Young, British and Muslim

"Philip Lewis is an extremely knowledgeable and interesting writer. He lives in Bradford, which is one of the epicentres of Pakistani Muslim Britain, and is seen as a hotspot for segregation and failed or bad immigration. He is not unsympathetic to the Pakistani position but he is very good at explaining how this came about. Many first generation post-war immigrants thought they were only coming for a short period of time, to earn money. But then they established roots, settled in Britain and formed communities. They couldn’t speak English, they didn’t know much about Britain. And because we had no integration strategy, the idea of the imperial family completely fell apart. The people of Bradford hadn’t been prepared for their arrival. Lewis also explains how a lot of these problems have been passed down the generations. Even third or fourth generation Kashmiri Pakistanis in Bradford, 75 to 80% of them still have one parent born abroad. Their native language is spoken at home. That obviously interferes with the integration process. It has become a cliché of the terrorism analysis, but I think it is true that what contributes to radicalisation is the generational gulf that has opened up between first and second or third generation Muslims. On the one hand they reject their parents’ often rather simple, rural version of Islam and strict morality, and want the desirable things of living in a Western society. On the other hand they often live quite segregated lives, and don’t feel wholly accepted in Britain. Out of that generational divide and the alienation created by it comes a desire for certainty, which means that a lot of young men in particular seek almost a substitute family. That is often provided by radical groups, which can then be a transmission belt to even more radical, violent groups. The EDL is quite a new creation. Going back to the sixties, you had teddy boys, then skinheads, then the National Front which was run by overt Nazis. They waxed and waned in terms of political influence, although people forget that the BNP [the far-right British National Party] got nearly a million votes in the 2009 European elections, despite being an offshoot of the National Front themselves. The EDL is a more interesting product of modern Britain. It claims not to be racist – it is anti-Muslim but welcomes into its ranks people of other races. But in practice, on the street it’s the same skinhead mentality, often drawn from the football terraces. The level of harassment and violence faced by minority Britain is comparatively less than it was back in the sixties and seventies. The remarkable thing about the 7/7 bombings is how muted the response was."

"I chose this book because it talks just about what is happening in Britain. Once again, we may agree or not with what he is saying, but he’s showing how the younger generation of Muslims have a better understanding of their environment, are becoming much more integrated and are going beyond the social divides and the social tensions. Philip Lewis is saying much the same as Jane Smith – there are still problems, but there is movement, there is evolution and there are new responses to new challenges. I think this is positive in itself. Once again, we may disagree on some points, but the very deep historical evolution is there. Yes. What he is saying is exactly that point. There is evolution but we have to be very cautious not to get the sense that it is monolithic. He studies the divisions and tensions between cultures and between religious interpretations. On this, he’s right. I don’t think there was more extremism in Britain. The attitude of the government in the 1980s and 1990s was to allow people to say what they wanted. I remember myself asking why people were able to call for the murder of the prime minister without being arrested or questioned. In the name of freedom of expression in Britain, the floor was opened up for people to say what they wanted. This was not necessarily good or bad, but this was the reality and Britain was perceived as the place in Europe where anything could be said. You then had a change in policy after the 7/7 bombings. So, I wouldn’t say there was more extremism in Britain – it was just more open and more visible. They never gained ground. You just need to take a look at the figures – they were completely marginalised. After the 7/7 bombings I was in the [British government’s] task force and was explaining that these extremists were not meeting in mosques but were meeting outside the community. They never represented something that was significant within the Muslim communities. Today, it is quite clear that even the networks they did create are more marginal. Over the last 20 years the violent extremists never gained ground within the Muslim community. They were vocal but they were not representing Muslims."