Guy Aitchison (London, OK): There is a short article worth reading on the relationship between "Britishness" and "Muslimness" which appears in this month's edition of emel, the "muslim lifestyle magazine". It is written by oD author and former director of City Circle, Yahya Birt. As someone who converted to Islam in later life, Birt is well-placed to offer a unique perspective on the relationship between these two sources of identity and allegiance, so often thought to be in tension with each other.
Birt notes that, contrary to popular belief, a large majority of British muslims self-identify as "British" even though patriotism in general is in decline. But recent attempts to define and re-assert "Britishness" in terms of values and institutions are inadequate, he argues. They are too vague and insubstantial and do not speak to our "sense of duty, or emotional attachment, to fellow citizens."
A better approach, perhaps, is to commit to an open-ended conversation about how to define what we Britons have in common, as well as seeing in cultural diversity a source of wisdom, and an opportunity to expand the wellsprings of our collective imaginations. The distinctive contribution of Muslims to national self-understanding will be but one strand among many. With all the suspicion levelled at Muslims today, it takes intellectual and moral courage to remain creative and self-aware enough to ponder our shared future while retaining a sense of faithful integrity.
Yet, in our interconnected world, this will not merely be a parochial endeavour, but will be intimately concerned with making sense of our public identities on a fragile, wired-up planet. To be cosmopolitan is to name our current challenge, to recognise that while we might aspire to universal values, they are variously negotiated across real and legitimate cultural diversity. A new Britishness in our global age would therefore arise, and be informed by “rooted cosmopolitanism”, a principled looking out at the challenges and opportunities of the world from our home, while never losing a sense of who or where we are.
You can read the full article on Birt's blog, Musings on the Brittanic Crescent, which is well-worth checking out. Is "rooted cosmoplitanism" simply a re-branded multiculturalism? The emphasis on universal values suggests not. It is an intersting concept and I would be interested in hearing more.
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I note - predictably perhaps - that Yahya Birt articulates the questions of national identity versus cultural diversity only in relation to Britishness, not the national / cultural identities (English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish) that he himself acknowledges are more profound than Britishness as a 'merely' civic, political identity. If Yahya wants to develop the concept of 'rooted cosmopolitanism' as something more emotionally and spiritually meaningful than British institutions and values alone, then surely this will have to involve engaging with those more deep-rooted and diverse 'native'-British identities.It surely must be viewed as a problem that, as Yahya points out in his post, Muslim and other ethnic-religious minorities have identified more strongly as British post-9/11, at the same time as the majority-ethnic population is disengaging from Britishness. This suggests that, if there is to be a meeting and cultural inter-exchange between the minority- ethnic communities and the majority population, this may have to be more, or primarily, on the grounds of Englishness, Scottishness, Welshness and Irishness than on that of Britishness.An appeal to universal values is not necessarily helpful or differentiating unless the concept is clearly qualified. After all, Britishness has been defined, post-9/11, more strongly in terms of universal and ambiguously (post-)Christian-liberal values than ever; and a key aspect of the Britishness project (or Britology, in my terminology) is indeed to base such values in some sort of common philosophical ground uniting the religious and secular positions. One of the reasons why English people in particular feel threatened by Islam and culturally assertive Muslim communities is that, as the traditional Christian faith of England declines, people are worried that England might become - in religious terms - more Islamic than Christian. Affirming the religious diversity of minority-ethnic communities, and the strength and vitality of their religious beliefs and practice, while at the same time England's Christian traditions and history are not celebrated or validated in any way (even if most English people don't practice any formal religion), can only play on these deep-rooted anxieties, and the sense that Englishness is what has to be given up and suppressed in the name of a cosmopolitan, modern Britishness.
Just a question to see what people's thoughts are:
What if we don't want "diversity" in our home country? What if we just want to live our lives and be left alone without feeling pressured to be inclusive, diverse, racially sensitive, etc. every hour of the day?
If I want to know about Muslim life, I will go to Northern Africa, Iraq, or Iran. If I want to know about South American life, I will go to South America, just as I will go to Norway, Japan, or others to experience their culture. But what if I want to just be myself in my OWN country? Why is that so bad? That has absolutely zero parallels to Nazism, it's just me, a regular person, who wants an everyday life free from as much turmoil as possible.
Is that ALLOWED?
Eggshells: The answer partly lies in the question. If you wish to "be yourself" in a country you call your own (presumably because you live and feel at home in that country, or perhaps because you were born there or are a citizen of that country), and you wish or expect others to respect that wish, it follows that other people should be allowed to be themselves also. A country in which people are allowed to be themselves will automatically allow for diversity.
After reading your post I am sure that you and I would heartily disagree on a lot of things - including the notion of homogeneous cultures existing in and belonging to certain territories. Probably we don't have the same way of life. Where does diversity begin, and where would you like it to stop?
You say there are "absolutely zero parallels to Nazism" but your views on culture and territory do bear resemblance to "ethnopluralist" arguments put forward by modern right-wing movements.
Finally, do you really feel pressurized into being things you don't want to be "every hour of the day"? Be yourself, by all means, but if we all have the right to be ourselves, we'll have to put up with some degree of conflict/diverging interests. In my opinion, that's a good thing.
I can understand why Yaha Birt says this, it is logical from his point of view. I would, however, like folk to listen to this :
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/2354
I think Hardeep Sing Kohli, in a short and fractious interview, makes better points about identity than I have ever heard anywhere else.
I think he is right in saying that identity is mutable dependent on circumstance.
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So, I have been all of the following:
Astonished, and a little horrified, to find myself completely in agreement with Thatcher over the recapture of the Falklands and what we, as the UK had to do about it. I cannot deny the fact that that was the way I felt. Patriotic and angry.
Neither can I deny that I was equally horrified when Tony Blair abrogated what - I thought - was the right action over Iraq: stay away. What, angry and patriotic? Not exactly, but you get the idea.
Nor can I deny that I find BNP attitudes immutable to what I think Scottishness actually is. Perhaps just in denial, who knows.
The point being that, at Hardeep says, your identity is mutable to the circumstances you are in at a moment in time.
Is there not a line about treason simply being a matter of history, or some such?
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