Multiculturalism can foster a new kind of Englishness: Modood

2016/06/14 Leave a comment

Good and interesting account of how the multiculturalism reality of UK and identities have and continue to evolve by Tariq Modood:

Yet over the last couple of decades a new set of challenges have become apparent, initially in Scotland but increasingly throughout the UK. In none of the nations of the union does the majority of the population consider themselves British, without also considering themselves English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish first.

The 2011 census is not a detailed study of identity but it is striking that 70% of the people of England ticked the “English” box and the vast majority of them did not also tick the “British” box, even though they were invited to tick more than one. This was much more the case with white people than non-whites, who were more likely to be “British” only or combined with English. Multiculturalism, then, may actually have succeeded in fostering a British national identity among the ethnic minorities.

Multiculturalism in this case, then, offers not only the plea that English national consciousness should be developed in a context of a broad, differentiated British identity. But also, ethnic minorities can be seen as an important bridging group between those who think of themselves as only English, and those who consider themselves English and British.

Paradoxically, a supposedly out-of-date political multiculturalism becomes a source of how to think about not just integration of minorities but about how to conceive of our plural nationality and of how to give expression to dual identities such as English-British. It is no small irony that minority groups who are all too often seen as harbingers of fragmentation could prove to be exemplars of the union.

The minimum I would wish to urge upon a centre-left that is taking English consciousness seriously is that it should not be simply nostalgic and should avoid ethnic nationalism, such as talk of Anglo-Saxonism. More positively, multiculturalism, with its central focus on equal citizenship and diverse identities and on the renewing and reforging of nationality to make it inclusive of contemporary diversity, can help strengthen an appreciation of the emotional charge of belonging together.

Source: Multiculturalism can foster a new kind of Englishness

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The UK citizenship is becoming like a bad pub quiz and has to change – Thom Brooks

2016/06/06 Leave a comment

Thos Brooks on some of the absurdities of the current British citizenship test and finding the right balance and focus for such tests:

The first version of the test was launched in 2005 and a second edition published in 2007. Both were notable by their errors. They included mistakes like getting wrong the number of MPs in Parliament or asking about government departments and programmes that had been closed or stopped.

When I sat the test in 2009, it was possible to sit a test where the correct answers were all factually false. And remember this was supposed to be about ensuring people integrated into society, not failing them on false pretences because no-one can be bothered to see what is actually on the test that migrants must pass to become residents or citizens.

The citizenship tests demanded little knowledge of British history and culture. I campaigned for a change in 2011 and welcomed the coalition government’s commitment to revising the test so it includes these missing features closing this important gap.

However, the pendulum has swung too far in this new direction.

The citizenship test has gone from a test of practical trivia to the more purely trivial. The test handbook has grown to 180 pages crammed with about 3,000 facts and over 250 dates that few native-born British citizens will know.

Gone is information about contacting emergency services, reporting a crime or registering with a GP. In its place, we learn the approximate age of Big Ben’s clock and the height of the London Eye. Telephone numbers like 999 are out, but the front desk of the Scottish Parliament is included to ‘book tickets or arrange tours’. Or that Sake Dean Mahomet came to Britain from Bengal in 1782 to set up Britain’s first curry house in 1810 – the Hindoostane Coffee House – on George Street, London.

Few, if any, British citizens know any of these facts that seem fit only for a bad pub quiz – nor should any be expected to. Nor is it obvious why knowing such trivia foster integration.

In writing my new book Becoming British, I interviewed hundreds of people across the country. Native- born citizens expressed surprise – sometimes horror – about what the test asks in their name. There is something anti-British in lacking any sense of fair play, or as one person said: ‘It’s just not on’.

Turning to migrants like me who became British citizens, the common view is the test and accompanying rules are hurdles to be jumped and endured. People line up to become British not because they want to, but because they seek to hop off the rollercoaster of constant visa applications where the price only goes up – and Home Office service in the opposite direction. Becoming British has become more a necessity than a choice. It’s time action was taken.

The founding purpose of the British citizenship test – and much else in our wider immigration policy – now seems in jeopardy. The citizenship test has become unfit for purpose. It’s time the government puts this right.

Over ten years ago, Crick led an Advisory Group that published a report setting out recommendations for how the test should look and how citizenship ceremonies are run. It is high time there was a fundamental review into how our citizenship policies a decade later.

Not only has immigration to Britain been transformed over this time, but its importance as an issue of real concern for the public. The times have changed and a review is now urgently required.

Crucially, a new review of the citizenship test and naturalisation policies more generally must consult with naturalised British citizens, especially migrants that have sat the test and become British. Our policies – like the use of the test to assist integration – would benefit enormously by seeking feedback from the very people it aims to address.

Only then can we gain a better understanding of how the test and related procedures help or hinder integration. Immigrants who became British citizens should have a front seat to help drive improvement. Now.

My research suggests that the current procedures may be counterproductive. The effect of making many new citizens pass knowledge tests that no born British citizen could runs the serious risk of not bringing future British citizens together, but helping push them apart. It builds a barrier where we need a bridge.

This is not an argument for making the test less difficult or important. I believe it should continue to play a role in immigration policy.

But we need to consider more seriously whether the current test does more harm than good – and the measures we should adopt to ensure it fulfils its original purpose.

Becoming British is an important milestone and we honour that by treating the test and our naturalisation policies with the respect they deserve.

Source: The UK citizenship is becoming like a bad pub quiz and has to change – Thom Brooks – Chronicle Live

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The anti-Trump: Sadiq Khan and triumph of mainstream Islam – iPolitics

2016/05/18 Leave a comment

Shenaz Kermalli on Sadiq Khan’s win:

Last year, we saw Muslims in Canada unite strategically for the first time in a non-partisan, grassroots organization to achieve a single goal — to increase the participation of Canadian Muslims in the democratic process. This, coupled with the former government’s crude anti-Muslim strategy (not unlike the tactics employed by Zac Goldsmith, Sadiq Khan’s Conservative Party competitor), was a key factor in bringing Justin Trudeau’s pro-immigration party to power. We’ve also seen Maryam Monsef, who came to Canada an as Afghan refugee, sworn in as minister of Democratic Institutions in Trudeau’s cabinet, and Ginella Massa, a hijab-clad journalist, become an on-camera reporter for the Toronto-based CityTV.

Britons, too, have seen a rise in the number of British Muslims taking on high-profile roles. From Nadiya Hussain — winner of the popular television program The Great British Bake-Off — to Somali-born and London-raised Mo Farah, winner of two Olympic Gold medals in 2013, it has been exhilarating to see Muslims make headlines in stories that were not about suicide attacks or beheadings.

In the U.S., we saw videos of Dalia Mogahed, director of research at a DC social policy institute, go viral after she smoothly took on contentious questions about the hijab and radicalization on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah — using U.S. polling figures as evidence that there was no correlation between the two. We also saw professional fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad become the first U.S. athlete to complete in the Olympics as an identifiable Muslim.

None of these people ever publicly condemned ISIS’s abhorrent actions during their moments of fame for a very simple reason: It wasn’t in their remit. They are all skilled professionals in their own right — recognized as Muslims but celebrated for the extraordinary skills they use to contribute to mainstream society.

Which is the way it should be. Muslims are no different from anyone else. For that reason, their achievements should be commended no more, or less, than anyone else’s.

Perhaps the next step in fostering genuine equity in society is for news outlets to drop the ‘Muslim’ descriptor altogether. Would it have made headlines across the world if a Jewish or Hindu mayor had won the London mayoral race, or The Great British Bake-Off?

Canadian journalist Muhammad Lila asked the right question after Sadiq won the mayoral race: “Wouldn’t it be nice if one day Muslims could just do stuff, without pointing out their religion?”

Source: The anti-Trump: Sadiq Khan and triumph of mainstream Islam – iPolitics

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U.K. girls learn about female genital mutilation before danger of ‘cutting season’ 

2016/05/17 Leave a comment

Likely an issue in Canada as well:

She teaches the types of FGM, how children can contact international organizations for help, and how to avoid getting on a plane to leave the country if they suspect they’re going for FGM.

“There’s one trick, called spoon-in-knickers,” Wardere says. “You can put something metal in your underwear when you’re going to the airport and [the detector] will sound. Everyone working in the airport is trained that if with an underage child, the detector goes off, you need to take them on the side, find out what’s going on.”

Wardere says what’s most important about what she does is making children aware of FGM and then sending them home to discuss it with their parents.

“For the first time,” she says, “that conversation is happening.”

Ali also teaches about FGM and talks about her experience. She recently returned from the Women of the World festival in Karachi, Pakistan. She says she’s received threats for sharing her story, “mostly from men.” She says people will come right up and tell her to her face.

“Just because I was talking about my own experience and something that’s happened to me, they were like, ‘F—  you’ and ‘You’re selling out to the white people’ and I just kept saying: ‘No. Actually, I’m talking about feminism and I’m talking about women’s rights.'”

Wardere also felt resistance. At first.

“Sometimes communities don’t know who is for them and who is against them,” she says. “Even if you come from that community itself. They need time to adjust and you know, figure out who you are, and then respect you and then let you in.”

Source: U.K. girls learn about female genital mutilation before danger of ‘cutting season’ – World – CBC News

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Sadiq Khan and the Future of Europe: Mehdi Hasan

2016/05/16 Leave a comment

Mehdi Hasan on Sadiq Khan’s election, contrasting multiculturalism and integration in Britain and other European countries:

Mr. Khan’s resounding victory was a stinging rebuke to the peddlers of prejudice. Here is a Muslim who prays and fasts and has gone on the hajj to Mecca. But he sees no contradiction in being a card-carrying liberal, too. As a member of Parliament, he voted — despite death threats from Islamist extremists — in favor of same-sex marriage and he campaigned to save a local pub in his constituency from closure. He has pledged to serve as a “feminist mayor” of London and made his first public appearance after the election at a Holocaust memorial service.

The capital, admittedly, is a city apart — diverse, immigrant-friendly and home to around four in 10 of England’s 2.6 million Muslims. But even outside London, the more relaxed and tolerant British model of multiculturalism has done a far superior job of integrating, even embracing, religious and racial diversity than the more muscular, assimilationist models in Continental Europe.

While Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have declared multiculturalism a failure, the truth is that their countries, Germany and France, have never tried it. As Tariq Modood, the author of “Still Not Easy Being British,” writes, multiculturalism is the “political accommodation of difference.” For the French, however, difference has never even been tolerated, much less accommodated. In contrast, British-style multiculturalism has treated integration, as even David Cameron conceded almost a decade ago, as “a two-way street” and never required, in the words of Will Kymlicka, the author of “Multicultural Odysseys,” that “prior identities” must “be relinquished” in order to build a national identity.

Is it surprising that polls find that British Muslims are more patriotic and take more pride in their national identity than their non-Muslim counterparts and studies show that ethnic and religious segregation in Britain is either steady or in decline?

That isn’t to deny the problems. Britain’s Muslims tend to have the highest unemployment, worst health and fewest educational qualifications of any faith community. But this likely has more to do with a history of racism than it does with an unwillingness to integrate. A 2013 study found that Muslim men in Britain were up to 76 percent less likely to get a job offer than Christian men of the same age holding similar qualifications, while Muslim women were 65 percent less likely to be employed than Christian women.

The situation, then, is far from perfect, but there is a good reason that British Muslims look across the English Channel and breathe a sigh of collective relief.

Source: Sadiq Khan and the Future of Europe – The New York Times

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Exclusive: London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Religious Extremism, Brexit and Donald Trump | TIME

2016/05/11 Leave a comment

My favourite quote from London’s new mayor on the difference between tolerating and welcoming:

That shows what a wonderful city we are. We’re not simply tolerating each other — you tolerate a toothache, I don’t want to be tolerated. We respect, we embrace, and we celebrate, which is fantastic.

Source: Exclusive: London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Religious Extremism, Brexit and Donald Trump | TIME

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Britain Grapples With Enduring Questions of Religion and Race – The New York Times

2016/04/26 Leave a comment

Good overview of the tone and substance of recent political discourse in Britain:

As Britain engages in fierce debates centered on national identity, it is also confronting challenges to traditional norms of political discourse, with issues of race and religion surfacing more overtly and provocatively.

The looming referendum on whether to leave the European Union, the place of Muslims in British society at a time when Islamic terrorists are targeting Europe, the broader question of the island nation’s openness to immigration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict all have recently sparked controversy and heated commentary about discrimination and tolerance.

Like most European countries, many of which are facing growing populist movements on the far right, Britain has always grappled with a strain of racial and religious bias. But the political calendar and global events have combined to push the topic to center stage.

President Obama, during his three-day visit here that ended on Sunday, was the focus of an extraordinary squabble that centered on his Kenyan father and attitudes toward British imperialism.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative legislator, mayor of London and leader of the campaign against British membership in the European Union, responded to Mr. Obama’s robust call for Britain to stay in the bloc with an opinion piece centering around Mr. Obama’s removal of a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

Mr. Johnson suggested that Mr. Obama may have been motivated by “the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire, of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

That comment provoked furious claims that Mr. Johnson, often mentioned as potential successor to Prime Minister David Cameron as leader of the Conservatives, was making a smear based on Mr. Obama’s race in order to undermine his arguments in favor of Britain remaining in the bloc.

Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, told the Telegraph icily about Mr. Johnson: “People who aspire to hold offices of great responsibility do have to show that even under pressure they retain their cool and they don’t step over any red lines.”

Mr. Obama neatly parried the thrust without responding in kind, saying that he thought even Britons would understand that he might find it “appropriate” to have a bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. instead.

But the dispute touched deeper chords here about whether Britain can better control its borders and defend itself from terrorism from within or outside the European Union. Mr. Johnson argued that Mr. Obama is “hypocritical,” saying the United States would never cede such control over its sovereign borders to anyone.

Source: Britain Grapples With Enduring Questions of Religion and Race – The New York Times

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Do ‘British values’ favour colonial comeback over multiculturalism? | Middle East Eye

2016/04/14 Leave a comment

Myriam Francois’s view on removal of colonial symbols. Some valid points, but there are also risks associated with effacing and forgetting the past (‘those who forget history …’):

And yet, the campaigns have been largely met with consternation. For all the talk of the positive value of diversity within our society, such campaigns remain a struggle on the margins, not entirely dismissed, but requiring quiet co-optation through piecemeal concessions designed to quell the disruptive uprisings of those now too close to power to be metaphorically put down.

Indeed, an admission of racism following a decision to use an image of black hands in chains to advertise a drinks poster is surely a meagre victory for a movement of such ambition. And although a similar campaign at Cambridge succeeded in convincing Jesus College to take down and consider the repatriation of a bronze cockerel looted in the 19th century, such critical demands are yet to become audible to a broader audience.

It is not sufficient to eventually recognise the validity of the cries for freedom among oppressed peoples when the tools which served to uphold that domination continue to permeate popular culture and in many cases, justify new variants on imperial exploitation. In the case of Rhodes, to maintain as a central part of our social vocabulary a man who stands as the cultural equivalent of the “N” word, is to fail to recognise that just as language evolves to reflect changing social norms, so must our concrete edifices.

Critics of the decolonial movement have compared the call for the removal of Rhodes to a form of cultural censorship – where would the movement stop exactly, ask those who, in so doing, unwittingly concede the pervasiveness of imperial ideals within our contemporary culture.

If we might term white supremacy a culture which justifies the encroachment of European powers into other continents and lands under the guise of conferring civility upon peoples assumed to be lagging on the developmental scale, then the edifices of that supremacy must be dismantled.

In their place, society must make way for a consensual cultural construction, in which all voices are not a mere addition to a slightly reformed rotten core – the term “people” expanded to include women and ethnic minorities and quotas to guarantee a token visibility of the “other” – but rather serve to forge a new cultural project away from the racially skewed underpinning of the culture of empire. In this, the decolonial movement is the avant-garde of our generation.

Source: Do ‘British values’ favour colonial comeback over multiculturalism? | Middle East Eye

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Oh, So Now I’m Bangladeshi? – The New York Times

2016/04/11 Leave a comment

British writer Zia Haider Rahman on identity and perceived identity:

It is Britain’s inherent cultural problem with otherness that makes it difficult for the native to call me British, difficult even for those who, one might naïvely hope, should know better.

If you’re not going to call me British when I grew up in Britain; when I hold a British passport and don’t hold a Bangladeshi one; when I don’t even speak Bengali; when, good citizen that I try to be, I help an elderly neighbor with his Ikea bed, or dig out the old lilac that another cannot uproot; when I was educated in Britain, worked in Britain, was “a body of England’s, breathing English air/Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home”; when I wash the dishes at the local church’s fund-raiser for the homeless (because regardless of faith, we surely all believe in the idea of community); and again — it bears repetition — when I hold a British passport “without let or hindrance,” then you can’t be surprised if, doubting your good faith, I grab my bags and get the hell out.

After all, how much more can I integrate? What more is it you want from us? To be white? To be you?

Source: Oh, So Now I’m Bangladeshi? – The New York Times

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Has Labour under Corbyn really gone soft on antisemitism? | Tony Klug 

2016/04/06 Leave a comment

One of the more thoughtful and balanced commentary on the UK Labour antisemitism issue:

For Britons on all sides, it means reflecting on the critical role Britain and Europe played in instigating the conflict in the first place. The tragic historical Arab-Jewish clash was the product of generations of virulent European antisemitism at home and rampant imperialism abroad. It was white Europe’s innate sense of superiority and its routine oppression that fostered Jewish nationalism, Arab nationalism and Palestinian nationalism. Europe’s present-day assumption of the moral high ground over a conflict it helped to shape is breathtakingly audacious. Those on the British left today who disdainfully dismiss Israel as merely a colonial-settler state conveniently forget that Jews were not sent to Palestine as agents of imperial Europe, but were fleeing the continent for their lives.

For its victims, the systematic annihilation of two-thirds of European Jews was not just a shocking historical statistic. A cataclysm of that magnitude has inevitably left an indelible mark on the psyche of a people made to feel not just powerless, but also utterly degraded and worthless. Probably most Jews, including strong critics of successive Israeli governments, hold on to Israel as the phoenix that arose from the ashes. Many lament that the Jewish state did not come into existence 10 years earlier, for that might have saved up to 6 million Jewish lives.

It is these sentiments that are generally uppermost in the minds of Jews who passionately parade their support for Israel. Their myopia regarding the increasingly desperate Palestinian plight is shadowed by the insensitivity of others who dismiss them as simply bigots or oppressors. This is felt particularly keenly when their accusers seem much less exercised by the gross human rights abuses of a host of despotic regimes or the brutal antics of armed militant groups, and in some cases even make excuses for them.

Historically, Jews and Arabs have mostly had cordial relations. The Jewish and Muslim belief systems and customs have much in common. The contemporary conflict has severely undermined these ties and has fostered in their place the parallel phenomena of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Arab and Muslim worlds and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment in the Jewish world. Ultimately, only a resolution of the conflict will settle these matters. Here, Europe could be appropriately and energetically engaged. Meanwhile, it should not be forgotten that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are fated to live alongside each other one way or another. Thus they both have an intrinsic interest in spurning the sometimes dubious support of fair-weather third parties whose antipathy to one side or the other can be so odious that it could poison relations indefinitely.

By promptly excluding Downing and Kirby, and investigating recent allegations of endemic antisemitism in the Oxford University Labour Club, the Labour party is showing itself to be alert to this insidious menace. But these steps might be tinkering at the edges. Without prejudging them, a comprehensive open inquiry into antisemitism on the British left, including the Labour party, would help clarify the underlying issues and draw out the important distinctions. As proudly proclaimed opponents of racist bigotry in all its forms, Jeremy Corbyn and the party he leads could provide an important service to the fabric of community relations by taking on this challenge.

Source: Has Labour under Corbyn really gone soft on antisemitism? | Tony Klug | Opinion | The Guardian

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