How liberals lost their anti-racism
Liberal arguments that the West needs to defend “Enlightenment values” lead to a culture of bigotry, writes Arun Kundnani
Socialist Worker, 2 October 2007
A new sentiment has gripped mainstream liberal thinking in Britain over the last few years – one which regards Muslims as uniquely problematic and in need of forceful integration into ‘superior’ Western values.
For this new breed of liberal, previously cherished values of multiculturalism should be discarded, and the fight for racial and religious equality is irrelevant.
The recent publication of Nick Cohen’s book What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way and Andrew Anthony’s more sharply argued The Fall-Out: How A Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence provide the clearest statements yet of what this new liberalism stands for.
Their argument is straightforward – the major problem facing the West is a failure to stand up for its Enlightenment values.
Liberalism has been infected by guilt, they say, which prevents it from defending itself against the threat of Islamism – which is held responsible not only for terrorist violence, but also for ‘Muslim separatism’ in our cities.
An advertising campaign promoting British Muslims as integrated citizens who reject extremism has been launched. Islam is Peace – formed after the bombings in London in July 2005 – has initially placed adverts on the capital’s buses and Underground trains. They show a range of Muslims – including a policewoman, a Scout group and the chef Michael Barry – with the slogan “Proud to be a British Muslim”.
Senator John McCain said in an interview posted on the Internet on Saturday that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation and that his faith is probably of better spiritual guidance than that of a Muslim candidate for president.
When The Muslim News probed Middlesbrough FC on its handling of the incident in which Mido, their Egyptian forward, was subjected to Islamophobic chants, the club merely said having a multinational team will be their “strongest anti-racism message”.
“It is interesting to reflect on the asinine times we live in, particularly if like me, you are involved in that nebulous thing called ‘inter-cultural dialogue’. Over the past four weeks, I have been engaged in numerous rounds of dialogues between Western Europeans and Muslim migrant communities in Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin; and in every single one of these encounters, I came across stereotypes of Muslims and Islam that were so shallow and puerile that I am almost embarrassed to recount them here. Worst still, these pedestrian musings on Islam and Muslims were not the offerings of everyday punters, but those who claimed to be well-known and admired scholars and historians.
Speaking at a Labour Party conference fringe meeting, Home Office security minister Tony McNulty has stated that it was “a mistake to treat the Muslim Council of Britain as if it was the only voice of British Muslims and to ‘elevate it to an exclusivity that wasn’t warranted’,” according to a