Still Not Easy Being British

"Well, again, my book is coming at a time when a lot of people think that multiculturalism is dead or should be dead. And so it tries to show that many of our controversies today are crying out for multicultural solutions. I would say that the distinctive features of my book compared to the others in this collection are that it includes shorter pieces aimed at non-academics and that it focuses on Muslims. Most people think that the problems related to multiculturalism are all to do with Muslim identity politics and Muslim demands on British society or other similar societies. In my book I also emphasise national identity or Britishness, which on the whole multiculturalists tend not to because they are anxious that national identity will be taken in a kind of imposed, domineering way, that minorities will be, as it were, ticked off for not being sufficiently British. I argue that the way that we come to see why Britishness is important is actually not so very different to how we see multiculturalism as important, because we see how these identities, whether they be minority Pakistani identity in Britain or whether it is being British – and many minorities want to be British; it is not something that is imposed on them – we see that these identities are important to people. So we have to find a way in politics of including rather than of trying to exclude them. Well, I do, too. I think on the whole we do have a sense of inclusion in this country in our idea of what a citizen is. And that is why Britishness and multiculturalism are compatible. But, of course, it is not a static situation, so all the time we should contest those whose features of Britishness seem to be exclusive, such as a past sense of being British, or the idea that we are only a Christian or only a secular country. Some critics would say that the problem is that Muslims don’t fit in with our secular policies, and I address that in the book and argue that actually Britain may be a secular country but the ways in which we are secular are ways inclusive of religious people. We find space for organised religion in our public affairs. I would say that what I offer in the book is a version of multiculturalism which is compatible with and based on liberal citizenship, moderate secularism and inclusive Britishness."