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Identity is no easy topic to address nowadays, given its controversial and sensitive status in recent years. Topics such as community cohesion, minority integration and shared values have dominated the government’s narrative, albeit directed towards a fifth column minority of Muslims.
Concerns for British citizenship crept into the public domain, particularly after witnessing the mass mobilisation of Muslim demonstrators, protesting the government’s decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Not since the liberal hour of the pre-Multicultural era, had these themes been so topically discussed. Strong reactions and backlash by the Muslim community, angered at Britain’s foreign policy objectives and intimate alliance with the U.S. led many observers to conclude that a fifth column was emerging from their midst, who were undermining the already eroding British identity and had become totally disillusioned with the status quo. More worrying for policy makers and think-tanks was that this alienated minority were not amenable to reform (secularisation).
It is hardly surprising then, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Britain demonstrate political apathy of its truest kind. Needless to say this is a reality shared by many non-Muslim British citizens. Two wars conducted notoriously in the absent of majority will, coupled with extortionate Afghan and Iraqi civilian deaths and perverted images of torture by British and American soldiers overseas, not to mention the draconian, parallel system of justice for Muslims in the UK, all provide a compelling argument for Muslims to resort to alternative political channels.
Even this attempt however, at considering non-democratic political alternatives as a means to an end has been met with a tirade of scorn and abuse. One does not have to barely display an interest in current affairs to appreciate that senior politicians deem the imposition of Shariah Law and Islamic state as unacceptable objectives. According to Gordon Brown, Britain has a rich history where people have successfully managed to adopt dual identities. This begs the question; is it possible to be both Muslim and British?
To answer this, it would be helpful if there was a uniform definition of ‘Britishness’, however, this is not the case despite the insistence of politicians who argue otherwise. Muslims are being pointed the finger of responsibility by columnist after columnist, for remotely entertaining the idea of seeking credible Islamic politics for empowerment, charged with being aversive to liberty, democracy and the oft-repeated mantra.
It may be wise to comment that ‘shared values,’ such as those mentioned, is nowadays the gauge by which we judge a person’s Britishness. Perhaps this is because the suggestion of a ‘shared history’ as a benchmark by which we measure the suitability of a person to his environment is ultimately flawed, since it is virtually impossible, in this era of globalisation, for individuals to share the same narrative of any country’s history. Ethnically marked people in Britain have generally been represented as people without history or political agency. This is more so the case in Britain, which is made up of immigrant minorities from ex-colonies, thus narrowing the scope of the definition to a more nationalistic oriented identity.
Therefore, the Muslim community has found itself at the receiving end of a highly coercive value laden approach, which is to some extent, promoted religiously by the media, urging Muslims to adopt liberal values such as democracy, freedom of religion, capitalism, and discard or possibly revise their own ‘primordial’ attitudes towards women, division of labour, etc. Thus, the pressure on Muslims to reform has effectively become entwines with the politics of identity.
Irrespective of whether or not these values are allowed for Muslims to believe in, it is worth stating that in the absence of a consensus on ‘Britishness,’ this values based approach will ultimately be ineffective.
If Muslims are urged to display more loyalty and appreciation to state symbols such as the crown, and deeply rooted constitutional conventions such as the rule of law, alongside the array of freedoms which resulted from Europe’s enlightenment period, then the onus is on the Muslim community to challenge this narrative using credible means, be it via media circles, public interaction and generating public opinion.
Defining oneself is a natural process of identity formation. Given all this media interest and scrutiny, it still turns out that more and more Muslims are employing faith as the yardstick by which they identify themselves.
In the absence of understanding the genuine sense of grievance for Muslim minorities, any attempts to nurture a modern identity for Muslims in the UK will be thwarted. If the non-Muslims in this country wish for peaceful co-existence and harmony alongside fellow Muslims, then it will not help if they push government orthodoxies, equating extremism with alienation and insisting on a compromise solution.
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