About Yahya Birt
Yahya Birt is director of City Circle. His personal blog is www.yahyabirt.com
Articles by Yahya Birt
British Muslims and the Muslim Council of Britain: the next decade
As the Muslim Council of Britain marks its first decade, it seems an appropriate moment for reflection. As the country's largest Muslim umbrella body, it still remains the "first among equals" in relation to an increasingly large alphabet-soup of representative institutions. The British Muslim Forum, the Sufi Council of Britain and British Muslims for Secular Democracy have all emerged in the three years since 7/7, alongside a profusion of Muslim commentators and other bodies that seek to reflect the government's "rebalancing" in 2006 of its relationship with Muslim communities to emphasise counter-terrorist imperatives.
Diversity's horizon
There is much to admire in Tariq Modood's defence of multiculturalism, developed in his book Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea and presented in his openDemocracy article "Multiculturalism, citizenship and national identity" (17 May 2007).
Multiculturalism and the discontents of globalisation
There is much to admire in Tariq Modood's defence of multiculturalism, developed in his book Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea and presented in his openDemocracy article "Multiculturalism, citizenship and national identity" (17 May 2007). The gist of his case is that it needs to be mended and not ended, surely the only sensible response to an inescapable shift to superdiversity in our globalising world. Multiculturalism may be reinvigorated by linking it positively to more inclusive notions of citizenship and national identity and belonging. If the nation-state is more inclusive, then the "multilogical" processes by which integration may take place allows more easily for the inclusion of minorities within an expanded vision of Britishness, which (as Modood indicates) has more to do with process than with lists of core values.
This week's guest editors
Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:
Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:
A Turkish Spring?
Woolwich - terror or conflict?
Palestinian borders
Nobel Women's Initiative
Europe from the bottom up
The media in Europe
Mali: the plot thickens
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Remote control war
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
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Lis Howell On broadcasting
Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion
Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
