The Prime Minister’s remarks on multiculturalism during his speech at the Munich security conference on Saturday were always going to be controversial.
His analysis of the deepest roots of Islamist violence was certainly refreshing in its clarity. He acknowledged that there are multiple contributing factors behind such violence, such as the alienation and social disadvantage experienced by some urban Muslim youth, or the anger at British foreign policy towards Muslims peoples overseas.
But Mr Cameron was quite right to point out that such factors are not enough to explain the current willingness of a small minority of Muslims to inflict terrorist violence on innocent citizens. That can only be attributed to the power of a radical Islamist ideology, according to which it is not only justified but even obligatory to wage war against western society at large. The Prime Minister was also right to reiterate that this ideology is held by only a tiny minority of extremist Islamists and is emphatically repudiated by the overwhelming majority of British Muslims.
But Cameron also raised the delicate – albeit necessary – question of whether the British government ought to take clearer distance from those sections of the Muslim community who, while clearly rejecting violence, appear not to take as firm a stand towards those among their co-religionists who embrace it as they might.
Yet it was here that problems with his speech arose. First, it is precisely because this kind of claim is so easily misunderstood, that Mr Cameron ought to have taken greater care to be highly specific in identifying those he had in mind. His failure to do so risked sustaining the generalised pall of suspicion that has been unjustly cast over the British Muslim community as a whole, by sections of the tabloid press in particular. Specificity and hair-splitting in such speeches may seem tedious but it is all too necessary when discussing such sensitive subjects.
Thus, a second problem in his remarks was the ambiguity in his use of the term ‘state multiculturalism’. “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism,” he remarked, “we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.” This sentiment echoes a widespread perception in
Now there is undoubtedly some evidence of causal processes that look something like this. But since each of the terms in that claim can carry several quite distinct meanings, the causal claim is rendered problematic. For example, if ‘state multiculturalism’ is the problem, does that imply it is the role of the state to define the ‘shared values’ that hold society together? And what are those ‘shared values’? What, moreover, does ‘holding together’ actually mean? I am not asserting that Cameron is wrong in what he claims, only that it is difficult to know precisely what it is he is claiming due to the ambiguity of the loaded terms he uses.
Actually, Cameron does offer some important, albeit familiar, hints on the content of the ‘shared values’ he favours: human rights for all; equality of all before the law; democracy; equal civil liberties; a common language and curriculum – in sum, a ‘more active, muscular liberalism.’ But even ‘indigenous white’ people can disagree on the specific implications of these laudable goals. His failure to spell these concrete implications out in very clear terms (he does single out forced marriage as one practice incompatible with such values) once again serves to sustain a vague suspicion that British Muslims in general have doubts about them.
Yes, we need a better debate about whether it is time to move beyond multiculturalism – but which one, and to where?
Jonathan Chaplin is Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics (www.klice.co.uk). He is currently writing a Theos report on multiculturalism.
