David Cameron summed up his approach to “extremism” in one paragraph of the lengthy statement he made this week: “For all our successes as multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don’t really identify with Britain – and feel little or no attachment to other people here.”
Cameron condemned the “failure of integration” of Muslim communities. We all know the subtext that follows – unspoken, but understood by many people listening to him: Muslims don’t speak English, they keep themselves to themselves because they are not interested in integrating with white neighbours; they want to sponge off the state rather than integrate and get jobs… What tunnel vision (to put it politely)! What bullshit (to use the vernacular)!
When will a politician attribute lack of integration to the failings of the host community rather than the immigrants? Why don’t politicians say that British values should include welcoming immigrants: befriending them, sticking up for them – popping round to see if they need a few teabags when they move in?
Politicians will never say that kind of thing – because they are too busy appeasing openly racist groups like the BNP and EDL and xenophobic ones like UKIP. They’re too busy agreeing that immigrants take our jobs so we should limit the number of immigrants – where “immigrant” is code for a black or Asian person, whether they immigrated or were born in the UK. Politicians never get round to admitting that our “British” ancestors went out to Asia (and Africa, and elsewhere) to plunder the natural resources for the enrichment of the UK – and gave back citizenship in return. When a racist asks a politician, “why are they here, taking our jobs?” – the politicians don’t go, “well, we robbed them blind, man, innit?”
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If you live in a Britain which regards you as a permanent foreigner, a perpetual outsider – how are you going to come to identify with British values? If political leaders don’t stick up for you, you have two choices: stick up for yourself or go home and watch Eastenders and just get on with your life. It’s a lose-lose dilemma. If you stay home, you’ll be condemned for not integrating (and Eastenders isn’t really that gripping anyway). If you adopt a stricter Muslim identity, encompassing how you dress in public, how you behave, how often you pray – you’ll be condemned for failing to integrate.
Unfortunately for Cameron, the “Britain” he wants us to identify with is one that the Tories believe does (or should) exist – but which most of us do not recognise. What exactly are these “British values” we should all aspire to?
If your mum doesn’t want to let you out in the evening, because these Brits, with their values, may gang up on you and beat you to a pulp – should you see the racist violence as good old British values? When you hit your late teens, your early twenties, your parents may still worry about you mixing with Brits of your age. They worry you may leave behind your Muslim extended family values and start to adopt young British values. Perhaps you will begin to down alcohol till you vomit on the pavement, take pills to lose your inhibitions, start to shag anything inebriated you can find helpless on the street. These are the “British values” many Muslims see every day: why should any of us rush to adopt them?
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It’s a funny old thing, integration. Cllr Abjol Miah, speaking to London Bangla after this week’s Council meeting, pointed out that when the older generation came to the UK to work in the aftermath of the Second World War, they understood and spoke just enough English to get by at work and do the shopping. They lived where they were housed: Tower Hamlets in particular had a solid record of housing its incoming Bangladeshi population in its worst Council housing. The population was far from integrated – but it didn’t adopt an armed struggle, of a terrorist nature, to protest.
The younger population, which has largely been through the UK education system and seen what is now on offer in the UK job market – this is the generation that is now in danger of being radicalised. Far from radicalisation resulting from a failure to adopt British values, those susceptible to radicalisation are probably those exposed to more British values than ever before. It is little surprise – though very unwelcome – that young people have become defensive about their faith and are identifying increasingly with Islam, even to the point where they will embrace an ideology that seems to offer a route to a different world, whereas British values seem only to offer more of the same.
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Muslims aren’t the only UK residents disenchanted or revolted by “British values”.
Cameron condemns ISIS as a group which “throws people off buildings, burns them alive” (so do we). Then again Cameron rules a country which cuts people’s benefits, expects them to live on fresh air, trusts that there will always be a charity food bank they can rely on when the state lets them down.
Cameron condemns ISIS as a group which treats women as subservient, only good for forced marriage (as do we). Then again, his British values effectively force thousands of young British women into marriage and childbirth in the hope this will bring them happiness and housing.
Cameron condemns ISIS for invading other countries: this really takes the British biscuit. British values include selling weapons to several groups (including ISIS’s predecessors) precisely so that they can use them on their own and on others’ citizens. Britain has an unparalleled history of invasion and suppression. British values include tolerating the Israeli’s state’s oppression of the Palestinian people and arming it so it can physically destroying most of Gaza as soon as it has been built up from the last attack. At the same time, Britain ignores Israel’s transgressions of international law.
Britain is a divided society and Cameron’s notion of “British values” is little more than wishful thinking – and it’s not going to cut down the number of those young people who go off to Syria (estimated at 700 so far, the equivalent of the number of seats in the stadium of Canvey Island FC – hardly, with respect to Canvey Island, a mass movement).
We condemn violence against persons and property. Our concern is that by continuing to alienate Muslims by flogging the notion that some of us are inherently dangerous, Cameron will hinder more integration than he helps. He will distract us from looking for the real causes of division and inequality in our society – and make it less likely that we can all come together to stop this suffering and work for peace.
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