Asian, British and Muslim in 1990

Transcription

1 Asian, British and Muslim in 1990 The text of a speech which Quilliam s now chair of advisors Iqbal Wahhab delivered to Oxford University s Asian society in 1990 in the wake of the Rushdie Affair

2 FOREWORD In May 1990, Iqbal Wahhab delivered a speech to the Oxford University Asian Society. He began his wide-ranging address by examining the history of Asian Muslim immigration to Britain and subsequent issues of social cohesion; he then discussed the impact of these new voters on the party-political landscape, before describing the development of British Muslim political campaigning. Wahhab predicted the identity shifts that took place among British Muslims of Asian origin. Twenty years on, Quilliam has published the transcript of the speech, preserved in its original form. Wahhab gave his 1990 speech amid a background that had witnessed the emergence of political advocacy in the UK framed specifically around issues pertaining to Muslims, and pertaining to Islam. For Wahhab, who now serves as Chair of Quilliam s advisory board, the global uproar among Muslims following the publication of Salman Rushdie s novel The Satanic Verses in 1988 served as a watershed that united previously disparate Muslims in Britain. Perversely, he said, it was Rushdie who had catapulted the concerns of British Muslims from local affairs into a national Islamic agenda. Coinciding with this shift was the elevation of religion from a personal source of individual and communal identity to a more politically-driven identity source. Wahhab noted that some who did not welcome the integration of British Asians into mainstream society emphasised the Asian element of their identity, and viewed them as foreigners. Later, a sense of being unwelcome, and of not fully belonging to British society would encourage some British Asian Muslims to emphasise the religious element of their identity, a shift from British Asian to British Muslim. In the decades since his speech for example, although Asian university societies such as the one in which Wahhab delivered his speech in Oxford continue to thrive, they have been overshadowed in many campuses by the emergence of respective Hindu and Islamic societies. As such, whereas previously many British Asians had considered their faith coincidental to any sense of national belonging, some increasingly came to orientate their political concerns around their identity as Muslims in Britain. Such an identity shift would prove particularly attractive to younger generations for whom an Asian ancestry was something they had minimal experience of, but who simultaneously felt a sense of not being fully British. In this perceived identity vacuum feeling neither fully Asian nor fully British they could feel fully Muslim. The danger of such a shift in emphasis was that, if carried to an extreme, such Muslims could grow to reject the Britain they felt had rejected them, and likewise reject the Asian background they felt they had no roots in. Damagingly, such a process would carry a dual appeal. Firstly to racists, who sought to emphasise an otherness on the part of British Muslims, and secondly by Islamist extremists who emphasised their membership of a more global religious community superior to manmade divisions based on political membership of a nation. The reality though, is that British citizens have numerous sources of identity, and British Asians are by no means alone in this. Despite commonalities, the idea of British Asians forming a single community is inaccurate and patronising, for it overlooks the diversity that exists within such communities. The same is true of British Muslims. One could not characterise British non-muslims in any meaningful sense as behaving in a certain way or holding a certain attitude as a bloc, and the same applies with British Muslims. Whilst the potential sources of identity may be numerous, the choice of how to weight each is up to the individual, and is something that each individual will do differently. Some Britons may well define themselves primarily through their Islamic identity, just as some Christians may; but not all do. Moreover, to define oneself or to define others by any one source of identity to the neglect of any other has the potential to be (self-) excluding and damaging. This is as true for the BNP as it is for Islamic extremists. Having Muslim, British, and Asian/ Asian-origin sources of identity do not conflict, instead they complement one another. Wahhab argued that the Muslim consensus of condemnation following The Satanic Verses publication became a gateway to the rise of a far broader and nationally-orientated advocacy in Britain, and one that was framed around Islamic issues. As with many a gateway, gatekeepers soon emerged. There are of course some British Muslims who do define themselves foremost

3 by their adherence to Islam. However, by seeing British Muslims more generally in such a way can enable figures to represent British Muslims, even if they do not represent British Muslims, their priorities, and the way that British Muslims view themselves. The pitfall therefore is that by adopting a representation model, those who shout loudest could be interpreted as speaking for British Muslims when instead they speak over them. Such figures not only have the potential to isolate British Muslims from the rest of the British public by distancing Muslim constituents as a bloc somehow different to others, but by presenting British Muslims as a single bloc they also disenfranchise those Muslims who do not view their religious faith as the primary source of their identity. To define British Muslims primarily through a religious prism as more Muslim than they are British may well not represent how many British Muslims view themselves. It is, by definition, isolating. To view Roman Catholics in Britain, for example, through a similar religious prism defined by their Catholicism is something that would not occur to most Britons, yet it is something that many are willing to do when it comes to British Muslims. In politics, cynical pandering for a perceived Muslim vote, or embracing bloc voting and those within the constituency who claim to be able to deliver a bloc vote often indicates a failure in electoral politics. For such practices isolate British Muslims from the rest of the electorate by viewing them as monolithic. After all, few talk of a Quaker vote, Catholic vote, or Jewish vote. Likewise, viewing British Muslims as a monolithic single community separate from the remainder of the public can pave the way for neglecting the individual concerns of these citizens, leaving them to develop separately. This exclusion represents the failure of previous policies regarding multiculturalism by encouraging separate coexistence without engagement, rather than successful integration. As a corollary, this idea of a Muslim vote encourages the development of a lobby that seeks strength in its isolation, rather than successful integration into the formal political system. The example Wahhab gives of the establishment of the Islamic Party of Britain highlights such a failure on the part of the mainstream political parties in effectively appealing to and adequately representing the priorities of British Muslim citizens, and the rise of identity politics as a reaction to this failure. Wahhab s speech provides a fascinating insight into how a highly-educated and young British Muslim perceived the evolving political role of Muslims in British life. Two decades later, some of his observations, for example on the potential development of the Islamic Party of Britain, have been eclipsed by events, others remain pertinent. For example, he noted that the reluctance of many Muslims to get involved in mainstream politics might lead to some communities becoming segregated from mainstream society, a process which could in turn empower community leaders who would then seek to speak on behalf of this community in interaction with local councils and politicians. Among the other issues addressed in the speech, the provision of halal food, the segregation of sexes in swimming and sport classes, and exemption of Muslim pupils from religious education in schools remain hot topics in the media today. So too does the idea of entire schools opting out of local authorities control. Wahhab s speech as a historical document serves as a reminder that despite moments of accelerated change such as in the wake of the Rushdie affair other trends in society are much longer term processes that will continue to be contested over the airwaves and column inches. Other issues covered in the speech have changed. Arguing in the wake of the Rushdie affair that existing blasphemy laws should be extended to include Islam as well as Christianity reflects the time in which the speech was delivered. However, the debate has moved on since then on this issue, and neither Wahhab nor Quilliam support blasphemy laws today. Indeed, since 1990 greater inter-faith equality has been achieved, but through rolling back the blasphemy laws to treat each faith equally and permit freedom of expression, rather than extending restrictions on freedoms of expression to embrace all faiths equally. By placing his observations within a historical framework, the speech is useful for those wishing to understand long term developments in British communal life. In particular it is remarkable for showing the surprising longevity of many of the issues facing Britain s Muslim communities indeed issues surrounding free speech, education, politics and identity, to name just a few, remain just as hotly debated and contested as they were in The speech is therefore a useful reminder for policymakers and others to take a durable view of such issues rather than seeking short-term fixes that may do little to alter longer-term trajectories.

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