The trouble with multiculturalism
The term ‘multicultural’ has come to define a society that is
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 has become both the problem and the answer.
Another way of putting this is that we often confuse the distinction
between diversity as lived experience and multiculturalism as a
political process. On the one hand multiculturalism describes the
experience of living in a society that is less insular, less homogenous,
more cosmopolitan than before. On the other hand, it has come to
mean a political process through which cultural differences are given
public recognition and affirmation and the acceptance of the idea that
social justice requires the equal treatment not just of individuals but
also of their cultural beliefs.
I want to argue here that the multiculturalist description of society is a
highly distorted one, while the multiculturalist prescription creates the
very problems it is meant to solve. Multiculturalism, I want to suggest,
is not a response to a diverse society. Rather, the pursuit of
multicultural policies has led us to imagine that we are far more
diverse than we are. They have also helped resurrect ways of thinking
about difference that are rooted in racial theory.
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
To put these arguments in context I will begin by looking briefly at the
historical and philosophical roots of multiculturalism. Then I want to
explore some of the philosophical and political problems raised by
multiculturalism, and why we feel ours to be particularly diverse age.
And finally, I want to look at the political and sociological
consequences of multiculticultural policies in this country.
Contemporary multiculturalism is a marriage between the Romantic
idea of culture and an equally Romantic idea of identity. Romanticism
is one of those concepts that cultural historians find invaluable but
which is almost impossible to define. It took many political forms – it
lies at the root both of modern conservatism and many strands of
radicalism – and appeared in different national versions. Romanticism
was not a specific political or cultural view but rather described a
cluster of attitudes and preferences: for the concrete over the
abstract; the unique over the universal; nature over culture; the
organic over the mechanical; emotion over reason; intuition over
intellect; particular communities over abstract humanity.
These attitudes came to the fore towards the end of the eighteenth
century largely in reaction to the predominant views of the
Enlightenment. Much has been written about the varieties of beliefs
and arguments within the eighteenth century and it is no longer
fashionable to talk about the Enlightenment.
Nevertheless, beneath the differences there were a number of beliefs
that most of the philosophes held in common.
2
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
There was a broad consensus that humans possessed a common
nature; that the same institutions and forms of governance would
promote human flourishing in all societies; that reason allowed
humans to discover these institutions; and that through the
development of such institutions social inequalities and hierarchies
could be minimised and even erased.
The Romantic counter-Enlightenment challenged all these beliefs.
Whereas Enlightenment philosophes saw progress as civilisation
overcoming the resistance of traditional cultures with their peculiar
superstitions, irrational prejudices and outmoded institutions, for the
Romantics the steamroller of progress and modernity was precisely
what they feared. Enlightenment philosophes tended to see civilisation
in the singular. Romantics understood culture in the plural. Distinct
cultures were not aberrant forms to be destroyed but a precious
inheritance to be cherished and protected.
The philosopher who perhaps best articulated the Romantic notion of
culture was Johann Gottfried Herder. Herder rejected the
Enlightenment idea that reality was ordered in terms of universal,
timeless, objective, unalterable laws that rational investigation could
discover. He maintained, rather, that every activity, situation,
historical period or civilisation possessed a unique character of its own.
What made each people or nation – or volk - unique was its Kultur: its
particular language, literature, history and modes of living. The unique
nature of each volk was expressed through its volksgeist – the
unchanging spirit of a people refined through history. Every culture
was authentic in its own terms, each adapted to its local environment.
3
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
Herder occupies an ambiguous role in modern political thought. In the
eighteenth century, Herder saw himself as part of the Enlightenment
tradition, but also as someone forced to challenge some of the basic
precepts of the philosophes – such as their stress on universal law and
on the universal validity of reason – in order to defend the cherished
ideals of equality. In the nineteenth century, Herder’s concept of the
volksgeist encouraged, albeit unwittingly, the development of racial
science. Volksgeist became transformed into racial make-up, an
unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and
mental potential and the basis for division and difference within
humankind. By the late nineteenth century, Herder’s cultural pluralism
came, paradoxically, also to give succour to the new anthropological
notion of culture championed by critics of racial science. Franz Boas,
the German American who played a key role in the development of
cultural anthropology, sought, in the words of historian George
Stocking, to define the Romantic notion of ‘the genius of the people’ in
terms other than those of racial heredity. His answer ultimately was
the anthropological notion of culture.
And in the twentieth century, Herder’s relativism and particularism
came to shape much of antiracist thinking. The roots of barbarism,
many came to believe, lay in Western arrogance and the roots of
Western arrogance lay in an unquestioning belief in the superiority of
Enlightenment rationalism and universalism.
4
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
The second theme in Romantic thinking important to modern
multiculturalism is the idea of identity. ‘There is a certain way of being
human that is my way’, wrote Charles Taylor in his essay on ‘The
Politics of Recognition’. ‘I am called upon to live my life in this way…
Being true to myself means being true to my own originality’.
This sense of being ‘true to myself’ Taylor calls ‘the ideal of
“authenticity”’.
The ideal of the authentic self finds its origins in the Romantic notion
of the ‘inner voice’ that spoke uniquely to every individual, guided
their moral actions and expressed a person’s true nature. The concept
was developed in the 1950s by psychologists such as Erik Erikson and
sociologists like Alvin Gouldner who pointed out that identity is not just
a private matter but emerges in dialogue with others. The inner self, in
other words, finds its home in the outer world by participating in a
collective.
But not just any collective. The world is comprised of countless groups
– philosophers, truck drivers, football supporters, drinkers, train
spotters, conservatives, communists and so on. But in contemporary
debates about identity, each person’s sense of who they truly are is
seen as intimately linked to only a few special categories – collectives
defined by people’s gender, sexuality, religion, race and, in particular,
culture.
5
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
These comprise, of course, very different kinds of groups and the
members of each are bound together by very different characteristics.
Nevertheless, what collectives such as gender, sexuality, religion, race
and culture all have in common is that each is defined by a set of
attributes that, whether rooted in biology, faith or history, is fixed in a
certain sense and compels people to act in particular ways. Identity is
not something the self creates but something through which the self is
created. Identity is that which is given, whether by nature, God or
one’s ancestors.
‘I am called upon to live my life in this way’, as Charles Taylor has put
it. Unlike, say, politically defined collectives, these collectives are, in
philosopher John Gray’s words, ‘ascriptive, not elective… a matter of
fate, not choice.’
The collectives that are important to the contemporary notion of
identity are, in other words, the modern equivalents of what Herder
defined as volks. For individual identity to be authentic, so too must
collective identity. ‘Just like individuals’, Charles Taylor writes, ‘a Volk
should be true to itself, that is, its own culture.’
This view of culture and identity has transformed the way that many
people understand the relationship between equality and difference.
For much of the past two centuries important strands of both liberal
and radical thought drew upon Enlightenment insights to view equality
as requiring the state to treat all citizens in the same fashion without
regard to their race, religion or culture.
6
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
Most contemporary multiculturalists, on the other hand, argue that
people should be treated not equally despite their differences, but
differently because of them. ‘Justice between groups’, as the political
philosopher Will Kymlicka has put it, ‘requires that members of
different groups are accorded different rights’.
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’, Bhikhu Parekh argues.
‘Since human beings are culturally embedded, respect for them entails
respect for their cultures and ways of life.’
Tariq Madood takes this line of argument to make a distinction
between what he calls the ‘equality of individualism’ and ‘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.’
We cannot, in other words, treat individuals equally unless groups also
treated equally. And since, in the words of Iris Young, ‘groups cannot
be socially equal unless their specific, experience, culture and social
contributions are publicly affirmed and recognised’, so society must
protect and nurture cultures, ensure their flourishing and indeed their
survival.
7
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
Some go further, requiring the state to ensure the survival of cultures
not just in the present but in perpetuity. Charles Taylor, for instance,
suggests that the Canadian and Quebec governments should take
steps to ensure the survival of the French language in Quebec ‘through
indefinite future generations’.
Most multiculturalists – and certainly the likes of Will Kymlicka and
Charles Taylor – would probably consider themselves as standing in
the liberal Enlightenment tradition. But the rootedness of their
argument in the Romantic counter-Enlightenment often gives a
distinctly illiberal sheen to the policies they advocate. Take Tariq
Modood’s demand that people be required to give respect to various
cultures and that public arrangements be adapted to accommodate
them. Does this mean that schools should be forced to teach
Creationism because it is part of Christian fundamentalist culture? Or
should public arrangements be adapted to reflect the belief of many
cultures that homosexuality is a sin?
These are not simply abstract questions. In 2002, in Australia’s
Northern Territory, Jackie Pascoe Jamilmira, a 50 year-old Aboriginal
man was given a 24-hour prison sentence for assaulting and raping a
15-year-old girl. He had apparently been plying the girl's family with
gifts since her birth so that she would become his wife upon coming of
age. According to the judge because the girl was an Aborigine, she
‘didn't need protection. She knew what was expected of her. It’s very
surprising to me he was charged at all.’
8
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
In California, a young Laotian-American woman was abducted from
her work at Fresno State University and raped. Her assailant, a Hmong
immigrant (one of the boat people who had fled Cambodia and Laos in
the final stages of the Vietnam war) explained to the court that this
was a customary way of choosing a bride among his tribe. The court
agreed that he had to be judged largely by his own cultural standards
and sentenced him to just 120 days in jail.
Most multiculturalists would argue that such cases have little to do
with real multicultural policies. Yet it is not difficult to see how the
demand that everyone’s heritage should be respected and that public
arrangements be adapted to preserve each distinct heritage would
inevitably create situations such as these. In Australia, courts
increasingly accept that Aborigines should have the right to be treated
according to their own customs rather than be judged by ‘whitefella
law’. According to Colin McDonald, a Darwin barrister and expert in
customary law ‘Human rights are essentially a creation of the last
hundred years. These people have been carrying out their law for
thousands of years.’
This is a central theme to many kinds of multicultural policies - that to
preserve cultural authenticity, we must respect the right of certain
people to do X because their ancestors also did X. Or, in Charles
Taylor’s version, that my descendants, through ‘indefinite future
generations’, must do Y because I am doing Y. The demand that
because a cultural practice has existed for a long time, so it should be
preserved, is a modern version of the naturalistic fallacy - the belief
that ought derives from is.
9
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
For nineteenth century social Darwinists, morality - how we ought to
behave - derived from the facts of nature - how humans are. This
became an argument to justify capitalist exploitation, colonial
oppression, racial savagery and even genocide. Today, virtually
everyone recognises the falsity of this argument. Yet, when talking of
culture rather than of nature, many multiculturalists continue to insist
that ‘is’ defines ‘ought’.
In any case, there is something deeply inauthentic about the demand
for authenticity. The kinds of cultures that most multiculturalists wish
to recognise, affirm and preserve are largely ‘traditional’ cultures,
particularly those that they believe to be under threat from the
steamroller of modernity and globalisation. They are however different
in a significant respect from truly traditional cultures that existed in
the premodern world. There was, in the premodern world, no sense of
cultural integrity or authenticity. There were no alternatives to the
ways of life that people followed. Cultures were traditional but in an
unselfconscious fashion. Those who lived in such cultures were not
aware that they should value their difference or claim it as a right. In
the absence of some compelling reason for doing things differently,
people went on doing them in the same way as they had in the past.
Cultural inertia, in other words, preserved traditional ways because it
was the easiest way to organise collective life.
Contemporary multiculturalism, on the other hand, exhibits a selfconscious desire to preserve cultures. Such ‘self-conscious
traditionalism’ is a peculiarly modern, post-Enlightenment,
phenomenon.
10
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
In the modern view, traditions are to be preserved not for pragmatic
reasons but because such preservation is a social, political and moral
good. Maintaining the integrity of a culture binds societies together,
lessens social dislocation and allows the individuals who belong to that
culture to flourish. Such individuals can thrive only if they stay true to
their culture - in other words, only if both the individual and the
culture remain authentic.
Modern multiculturalism seeks self-consciously to yoke people to their
identity for their own good, the good of that culture and the good of
society. A clear example is the attempt by the Quebecois authorities to
protect French culture. The Quebec government has legislated to
forbid French speakers and immigrants from sending their children to
English-language schools; to compel businesses with more than fifty
employees to be run in French; and to ban English commercial signs.
So, if your ancestors were French you, too, must by government fiat
speak French whatever your personal wishes may be.
Charles Taylor regards this as acceptable because the flourishing and
survival of French culture is a good. ‘It is not just a matter of having
the French language available for those who might choose it’, he
argues. Quebec is ‘making sure that there is a community of people
here in the future that will want to avail itself of the opportunity to use
the French language.’ Its policies ‘actively seek to create members of
the community… assuring that future generations continue to identify
as French-speakers.’
11
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
An identity here has become a bit like a private club. Once you join up,
you have to abide by the rules. But unlike the Groucho or the Garrick
it’s a private club you must join. An identity is supposed to be an
expression of an individual’s authentic self. But it can too often seem
like the denial of individual agency in the name of cultural authenticity.
Take for instance the argument put forward by the sociologist Joseph
Raz argues, in common with many multiculturalists, that ‘It is in the
interest of every person to be fully integrated in a cultural group’. But
what is to be fully integrated? If a Muslim woman rejects sharia law, is
she demonstrating her lack of integration? What about a Jew who
doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the Jewish State? Or a French
Quebecois who speaks only English? Would Galilleo have challenged
the authority of the Church if he had been ‘fully integrated’ into his
culture? Or Thomas Paine have supported the French Revolution? Or
Salman Rushdie written The Satanic Verses?
Cultures only change, societies only move forward because many
people, in Kwame Appiah’s words, ‘actively resist being fully integrated
into a group’. For them ‘integration can sound like regulation, even
restraint’. Far from giving voice to the voiceless, in other words, the
so-called politics of difference appears to undermine individual
autonomy, reduce liberty and enforce conformity.
Part of the problem here is a constant slippage in multiculturalism talk
between the idea of humans as culture-bearing creatures and the idea
that humans have to bear a particular culture. Clearly no human can
live outside of culture. But then no human does.
12
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
To say that no human can live outside of culture, however, is not to
say they have to live inside a particular one. To view humans as
culture-bearing is to view them as social beings, and hence as
transformative beings.
It suggests that humans have the capacity for
change, for progress, and for the creation of universal moral and
political forms through reason and dialogue.
To view humans as having to bear specific cultures is, on the contrary,
to deny such a capacity for transformation. It suggests that every
human being is so shaped by a particular culture that to change or
undermine that culture would be to undermine the very dignity of that
individual. It suggests that the biological fact of, say, Jewish or
Bangladeshi ancestry somehow make a human being incapable of
living well except as a participant of Jewish or Bangladeshi culture.
This would only make sense if Jews or Bangladeshis were biologically
distinct – in other words if cultural identity was really about racial
difference.
The relationship between cultural identity and racial difference
becomes even clearer if we look at the argument that cultures must be
protected and preserved. Will Kymlicka argues that since cultures are
essential to peoples’ lives, so where ‘the survival of a culture is not
guaranteed, and, where it is threatened with debasement or decay, we
must act to protect it.’ For Charles Taylor, once ‘we’re concerned with
identity, nothing ‘is more legitimate than one’s aspiration that it is
never lost’. Hence a culture needs to be protected not just in the here
and now but through ‘indefinite future generations’.
13
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
But what does it mean for a culture to decay? Or for an identity to be
lost? Will Kymlicka draws a distinction between the ‘existence of a
culture’ and ‘its “character” at any given moment’. The character of
culture can change but such changes are only acceptable if the
existence of that culture is not threatened. But how can a culture
exist if that existence is not embodied in its character?
By ‘character’ Kymlicka seems to mean the actuality of a culture: what
people do, how they live their lives, the rules and regulations and
institutions that frame their existence. So, in making the distinction
between character and existence, Kymlicka seems to be suggesting
that Jewish, Navajo or French culture is not defined by what Jewish,
Navajo or French people are actually doing. For if Jewish culture is
simply that which Jewish people do or French culture is simply that
which French people do, then cultures could never decay or perish –
they would always exist in the activities of people.
So, if a culture is not defined by what its members are doing, what
does define it? The only answer can be that it is defined by what its
members should be doing. And what you should be doing, for cultural
preservationists, is what your ancestors were doing it. Culture here
has become defined by biological descent. And biological descent is a
polite way of saying ‘race’. As the American writer Walter Benn
Michaels puts it, ‘In order for a culture to be lost… it must be separable
from one’s actual behaviour, and in order for it to be separable from
one’s actual behaviour it must be anchorable in race.’
14
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
For all the talk about culture as fluid and changing, multiculturalism
invariably leads people to think of human cultures in fixed terms.
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how multicultural policy could conceive
of cultures in any other way. How could rights be accorded to cultures,
or cultures be recognised or preserved if they did not possess rigid
boundaries?
Once membership of cultural types is defined by the possession of
certain characteristics, and rights and privileges granted by virtue of
possessing those characteristics, then it is but a short step to deny
membership of a culture to people who do not possess those
characteristics and hence to deny them certain rights and privileges.
The language of diversity all too easily slips into the idiom of exclusion.
Will Kymlicka suggests that ‘It is right and proper that the character
of a culture changes as a result of the choices of its members.’ But,
he goes on, ‘while it is one thing to learn from the larger world’, it is
quite another ‘to be swamped by it’.
What could this mean? That a culture has the right to keep out
members of another culture? That a culture has the right to prevent its
members from speaking another language, singing non-native songs
or reading non-native books?
Kymlicka’s warning about ‘swamping’ should make us sit up and take
notice. It is, after all, the right that has long exploited fears of cultural
swamping. Will Kymlicka is a liberal anti-racist and certainly no
xenophobe. But once it becomes a matter of political principle that
cultures should not be swamped by outsiders, then it is difficult to
know how one could possibly resist such anti-immigration arguments.
15
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
Herder, the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut observes, has
become the cheerleader for both sides of the political spectrum. ‘No
longer silenced by post-World War II taboos’, Finkielkraut has written,
‘he reigns supreme inspiring at the same time… unyielding celebrations
of ethnic identity and expressions of respect for foreigners, aggressive
outbursts by xenophobes and generous pronouncements by
xenophiles.’ The two sides have ‘conflicting credos but the same vision
of the world’.
The irony in all this is that we’ve all become multiculturalists at the
very time the world is becoming less, not more, plural. ‘When I was a
child’, the Ghanaian born Kwame Appiah recalls, ‘we lived in a
household where you could hear at least three mother tongues spoken
each day. Ghana, with a population close to that of New York State,
has several dozen languages in active use and no one language that is
spoken at home – or even fluently understood – by a majority of the
population.’ So why is it, he asks, that in America ‘which seems so
much less diverse than most other societies we are so preoccupied
with diversity and inclined to conceive of it as cultural?’
The proportion of foreign born Americans is far less than it was at the
beginning of the twentieth century. Intermarriage between immigrant
groups continues to increase. More than 97 per cent of Americans
speak English. At the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, new
immigrants did not simply speak their own language, but read their
own newspapers, ate their own food and lived their own lives. In 1923,
for instance, the Polish community alone published 67 weekly
newspapers, 18 monthlies and 19 dailies, the largest of which had a
circulation of more than a hundred thousand.
16
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
Today, not just language, but the shopping mall, the sports field, the
Hollywood film and the TV sitcom all serve to bind differences and
create a set of experiences and cultural practices that is more common
than at any time in the past. Indeed, even before today’s immigrants
set foot on US soil they are probably more American than previous
generations of Americans.
Much the same is true of Europe. Take the current debate about the
impact of mass migration, and in particular of Muslims, on social
cohesion and national identity. Both sides in this debate make a link
between the diversity of peoples and the diversity of values.
Multiculturalists believe that the presence in a society of diversity of
peoples precludes the possibility of common values. Nativists want to
limit immigration because, they suggest, such values are possible only
within an ethnically homogenous society. And both sides suffer from a
collective memory loss.
The claim that European nations used to be homogenous but have
become diverse does not stand up. Historian such as Eugene Weber in
France and Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger in Britain have shown
the extraordinary modernising effort that was required in the
nineteenth century to unify what we now think of as homogenous
European nations and the traumatic and lengthy process of cultural,
educational, political and economic ‘self-colonisation’ that this entailed.
17
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
These developments created the modern French nation and allowed for
notions of European superiority over non-European cultures. But it
also reinforced a sense of how socially and anthropologically alien was
the mass of the rural, and indeed urban, population. A vignette of
working class life in the Saturday Review, a well-read liberal magazine
of the era, is typical of English middle class attitudes of this era:
The Bethnal Green poor… are a caste apart, a race of whom we
know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from
ours, persons with whom we have no point of contact. And
although there is not yet quite the same separation of classes or
castes in the country, yet the great mass of the agricultural poor
are divided from the educated and the comfortable, from squires
and parsons and tradesmen, by a barrier which custom has
forged through long centuries, and which only very exceptional
circumstances ever beat down, and then only for an instant. The
slaves are separated from the whites by more glaring… marks of
distinction; but still distinctions and separations, like those of
English classes which always endure, which last from the cradle
to the grave, which prevent anything like association or
companionship, produce a general effect on the life of the
extreme poor, and subject them to isolation, which offer a very
fair parallel to the separation of the slaves from the whites.
Of course the descendants of the Bethnal Green poor that the Victorian
middle class viewed as a ‘race apart’ are now seen as part of
indigenous British (or perhaps English) culture while a new generation
of Bethnal Green poor, who only arrived there after the Second World
War, are now regarded as not just a race apart but a culture apart too.
18
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
Yet, the social and cultural differences between a Victorian gentleman
and a farmhand or a machinist were probably greater than those
between a native white Briton and a second generation British Asian or
Afro-Caribbean today. Indeed a 60-something white Briton would
probably find a 20-something white Briton more culturally alien than
either would an Asian or an Afro-Caribbean of their own generation.
So, why is it that on both sides of the Atlantic we’ve become obsessed
by cultural differences at the very time that real cultural differences
have less and less meaning in our lives? Much of the answer lies, I
believe, in the narrowing of the political sphere. The end of the Cold
War, the collapse of the left, the fragmentation of the postwar order,
the defeat of most liberation movements in the third world and the
demise of social movements in the West, have all transformed political
consciousness over the past two decades. The broad ideological
divides that characterised politics in the previous two hundred years
have been all but erased. Politics has became less about competing
visions of the kinds of society people than a debate about how best to
manage the existing political system.
As the meaning of politics has narrowed, so people have begun to view
themselves and their social affiliations in a different way. Social
solidarity has become increasingly defined not in political terms - as
collective action in pursuit of certain political ideals – but in terms of
ethnicity or culture. The question people ask themselves are not so
much ‘What kind of society do I want to live in?’ as ‘Who are we?’.
19
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
The first question looks forward for answers and defines them in terms
of the commonality of values necessary for establishing the good life.
The second generally looks back and seeks answers – and defines
identity – in terms of history and heritage. The politics of ideology has
given way to the politics of identity.
And part of the reason it has done so is that public policy has helped
narrow people’s sense of self-identity. One of the enduring myths of
multiculturalism is that Britain has become a multicultural nation
because minority groups have demanded that their cultural differences
be recognised and be afforded respect.
In fact, while the question of cultural differences has preoccupied the
political elite from the beginnings of mass immigration, it was not a
question that particularly troubled black and Asian Britons for a
considerable period. First and second generation postwar immigrants
were concerned less about preserving cultural differences than about
fighting for political equality. Throughout the sixties and seventies,
four big issues dominated the struggle for political equality: opposition
to discriminatory immigration controls; the struggle for equality in the
workplace; the fight against racist attacks; 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.
20
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
It was against this background that the policies of multiculturalism
became institutionalised through a strategy, pioneered by the GLC, of
organising consultation with black communities, drawing up equal
opportunities policies, establishing race relations units and providing
funding for black 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.
Different peoples should have the right to express their specific
identities, explore their own histories, formulate their own values,
pursue their own lifestyles. In this process, the very meaning of
equality was transformed: from possessing the same rights as
everyone else to possessing different rights, appropriate to different
communities.
By the mid-eighties the political struggles that had dominated the fight
against racism in the sixties and seventies had became transformed
into battles over cultural issues. Political struggles unite across ethnic
or cultural divisions; cultural struggles inevitably fragment. Since
state funding was now linked to cultural identity, so different groups
began asserting their particular identities ever more fiercely. The shift
from the political to the cultural arena helped entrench old divisions
and to create new ones.
Take Bradford.
In April 1976, 24 people were arrested in pitched
battles in the Manningham area of Bradford, as Asian youth confronted
a National Front march and fought police protecting it. It was seen as
the blooding of a new movement. The following year the Asian Youth
Movement was born.
21
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
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’. They challenged not just racism
but also many traditional values too, particularly within the Muslim
community, helping establish an alternative secular leadership.
Faced with this growing militancy- and particularly in response to the
trial and victory of the Bradford 12 - Bradford council drew up GLCstyle equal opportunity statements, established race relations units
and began funding black organisations. 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 issues, such as policing and immigration, 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. This process was strengthened by a new
relationship between the local council and the local mosques. In 1981,
the council helped set up and fund the Bradford Council of Mosques.
By siphoning resources through the mosques, the council was able to
strengthen the position of conservative religious leaders and to
dampen down the more militant voices on the streets.
22
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
As part of its multicultural brief to allow different communities to
express their distinct identities, the council also helped set up two
other religious umbrella groups for Sikhs and Hindus, both created in
1984. The consequence was to create divisions and tensions within
and between different Asian communities as each fought for a greater
allocation of council funding. Asian communities started dividing, both
physically and politically, on communal lines. Muslims, Sikhs and
Hindus, began increasingly to live in different areas, attend different
schools and organise through different institutions.
A similar process has taken place in Birmingham. In 1988, largely in
response to the 1985 Handsworth riots, Birmingham council proposed
the development of a new framework for the engagement of minority
communities. It created a series of Umbrella Groups based on ethnicity
and faith the function of which was to represent the needs of their
communities. By 1993 there were nine of these – the African and
Caribbean People’s Movement, the Bangladeshi Islamic Projects
Consultative Committee, the Birmingham Chinese Society, The Council
of Black-led Churches, the Hindu Council, the Irish Forum, the
Vietnamese Association, the Pakistani Forum and the Sikh Council of
Gurdwaras. A Standing Consultative Forum was established as a single
body through which the Umbrella Groups could collectively represent
the views of minority communities and to aid policy development and
resource allocation.
The impact was anything but democratic. First, as in Bradford, the
policy treated minority communities as homogenous wholes, ignoring
conflicts within those communities. As a Birmingham Council Equalities
Division Report in 1999 put it,
23
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
The perceived notion of homogeneity of minority ethnic
communities has informed a great deal of race equality work to
date. The effect of this, amongst others, has been to place an
over-reliance on individuals who are seen to represent the needs
of views of the whole community and resulted in simplistic
approaches toward tackling community needs.
At the same time as ignoring conflicts within minority communities,
Birmingham’s policies created conflicts between them. As a study by
Southampton University’s Smith and Stephenson concludes,
Birmingham’s ‘model of engagement through Umbrella Groups tended
to result in competition between BME communities for resources.
Rather than prioritising needs and cross-community working, the
different Umbrella Groups generally attempted to maximise their own
interests’.
Once political power and financial resources became allocated by
ethnicity, then people began to identify themselves in terms of those
ethnicities. Once again multicultural prescription made real the
description to which it was supposedly a response. The practical
consequences can be seen in last year’s Lozell’s riots which pitted
African Caribbeans and Asians against each other.
The experience of Bradford and Birmingham has been repeated in
countless other places. And what that experience suggests is that
multiculturalism creates its own myths and its own monsters.
24
Kenan Malik / University of Surrey/ ‘The trouble with multiculturalism’
The problem with multicultural policies is not that they stress diversity.
It is that they possess too rigid a notion of what diversity entails and
why it is useful. The consequence is to create the kinds of conflict that
are politically neither useful nor resolvable.
The irony of multiculturalism is that, as a political process, it
undermines what is valuable about cultural diversity. Diversity is
important, not in and of itself, but because it allows us to expand our
horizons, to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and
lifestyles, and make judgements upon them. In other words, because
it allows us to engage in political dialogue and debate that can help
create more universal values and beliefs, and a collective language of
citizenship. The narrowing of the political sphere makes such a process
much more difficult to pursue. As a result diversity has come to be
seen as a good in itself.
That is why multiculturalism should not be seen as a response to a
diverse society. Rather, the pursuit of multicultural policies has led us
to imagine that we are far more diverse than we are.
25