British Muslims, multiculturalism and UK foreign policy: 'Integration' and 'cohesion' in and beyond the state

International Affairs

Volumn 83, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 1-17

  Brighton, Shane ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^b ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33846616829     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00600.x     Document Type: Review

References (47)

1. Tony Blair, Prime Minister's press conference, 5 Aug. 2005, http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page8041.asp, accessed 9 Nov. 2005.
2. UK Home Office, 'Preventing Extremism Together' working group reports: August-September 2005, http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/16/ PreventingExtremismTogetherworkinggroupreportAugOct2005_id1502016.pdf, accessed 21 May 2006.
3. 'Preventing Extremism Together', p. 3.
4. Ehsan Masood, British Muslims: media guide (London: British Council, 2006), p. 22.
5. House of Commons, Report into the official account of the bombings in London on 7th July 2005 (London: Stationery Office, 2006), paras 7-37.
6. For additional details on the bombers' lives and friends, their families and neighbours' perceptions of them, see Milan Rai, 7/7: the London bombings and the Iraq War (London: Pluto, 2006), chs 3-7.
7. There is considerable anecdotal evidence to suggest that 'lack of integration' is not necessarily typical of highly radicalized individuals. As 'Kaled', a former member of the UK-based group Al Muhajiroun, observed: 'The violent radicals, the jihadi, are the least alienated, the most integrated. They're high achievers': quoted in Wendy Kristianasen in 'Britain's multiculturalism falters', Le Monde diplomatique, Nov. 2006.
8. 'Al-Qaeda blames Blair for bombs', BBC News Online, 4 Aug. 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4745639.stm, accessed 21 Oct. 2005.
9. The excerpt of the JTAC report highlighting the significance of Iraq to the terrorist threat level in the UK was included in the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report of May 2006: Intelligence and Security Committee, Report into the London terrorist attacks on 7 July 2005 (London: Stationery Office, 2006), p. 23.
10. The JIC assessment was repeated in the ISC's Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: intelligence and assessments report of Sept. 2003: quoted in Rai, 7/7, p. 15.
11. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 'EIWG fact sheet', http://www.fco.gov. uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid= 1153388310360, accessed 19 Oct. 2006. The 'Radical Middle Way' project - http://www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk - is also supported by the Home Office.
12. Department for Communities and Local Government, Commission on integration and cohesion: terms of reference, June 2006, http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1501522#, accessed 22 Oct. 2006.
13. Quoted in Bhikhu Parekh, 'National culture and multiculturalism', in K. Thompson, ed., Media and cultural regulation (London: Sage, 1997), p. 176.
14. Kylie Baxter, 'From migrants to citizens: Muslims in Britain 1950s-1990s', Immigrants and Minorities 24: 2, July 2006, p. 167.
15. Vicki Squire, '"Integration with diversity in modern Britain": New Labour on nationality, immigration and asylum', Journal of Political Ideologies 10: 1, Feb. 2005, p. 55.
16. Tariq Modood, 'Multiculturalism, ethnicity and integration: contemporary challenges', paper presented at the Leverhulme Programme on Migration and Citizenship conference, 'Ethnicity, Mobility and Society', University of Bristol, March 2006, p. 2, http://www.bristol.ac.uk/sociology/leverhulme/ conference/conferencepapers/modood.pdf, accessed 30 Aug. 2006.
17. Modood, 'Multiculturalism, ethnicity and integration', p. 2.
18. Christian Joppke, 'The retreat of multiculturalism in the liberal state: theory and policy', British Journal of Sociology 55: 2, 2004, p. 249.
19. Harry Goulbourne, Race relations in Britain since 1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), p. 41.
20. Goulbourne, Race relations in Britain, pp. 68-9.
21. Anthony McRoy, From Rushdie to 7/7: the radicalisation of Islam in Britain (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2006), p. 233.
22. Goulbourne, Race relations in Britain, p. 66.
23. Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 312.
24. McRoy, From Rushdie to 7/7, pp. 20-23. McRoy's analysis is undoubtedly correct here, although his analytical emphasis on 'psychological' and cultural-religious dynamics arguably leaves the political importance of these events understated.
25. The influence of the Iranian Revolution and the Saudi response has shaped many dynamics within contemporary Islamic politics and, by extension, political activism among British Muslims. Kalim Siddiqui's foundation of the Muslim Institute in 1980 consciously drew on Iranian ideas; international in outlook and political in its ambitions, the institute also sought to exercise 'political power in a minority situation', much as the Prophet and the early founders of Islam had done. It was in an effort to consolidate this power as Iran withdrew sponsorship for sympathetic organizations abroad that Siddiqui lobbied for a Muslim Parliament in the UK. See Baxter, 'From migrants to citizens', p. 185. Jason Burke describes the Saudi government's response to increased post-revolutionary Shi'i influence as, in part, the 'exporting on an industrial scale' of Wahhabi teaching: Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: the true story of radical Islam (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 60. While the direct impact of this process in the UK is unclear, it certainly provides part of the context for the new radicalization of the 1990s.
26. Scarman considered and rejected institutional racism as a factor in the Brixton riots, stressing instead that any racism within the Metropolitan Police reflected the views of individual police officers. See Sir William MacPherson, The Stephen Lawrence inquiry (London: Stationery Office, 1999), para. 6.6, http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-06. htm#6.6, accessed 1 Nov. 2006.
27. Trevor Phillips, 'Multiculturalism's legacy', Guardian, 28 May 2004.
28. Joppke, 'The retreat of multiculturalism', p. 244.
29. Joppke, 'The retreat of multiculturalism', p. 250.
30. Joppke, 'The retreat of multiculturalism', p. 250.
31. Home Office, Community cohesion: a report of the independent review team chaired by Ted Cantle (London: Stationery Office, 2001), p. 9, http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2001/12/11/ communitycohesionreport.pdf, accessed 1 Dec. 2006.
32. Quoted in Joppke, 'The retreat of multiculturalism', p. 251.
33. Joppke, 'The retreat of multiculturalism', p 253.
34. Quoted in Kristianasen, 'British multiculturalism falters'.
35. 'Charles Clarke joins Muslim veil row', Norwich Evening News, 16 Nov. 2006.
36. The term 'fighting creed' is taken by Joppke from Charles Taylor's 'The politics of recognition', in Amy Gutman, ed., Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princton University Press, 2004).
37. Baxter, 'From migrants to citizens', p. 166.
38. Faisal Devji, Landscapes of the jihad: militancy, morality, modernity (London: Hurst, 2005).
39. Devji, Landscapes of the jihad, p. xii.
40. Devji, Landscapes of the jihad, p. xiv.
41. Devji, Landscapes of the jihad, pp. 3-4.
42. Abdel Bari Atwan, The secret history of Al-Qaeda (London: Saqi Books, 2006), p. 110.
43. Mohammad Siddique Khan, transcribed in Rai, 7/7, p. 131.
44. Prime Minister Tony Blair, speech on 'Doctrine of the international community', 24 April 1999, http:///www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1297.asp, accessed 9 Aug. 2003.
45. Prime Minister Tony Blair, speech on 'Clash about civilisations', 12 March 2006, http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page9224.asp, accessed 5 July 2006.
46. Prime Minister Tony Blair, speech on 'Global alliance for global values', 27 March 2006, http://www.number-10.gov.uk/outputPage9245.asp, accessed 11 Oct. 2006.
47. Blair, 'Clash about civilisations'.