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Notes
This piece is based on a presentation that I made at a conference entitled ‘Migration, Racism and Religion organised by the University of East London and the Runneymede Trust on 4 February 2010.
Discussions with a number of anti-racist activists in the north of England have suggested that minority groups have often adopted a faith-based identity in order to attract local authority funding that has been diverted from anti-racist projects to cohesion and preventing violent extremism work.
See ‘The Islamic Right – Key Tendencies’ in Awaaz June 2006, which traces the Muslim Council of Britain's roots to the long-standing Islamic Right political party – the Jamaati-I-islami from the Indian Sub-Continent. Awaaz is a UK-based secular network of organisations and individuals set up to monitor religious hatred in South Asia and the UK. Awaaz has also researched the links between so-called ‘moderate’ Hindu organisations such as the Hindu Forum of Britain and the Hindu Council, UK and Hindu Right organisations in India responsible for fomenting hatred and violence against Muslims, www.awaazsaw.org/awaaz_pia4.pdf.
Speech delivered by the Prime Minister, David Cameron in Liverpool, 19 July 2010 (see http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2010/07/big-society-speech-53572). The idea of the ‘Big Society’ has however met with considerable scepticism. The most voiced criticism is that it is seen as a convenient cover for massive spending cuts in public sector services.
‘Mature Multiculturalism’ as a concept was extremely short lived. Until 2000, key state agencies failed to protect vulnerable Asian and other minority women and children facing domestic violence and abuse on the grounds that such intervention amounted to cultural and religious insensitivity. In 2000, the then Home Office Minister Mike O’Brien who chaired a Home Office Working Group on forced marriage stated that ‘multiculturalism cannot be an excuse for moral blindness’. This was a seminal moment in the struggles waged by Asian women since it provided the basis for an approach, which recognised the reality of institutional racism but also recognized violence against women as a fundamental human rights issue. The new insight however was quickly overtaken by the State's rejection of multiculturalism in favour of the cohesion and faith agenda.
References
Awaaz (South Asia Watch) (2006) ‘The Islamic right – key tendencies’ Awaaz, June, http://www.tmg-uk.org/?page_id=279.
Campbell, A. (2008) Preventing Violent Extremism; 2008–09 Programme, London: Ealing Council.
Commission on Integration and Cohesion (2007) Our Shared Future, Crown Copyright 2007. West Yorkshire: Communications and Local Government Publications.
Wiltshire, M. (2007) Ealing's Shared Future: Integration and Community Cohesion Strategy 2007–2011, Ealing Council, London: Local Government Publications.
Macpherson, W. (1999) The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Report of an Inquiry, The Stationery Office, London: Ealing Council.
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Patel, P. women migrants and faith organisations: changing regimes of gender, religion and race in London. Fem Rev 97, 142–150 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2010.39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2010.39