Multiculturalism at Bay in an Age of Ethnonationalism and Necropolitics
A short response to Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy’s The New Governance of Religious Diversity. Convened by the Manchester Muslim Forum, and hosted by Khizra Masjid, Manchester. With Prof. Tariq Modood and Dr. Sadek Hamid.
Multiculturalism and deep diversity are unavoidable realities of our modern world. They’ve been shaped by empire, mass transport, global communication, the internet, migration, free markets, war, displacement, and even genocide. With this comes increased religious diversity.
The Role of British Muslims
In Britain today, there are about 4 million Muslims — a population size comparable to Wales or Scotland. As such, British Muslims are “too big to fail”, borrowing a phrase from the 2008 financial crisis. Our welfare is intertwined with the nation’s well-being. Despite the rise of anti-multiculturalism rhetoric from politicians over the past 25 years, the question of Muslims’ place in Britain cannot be ignored or dismissed.
Acknowledging Tariq Modood
Just to embarrass him a little as I know he is a modest man, I want to pay tribute to the huge contribution of Tariq Modood. He is the most distinguished sociologist and political scientist our community has produced, a recognised figure of global standing in his field, who continues to be incredibly productive. This latest book, written with Tom Sealy, is hugely ambitious in outlining a model of various secularisms around the world to free our political imaginations (both Muslim and non-Muslim) from a European focus. As the book shows, many states have been able to recognise and support religious communities and uphold their religious freedoms in the modern era. In Britain, we enjoy many formal freedoms which Tariq has named as part of the predominant form of religious governance in Europe, namely “moderate secularism”.
Challenges of Ethnonationalism
The book doesn’t shy away from addressing the global rise of ethnonationalism, as seen in India and France, for example. For British Muslims, rising narrow nationalism presents a pressing challenge, including forms of “long distance nationalism” like Hindutva in Britain, about which the Ayaan Institute has produced the report, Global Hindutva. After the 1990s, when the state was more accommodating and recognized Muslims’ contributions, the relationship has since grown strained. This is evident in debates on community cohesion, where cultural and religious differences are framed as problems rather than opportunities. Post-9/11 securitization turned Muslims into a surveilled and suspect community, often exploiting internal sectarian divisions. The financial crisis of 2008 and later the crisis of Brexit have led to political instability in the country, which directly impacts our social harmony, and feeds the urge to find scapegoats.
Grassroots Solutions to Tensions
The race riots last summer where mosques and asylum hotels were directly targeted highlights how fragile peaceful relations between citizens can be. Maintaining these relations requires a collective effort, best driven by grassroots organizations like this mosque rather than temporary, top-down government initiatives. Communities are permanent, while political parties in government come and go in alteration. As Muslims, we can draw on a rich ethical tradition of pluralism, tolerance, and neighbourliness to challenge narrow nationalist or ethnic majority outlooks.
Holding Politicians Accountable
Let’s be honest — despite their claims to be doing the very opposite, it is politicians who are often the ones fuelling division, radicalization, and extremism. It falls to us, whether of faith or no faith, to hold them accountable. This includes calling out anti-immigration rhetoric, racially exclusive definitions of Britishness, and their failure to act against atrocities. Over the past 400 days, we’ve witnessed the first live-streamed genocide in history — in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
The Normalization of Mass Death
Western governments, including Britain, are undermining international humanitarian law to support Israel. A politics of multiculturalism that supports religious diversity cannot coexist with the normalization of mass death for certain races and religions, while others are shielded and even empowered to kill on a large scale. If we lose multiculturalism and mutual respect, the ultimate adversary to that is what we see today: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. It is a great shame that the government has used interfaith week to mask this issue by simply positing the problem as one of purportedly poor intercommunal relations between ordinary British Muslims and Jews, and their leaderships.
Interfaith and Dissent
Like hundreds of thousands of others, I’ve attended numerous marches over the past year, and they demonstrate true interfaith and multicultural solidarity, in which British Jews play a large and vocal part. Interfaith efforts shouldn’t just be about improving Israel’s image when in reality they can and do involve dissent and accountability. It’s essential to be honest about this if interfaith is to have relevance or a higher purpose.
Let us also question the policy of selective impartiality concerning politics in schools. 96% of schools have taken action to support Ukraine, including flying flags and wearing the colours of the Ukrainian flag; 62% have fundraised or hosted donation drives. Yet this week just gone, the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, felt entitled to warn teachers against taking part in a Day of Action last Thursday, to wear the colours of the Palestinian flag or wear Palestine badges because it would intimidate British Jews. We have to ask what drives this erasure of British Jews who wear these colours themselves?
Highlighting Gaza’s Famine
Let me end by drawing attention to a local young woman in Manchester. Her name is Lizzie Greenwood, whose MP is Afzal Khan, the MP for Rusholme. She is 31 days into a hunger strike, allowing herself a maximum of 250 calories a day, which is what the UN estimates the 2.2 million people of Gaza are starving on, as they experience famine as a war crime. She has written to Mr. Khan and 29 other MPs, but none so far have raised the case of this young woman publicly or in Parliament to highlight the deep urgency of the famine. Starvation and disease will kill far more Gazans than even the bombs will. Mr. Khan and other MPs should do so immediately. Famine is happening in front of us but only people like Lizzie have made it a priority and she should shame us into greater effort and action than we are already doing. Supporting Lizzie would be a real measure of our commitment to a politics of life, justice, diversity and multiculturalism, a politics that I interpret Tariq and Tom’s book as not only analysing or seeking to protect but fostering and strengthening.
