The Home We Build Together

"The last three books are all a little bit later than the first books. So for instance the next two books are published in 2007 and my book was published in September 2010. That means that they are shaped by a climate in which multiculturalism has become unpopular. The first two books are to some extent manifestos for what is seen as a new approach to politics, whereas the next three books are all considerably more defensive and more qualified about what multiculturalism means and how much it is being advocated. Jonathan Sacks’s book falls into that category because it is notable that in his earlier books he was a champion of strong communities and diversity, of groups having the space to be different so they could be faithful to their own traditions. But in this new book he emphasises what he calls integrated diversity. Now, actually, a lot of what he says about this is shared by people like myself who call ourselves multiculturalists. And Jonathan Sacks only manages to distinguish his own position from a multiculturalist position by caricaturing multiculturalism. I would say that although the book has many strengths, one of its weaknesses is that it doesn’t engage with multiculturalist authors – it just uses multiculturalism to refer to something negative. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . But nevertheless, I think he has a vision of politics that is definitely helpful because he wants to show how strong communities are important – in fact he is almost like David Cameron’s Big Society in this respect – but we have to share a common set of political values which he refers to using a religious vocabulary. There has to be a covenant amongst us and a covenant is something more than a contract. With a contract you do a private deal but you don’t have to share anything in common, whereas citizens who live together under a covenant agree to live in accordance with certain political values. The political values he has in mind are those of liberal democracy. That is a slightly different position to the mainstream multiculturalists, because although multiculturalists have to take notice of values, they don’t emphasise in quite such a strict way the common values of society. For me, the problem with this book is that it seems to make enemies of multiculturalists for what I would say are political purposes, namely trying to be a bit more popular at a time when multiculturalism is unpopular. Yes, I have written to him three times but had no response either from him or in the form of his published work. Perhaps if he reads this he will be provoked into a response!"