Lecture 3 (correspond en fait au programme de la lecture 4 qui apparaît dans le plan du cours).

Into Multiculturalism: the 1980s & 1990s

Lecture 3 – 17 March – ‘The Multiculturalist Settlement and its paradoxes ’ (1985-2001) - Emphasis on groups rather than on individuals - The emergence of the ‘black community’ - Development of exemptions and special rights for groups (Kosher / Halal ritual butchery, female genital mutilation, forced marriages; Sikhs and knives etc.; ‘black sections’ within Labour) in the name of cultural relativism) - Financial and symbolic support granted to conservative or radical community organisations divisive effect) with particularist or supremacist agendas. - The Rushdie Affair and the emergence of the ‘Muslim community’ along radical lines (a political construct, to a large extent)

(ne pas hésiter à recycler un max de trucs des chapitres Labour in the opposition + Multiculturalism under John Major), notamment tout ce qui a trait au multiculturalisme vécu. Recycler également tout ce qu’il ya sur les Muslims, et le mettre après pour illustrer les dangers du système. Pour illustrer logique d’aprtheid qui se mettait en place, parler des black sections.

Multiculturalism is rather a loose term. It has two main acceptations, which are often intertwined. In its descriptive acceptation, which is by far the more common of the two, multiculturalism is a synonym for diversity, meaning that members from a given society may come from various backgrounds.

In its prescriptive meaning, it means that cultural diversity should not merely be acknowledged by government policies but also actively promoted, ethnic minority people being uniformly presented as a disadvantaged or indeed, oppressed group.

The ‘race relations’ legislation that was framed between the mid-1960s and the mid-late 1970s in Britain was centred on the equality of individual rights. Multiculturalist policies, which gradually emerged from the early 1980s onward were centred on the issue of group rights and special rights. That shift from individual to collective rights was paralleled by a terminological shift from immigrants to members of the ‘ethnic minorities’.

The shift to ‘multiculturalism’ (both in its descriptive and prescriptive meanings) did not occur until the turn of the 1980s, which coincided both with the victory of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives and with the beginning of a 5-year-long series of urban riots involving almost exclusively inner city Afro-Caribbean youths, who despite their civic and political rights were in a way more marginalised than their parents’ generation as they were massively unemployed.

The first cultural demands that emerged were Afro-Caribbean ones, as a result of the unprecedented community mobilisation that followed the inner-city riots of the first half of the 1980s, triggered off by the persistent social and economic relegation of the first British-born generation. Public funding of community organisations, combined with the new presence – albeit token – of e.g. Afro-Caribbean newsreaders on British television (1981), Afro-Caribbean politicians in Council chambers (1982-83) and later, in Parliament (1987), and more generally, the legal recognition of the ‘ethnic minorities’ contributed to the emergence of what has been known as the ‘multicultural consensus’ (aka the ‘multicultural settlement’). Although Labour-dominated local authorities pioneered that new type of diversity governance (by making a full use of the provisions of the 1976 Race Relations Act, for example), the Conservatives themselves converted to ‘multiculturalism’, not because they ideologically embraced it, obviously¹², but because they had no other choice.

Therefore, ‘multiculturalism’ rapidly spread to many realms of British society, both under the Thatcher (1979-1990) and Major governments (1990-1997). Thus, e.g., the Scarman Report (1982) highlighted issues related to the policing of ethnically diverse populations by overwhelmingly white police forces, the Swann Report (1985) defined the ‘multicultural education’ concept, marking the shift to what has been known as ‘sari, samosa and steelband’ multiculturalism. Until the late 1990s anti-racist activists tried to impose the term ‘black’ as a single label to designate all members of the ethnic minorities, including to individuals who were not actually black (e.g. Indian, Pakistani or indeed, Chinese people). The idea was to lump all non-whites together in order to emphasise their shared experience of racism and discrimination. However most ethnic people rejected that binary political strategy, which was perceived as Afro-centrist.

Culturally, many efforts were made to accommodate ethnic minority cultural demands, as cultural relativism proved a great influence predominantly in progressive circles, both within academic and political.

• celebration of diversity at all costs

• demands for special (i.e. group) rights and exemptions from the general rule:

Special rights:

Demands for Muslim schools emerged in the mid 1980s, a few years before the Rushdie Affair. To Muslim conservatives, the idea was to instil Islamic precepts in young British Muslims but also in order to educate them on a single-sex basis, as the last remaining State single-sex schools were disappearing fast. In 1985 the Education for All Report ( a.k.a the Swann Report) recommended the opening of state-maintained Muslim single-faith schools¹³, which did not materialise then (there are now a few – around 10- Muslim State Schools in Britain) The same year, however, a London Muslim primary school, located in Brent saw its application for state funding rejected.

Likewise, the 1991 census was the first one to feature a question on ethnicity, although the decision to introduce such an item originated in the 1980s. The eight ethno-racial categories were “Black”, “Black-Caribbean”, “Black-African”, “Black-Other”, “Indian”, “Pakistani”, “Bangladeshi” and “Chinese”. The people who didn’t fit in those categories were allowed to combine several of them.¹⁴

Beyond the symbolic value of those new categories, which testified to the official recognition of racial and cultural differences by the state and indeed, to a new element, hybridity, the ethnicity question was seen as necessary by a variety of social actors in order to assess the real extent of diversity, segregation and inequalities. The logic behind the ethnicity question therefore paved the way for the extension and generalisation of ethnic monitoring, seen by some as a prerequisite in order to devise more efficient equal opportunity strategies. In 1991, the CRE asked for a reform of the 1976 Race Relations Act, in order to generalise ethnic monitoring and make it a legal obligation for employers.¹⁵

More surprising perhaps was the pressure exerted by public-sector agencies to generalise and extend ethnic monitoring. In June 1991, a report by the King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London, a health service research organisation, made a strong case to expand and systematise recourse to ethnic monitoring within the NHS. Indeed, monitoring of NHS equal opportunity policies between 1986 and 1990 by the Fund had revealed their failure to deliver adequate services targeted at ethnic minority and other disadvantaged groups.¹⁶

Likewise, in April 1996, the Home Office made it compulsory for all police forces to monitor the ethnic origin of suspects and offenders, arguing that for many years the criminal justice system had been alleged to discriminate against ethnic minorities and that black people were supposedly disproportionately involved in crime. Those assumptions were compounded by the figures produced by pilot ethnic monitoring surveys introduced in prisons under Mrs Thatcher. Section 95 of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act was put forward by those favourable to the extension of ethnic monitoring to the police. That section makes it a requirement for the Home Secretary to publish ‘information’ to assist those responsible for the criminal justice system to avoid discrimination.¹⁷

Although most mainstream politicians came to agree that Britain formed ‘a multicultural society’ in the descriptive acceptation of the term (including John Major when he took over from Mrs Thatcher), ‘multiculturalism’ in its prescriptive meaning was unheard of outside activist circles even though it had become Britain’s de facto policy since the inner riots of the early and mid-1980s¹⁸. By contrast other Western countries had officially proclaimed themselves ‘multicultural’ nations and had amended their constitutions, such as Sweden (1975) or Canada (1982).

The Rushdie affair and its impact

Although specific Muslim cultural demands had started emerging by the mid-1980s, Muslims did not really position themselves as a distinct group with a particularist agenda before the Rushdie Affair, which broke out in Britain in 1989, with the proclamation of Khomeini’s fatwa against Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie.

Although the Rushdie Affair began in 1988 with the publication of the Satanic Verses and reached its climax after Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie in February 1989, its residual impact could still be felt throughout the Major era. The Thatcher government’s refusal to ban The Satanic Verses had antagonised the Muslim Community¹⁹, the vast majority of whom then accepted Khomeini’s fatwa. In December 1991, Rushdie’s suggestion that there should be a paperback version of the Satanic Verses twisted the knife in the wound²⁰ and created a stir among vast swathes of Britain’s Muslim community. In any case, the Rushdie affair served as a catalyst for the mobilisation and organisation of Britain’s predominantly Asian Muslims, who had been described as a model or indeed, invisible minority, notably owing to their absence from the riots of the 1980s, the chief actors of which had been Afro-Caribbeans.

Right from the outset, that mobilisation occurred along fairly radical lines, as shown in the way Iqbal Sacranie - a well-known Muslim leader and a co-founder of the Muslim Council of Britain, which he later headed between 2002 and 2006 - reacted to the issuing of the fatwa targeting Rushdie: "Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him. His mind must be tormented for the rest of his life unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah."²¹

Hundreds of Muslim organisations were founded throughout the country in the wake of the publication of the Satanic Verses, among which UKACIA (UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs, formed at the end of 1988 to coordinate protests against Rushdie). On 30 April 1994, in Birmingham, UKACIA-affiliated organisations decided to create a National Interim Committee on Muslim Unity (NICMU) so as to provide the adequate and efficient representation which British Muslims had lacked during their unsuccessful campaign to have Rushdie’s book banned. In May 1996, NICMU delegates decided to create the Muslim Council of Britain, Britain’s leading Muslim umbrella organisation.

It is argued that Britain’s Muslim community radicalised because it was hit by several crises at once. The Rushdie affair saw British Muslims accused of possessing values hostile to Britain’s cultural norms. During the Gulf War, they were accused of being disloyal to Britain, while the Bosnian crisis led to concern among many British Muslims that they could be the next targets of European Islamophobia.²²

In January 1991, after the launch of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Muslims, the vast majority of whom did not originate from Arab countries, expressed their disarray and, sometimes, resentment throughout the country in the name of the umma, ie. the community of the believers.

Western governments with sizable Muslim populations therefore found themselves in a double bind, and John Major’s Government was no exception. The fact that the British government sent troops in Iraq was contrasted with its refusal to intervene in Bosnia, whose Muslim population was the target of ethnic cleansing.

Usable ideas and facts (from Joana Fomina’s « The Failure of British Multiculturalism ») :

Multiculturalist policies: often violate basic principles of democracy and equality + abuse ‘individual human rights’

British approach: widely perceived as one of greatest success stories of the post war period.

However: British approach: has led to the abuse of individual rights in the name of the cultural rights of an ethnic community.

Following Jenkins’s definition of British integration policies: “ not a flattening process of uniformity, but cultural diversity coupled with equal opportunity in atmosphere of mutual tolerance’: NCW immigrants: not forced to accept British values 411 or to adopt a British identity: NB integration: clearly distinguished from assimilation.

People form different backgrounds should be allowed to express their own identities, formulate their own values, pursue their own lifestyles. To Malik²³ (2002) as a result the whole meaning of equality was transformed: from possessing the same rights as everyone else to possessing different rights, inherent to each community.

To Rex²⁴, British integration policies entail ‘two co-existing value systems or cultures’

Incitement to racial and religious hatred: outlawed.

Anti-discrimination (put in place in period 1965-76) was centred on the equality of individual rights, whereas multiculturalism has been centred on the issue of group rights and special rights.

Role of communities: primordial. Parekh’s definition of Britain as ‘a community of communities’(2000) [rappeler peut être aussi le fort différentialisme de classe sur lequel est venu ce greffer un différentialisme racial] : to Parekh and other theorists of multiculturalism : integration is achieved through being a member of an ethnic community.

Applied Multiculturalism in Britain

Multiculturalist theories imply that communities play a role in the political domain (partners of local & national authorities) + in the private domain, where community members are governed by their own cultural norms and duties. (= Tensions between those norms and British democratic or HR norms)

This deal between communities and the State: has been come to thanks to a number of policies, falling into the two categories:

Exemptions from the general rule or special provisions for ethnic groups (not available for the general public) aimed at accommodating the perceived cultural differences of ethnic minorities.

Some groups are exempted from ‘normal’ rules because they are seen as too burdensome for a particular group (to Barry, 2001: this is called ‘rule-and-exemption strategy’).

412

e.g.: legislation on ritual slaughter. The govt accepts that ritual (either Halal or kosher) butchery of animals causes unnecessary ‘very significant pain and distress’ (Government’s Advisory Committee, 1985 see detail below) and yet clings to exemptions for Muslims and Jews on the ground that a ban would be contrary to the Human Rights Act, since that Act requires freedom ‘to manifest one’s religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice’

• legislation on crash helmets: introduced in 1976 to accommodate Sikh men willing to wear their turbans when riding motorcycles +, certainly more importantly, ban on carrying knives and pointed objects (Criminal Justice Act, 1988, which states that it is a defence for an accused to prove that he carries the knive ‘for religious reasons’).

• British law: allows Gypsy children to go to school for half as many days as other children; likewise, schools yield to the demands of religious families (Christian, Jewish, Muslim etc. ones) that girls should not attend certain classes: PE classes; biology (sex education classes).

Apart from such exemptions defined by law: there are many loopholes or pieces of legislation that are not enforced due to political correctness & to the conviction that the ethnic minorities should be governed by their own norms in the private domain. !

Problem: Some exemptions or separate regulations are accepted in the name of liberalism or indeed human rights, but they conflict with basic democratic or indeed human rights principles.

Due to cultural relativism : impossible to criticise certain cultural practices:

- female genital mutilation: prohibited in the UK in 1985: yet no prosecutions under the Act: medical, education and police professionals: rather ignorant of the issue and reluctant to take action (see Debates of the Female Genital Mutilation Bill).

Female Genital Mutilation has been considered a crime only comparatively recently, with the Female Genital Mutilation Act (2004): makes it an offence (for the first time) for UK nationals or permanent UK residents to carry out FGM abroad or to ‘aid, abet, counsel or procure’ the carrying out of FGM abroad (on their on daughters, e.g. while holidaying in Africa, e.g.) even in countries where the practice is legal.

- Forced marriage: can involve kidnapping, physical or sexual abuse or indeed, murder if refused: no specific law to ban this practice [verifier si rien depuis 2006 où un projet de “ban” était à l’étude, très contestés par les associations musulmanes ; ou si pas d’autre projet de loi dans un tiroir]: an annual 300 forced marriages are thought to take place, although that may be a gross underestimate.

Idea that ethnic groups are allowed to maintain their separate cultural ways: has been (or rather was) financially supported by the government: section 11 of Local Government 413 Act: gave more funding to ethnically diverse local authorities: funds used to subsidise cultural initiatives and from the 80s onward, community organisations with a particularist agenda [much less so since the 2000s] + administrative literature (brochures, leaflets) written in immigrants’ languages.