. But in the real world where societies are plural, then it is both inevitable and important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. And we should deal with those clashes rather than suppress them. Important because any kind of social change or social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities. The right to 'subject each others' fundamental beliefs to criticism' is the bedrock of an open, diverse society.
The consequence of restricting offensive speech is to make social groups appear more homogenous than they are and to create and exacerbate divisions between communities. Take the Danish cartoons. Most people – including most policy makers - assume that all Muslims want them banned. They do not. Bünyamin Simsek is a councillor in the Danish city of Aarhus who helped organize a counter-demonstration to the cartoon protests. 'There is', he says, 'a large group of Muslims in this city who want to live in a secular society and adhere to the principle that religion is an issue between them and God and not something that should involve society'. He is not alone. But his is the kind of voice that gets silenced in the rush to censor that which is deemed to cause offence. In the name of pluralism, the censors are helping to strengthen the hand of the most conservative elements within Muslim communities.
At the same time, restrictions on free speech in the name of tolerance leads us to a pick 'n' mix attitude to what is tolerable that exacerbates tensions between groups. When British Muslim leader Iqbal Sacranie's comments on homosexuality led last year to a police investigation, 22 Muslim leaders wrote to the Times demanding the right to be able to 'freely express their views in an atmosphere free of intimidation or bullying'. Those same leaders deny such a right to newspapers publishing cartoons about Mohammed. British National Party leader Nick Griffin wants to be free to promote racist hatred, but wants to lock up Islamic clerics who do the same. Many of those happy to see cartoons lampooning Mohammed draw the line at anything mocking the Holocaust. And so on. It is fast becoming a case of 'My speech should be free, but yours is too costly'. Censorship laws create conflict as each group demands that it should have freedom of expression but also the right not to be offended by others.
A truly plural society would be one in which citizens have full freedom to pursue their different values or practices in private, while in the public sphere all citizens would be treated as political equals whatever the differences in their private lives. Today, however, pluralism is coming to mean the very opposite. The right to practice a particular religion, speak a particular language, follow a particular cultural practice is seen as a public good rather than a private freedom. While our rights to do, write or even think as private citizens are increasingly curtailed in the name of 'tolerance'.
Diversity as lived experience is valuable and enriching. But multiculturalism as public policy often undermines what is valuable about such diversity. That is a lesson that all policy makers should take to heart.
