Race, ethnicity and religion: emerging policies in Britain

ABSTRACT

Britain's integration model is recurrently held up as the epitome of the multiculturalist model in Europe. Moreover, it tends to be presented as though it was intrinsic to British society and had always existed. This is not the case. In reality the model has passed through successive phases of an ongoing evolution and was constructed through the interaction between British society and the ethnic minorities of immigrant origin who settled in Britain after the Second World War. After a brief period of assimilationism, a race relations paradigm was formulated, followed by the establishment of a multicultural policy. It is often assumed that multicultural policy is a simple continuation of a race relations approach under another name. But Joly argues that this is inaccurate and that each corresponds to distinct policy parameters and to different stages. Moreover, this was not the end of the line. The multiculturalist model has come under a barrage of criticism emanating from various sources and different viewpoints. Nevertheless, Joly maintains that it has not been eliminated but has metamorphosed into a Muslim paradigm. Her paper explores the different stages of integration policies directed at immigrants and how those were constructed. The paradigms were developed through the categorization of immigrants by the majority and the mobilization of immigrants as a result of their interaction with British society. The paper draws the contours of each of these stages, examines the fault lines and areas of tension, and explores the underpinnings of the evolution. It argues that policies were forged through and beyond discourses largely by the immigrants themselves. In the main it can be posited that the process started with action that began at local level at the initiative of the immigrants and subsequently progressed to the national level. This prompted responses and funding programmes from central government.

Keywords:

• Islam
• multiculturalism
• Muslims
• race relations

Notes

¹W.W. Daniel, Racial Discrimination in England (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1968); David Smith, Racial Disadvantage in Employment (London: Political and Economic Planning 1974); Colin Brown, Black and White Britain: the Third PSI Survey (London: Heinemann 1984).

²John Rex, The Ghetto and the Underclass: Essays on Race and Social Policy (Aldershot: Avebury 1988), 29–30.

³Robert Miles and Annie Phizacklea, White Man's Country: Racism in British Politics (London: Pluto Press 1984).

⁴Margaret Archer, Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach (Cambridge: CUP 1995), 216.

⁵Sue Patterson, Immigrants in Industry (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations 1968).

⁶Indian Workers’ Association, Smash Racialism and Fascism (IWA: Birmingham 1976); see Sasha Josephides, Towards a History of the Indian Worker's Association (Coventry: University of Warwick Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations 1992), 51.

⁷Mark Duffield, Black Radicalism and the Politics of De-industrialisation (Aldershot: Gower Avebury 1988).

⁸Author's interview with Avtar Jouhal, 10 November 1975.

⁹Cathy Lloyd, Discourses of Antiracism in France (Aldershot: Ashgate 1998).

¹⁰Mano Candappa and Danièle Joly, Local Authorities, Ethnic Minorities and Pluralist Integration (Coventry: University of Warwick, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations 1994).

¹¹Smith, Racial Disadvantage in Employment, 321.

¹²Race Relations Act 1976, Chapter 74, 2.

¹³Zig Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration (Oxford: Blackwell 1984).

¹⁴Archer, Realist Social Theory, 216.

¹⁵Malcolm Cross, Mark Johnson and Brian Cox, Black Welfare and Local Government: Section 11 and Social Services Departments (Coventry: Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick 1988).

¹⁶Candappa and Joly, Local Authorities, Ethnic Minorities and Pluralist Integration.

¹⁷Wolverhampton Borough Council Equal Opportunity Policy Statement 1986:1.

¹⁹Quoted in Danièle Joly, Britannia's Crescent: Making a Place for Muslims in British Society (Adershot: Ashgate 1995), 142.

¹⁸Birmingham City Council, 1989 quoted in Candappa and Joly, Local Authorities, Ethnic Minorities and Pluralist Integration, 96.

²⁰Manchester City Council, ‘Social Services Anti-Racist Strategy Report of the acting director of Social Services’ (November 1980).

²¹John Rex, Danièle Joly and Czarina Wilpert (eds), Immigrant Associations in Europe (Aldershot: Avebury 1987).

²²Danièle Joly and Jorgen Nielsen, Muslims in Britain: An Annotated Bibliography, 1960/1984 (Coventry: CRER, University of Warwick 1985).

²³Danièle Joly, Britannia's Crescent (Aldershot: Avebury 1995).

²⁴Danièle Joly, Britannia's Crescent (Aldershot: Avebury 1995).

²⁵Danièle Joly, Britannia's Crescent (Aldershot: Avebury 1995).; Jorgen Nielsen, Islams, Muslims and British Local and Central Government (Birmingham: CSIC Papers, May 1992); Jorgen Nielsen, Towards a European Islam (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1999); Danièle Joly and Karima Imtiaz, ‘Muslims and citizenship in the United Kingdom’ in Remy Leveau, Khadija Mohsen-Finan and Catherine Withol de Wenden (eds), New European Identity and Citizenship (Aldershot: Ashgate 2002).

²⁶Yunus Samad, ‘The plural guises of multiculturalism: conceptualising a fragmented paradigm’, in Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner (eds), Politics of Multiculturalism (London: Zed Press 1997).

²⁷Joly and Imtiaz, ‘Muslims and citizenship in the United Kingdom’, 117–33.

²⁸Birmingham City Council, 2010.

²⁹Ted Cantle, Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team (London: Home Office 2001); John Denham, Building Cohesive Communities: A Report of the Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion (chaired by John Denham) (London: Home Office 2001).

³⁰ Cohesion Delivery Framework Overview (London: Communities and Local Government 2010).

³¹Jessica Jacobson, ‘Religion and ethnicity: dual and alternative sources of identity among young Pakistanis’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol 20, no. 2, 1997, 238–56.

³²Nielsen, Towards a European Islam; Danièle Joly, L'Emeute (Paris: Denoël 2007).

³³Our own current project on Muslim women and participation deepens and elaborates on these findings: Danièle Joly and Khursheed Wadia, ‘Women from Muslim Communities and Politics in Britain and France’, ESRC RES-062-23-0380).

³⁴Tony Blair, prime minister's press conference, 5 August 2005.

³⁵Idem.

³⁶Home Office, ‘Preventing Extremism Together’ Working Group Reports: August–September 2005, http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/16/PreventingExtremismTogetherworkinggroupreportAugOct2005_id1502016.Pdf.

³⁷Home Office, ‘Preventing Extremism Together’ Working Group Reports: August–September 2005, http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/16/PreventingExtremismTogetherworkinggroupreportAugOct2005_id1502016.Pdf, 22.

³⁸Audit Commission, Preventing Extremism: Learning and Development Exercise (London: HMIC October 2008), 5.

³⁹James Arthur Beckford, Danièle Joly and Farhad Khosrokhavar, Muslims in Prison (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2005).

⁴⁰ Guardian, 5 February 2011.

⁴¹ Guardian, 5 February 2011., 1–2.

⁴²Cantle, Community Cohesion.

⁴³My thanks to Clotilde Giner and Florence Hulak who helped to tidy up this article.