It has long been a mantra of the political right that multiculturalism has somehow failed. Now, in Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths, Rumy Hasan, coming from the left, has reached much the same conclusion. Predictably, his reasoning is rather different, for Hasan is not concerned with protecting the culture of the host country from invaders; he is concerned with protecting immigrant arrivals from being trapped in an oppressive aspic of male domination, low skills and poverty. Hasan believes that current policy does this because it is based on a liberal notion – admirable in its original intent – that the once despised, traditional cultures of former colonies are worthy of respect.
Essentially, Hasan is saying not that multiculturalism is bad for Britain, as the right say, but that it is bad for the people it is intended to help – incoming cultural minorities. Immigrant populations have remained unchallenged in their traditional ways, and the fate of women and children, “marooned from the shore of mainstream society”, has been to fall into isolation and economic deprivation, because traditional community leaders, invariably male, have continued to dominate self-defined immigrant groups in a way that social liberals would never tolerate within the host society.
Hasan outlines a brief history of immigration, in four phases. The first, from 1945 to the late 1970s, was an era of predominantly Commonwealth immigration, when non-whites were referred to as “coloured immigrants”. After the riots in Brixton and Toxteth, new forms of identity became available as it became clear that the incomers could assert themselves, and were here to stay. This was the “black British” or “Asian British” phase, when diversity issues were still largely about skin colour, or culture, not religion. This transformed into the concept of a “multicultural” society, though Hasan thinks multiracial or multiethnic would have been better words. Non-whiteness then broke down and fragmented, and an era of pork barrel politics ensued, where in exchange for votes, especially at local level, political parties began to recognise and do deals with local cultural groups, particularly concerning faith projects promoted by faith groups, which led to increasing ghettoisation. Finally, after 9/11, multiculturalism became an obsolete term and an era which Hasan calls “multifaithism” arrived. This is a highly fissured social model where increased government reluctance to criticise or interfere has damaged social cohesion, leading to the psychic detachment of certain minorities, especially South Asian Muslims. This is the present situation, and Hasan considers it profoundly unsatisfactory.
He brilliantly points out the anomalies and double standards inherent in the respect and recognition accorded to newly arrived cultural groups. The host society is expected to change in response to the new arrivals, but individuals arriving are not, and are instead to be “celebrated” in their “difference”. It is the host society that is assumed to be flawed and open to criticism, while the newly arrived community is exempt from any criticism at all. Multiculturalism, as currently implemented, thus violates universalist principles in the areas of both law and social equality.
Trying to express this policy in legal terms means abandoning universally applicable laws and erecting instead a potentially infinite series of particular exceptions based on cultural quirks – hijabs, turbans and so forth. Sensitivities about race have got out of hand, says Hasan. Are gypsies to be left illiterate because they have a cultural history of illiteracy? “The anti-racist struggle [is] a struggle for equality, whereas multiculturalism is a demand for separate rights, exemptions and provisions.” Multiculturalism, he argues, preserves oppressive practices and deprives members of minority communities of individual liberty and the right of self expression; they become prisoners of the larger group, condemned to mono-culturalism and mono-faithism.
The intellectual underpinning of immigration policy is thoroughly examined. On the respect side Hasan outlines the theories of Charles Taylor and the practical and political arguments of Bhikhu Parekh, balancing these against the position of Brian Barry, in particular, from the opposite creolisation tendency. Hasan favours Barry’s approach, largely because it fits better with his own socially progressive agenda than the prudential conservatism of the Taylor approach, where immigrant communities must be respected so that in effect they are not challenged, except in the most egregious of their cultural practices – female genital mutilation, for example, or honour killings.
Having set out why current policy is intellectually, politically and socially flawed, and in particular how it does not actually achieve the goals it sets itself, Hasan suggests some constructive measures and solutions to the problems facing migrant groups. The solution, he believes, is more intermixing, less segregation and the creation of a vision of a shared (and distinctly secular) future. These are, naturally, left-wing, progressive solutions, for Hasan feels no obligation to preserve either host or immigrant cultures in their present form. This stance pervades the book, and lends it its overall flavour.
Hasan is a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex and there is an academic air to this book; however, it is refreshingly jargon free, and accessible throughout. Hasan also has sufficient rigour to make a genuine attempt to represent the arguments of his opponents in their correct context. Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths offers a very comprehensive historical and philosophical overview of the subject, and is a must read for anyone interested in this important and politically controversial area of social policy.
