Race, Racism and Social Work by Michael Lavalette ; Laura Penketh

Author:Michael Lavalette ; Laura Penketh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-44731-213-0
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2013-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

A solid foundation?

Beyond the ability to learn from one another through cultural interaction, it is not clear how far this takes us. Mutual respect can involve a kind of diplomatic cover for what works pragmatically – as in Parekh’s discussion of ‘Asian values’ (a peculiarly essentialist formula to cover very diverse societies and cultures). The societies that practise such values are said to ‘wish to pursue such collective goals as social harmony and cohesion’, with greater restrictions on ‘individual freedoms than is common in liberal societies’. But that, Parekh, reassures us ‘is not an argument against them’ (2006: 139). One wonders whose perspective he is adopting here – certainly not those within Asian societies who might see such ‘collective goals’ as ideological cover for economic and social repression. Respect here seems to mean deferring to whatever works.

More broadly, cultural interaction seems designed to bring about ‘just recognition and a just share of economic and political power’ (Parekh 2006: 343) – but only within the existing social and political framework that constitutes the state as it is. So multiculturalism on this basis has no interest in transcending the national culture – only in creating a new synthesis in which different cultures are incorporated. As Modood puts it:

A sense of belonging to one’s country is necessary to make a success of a multicultural society. Not assimilation into an undifferentiated national identity; that is unrealistic and oppressive as a policy. An inclusive national identity is respectful of and builds upon the identities that people value and does not trample upon them. Simultaneously respecting difference and inculcating Britishness is not a naïve hope but something that is happening (2007: 150)

So a monocultural concept of citizenship is to be replaced by a multicultural one, one kind of Britishness by another. Modood argues that ‘multiculturalists, and the left in general, have been hesitant about embracing our national identity and allying it with progressive politics’ but that the ‘reaffirming of this plural, changing, inclusive British identity [...] is critical to isolating and defeating extremism’ (2007: 150).7 This slightly embarrassed formulation seems very close to Cantle’s demand about not ‘deriding the concerns about migration of the host community’ in that it is arguing that ‘Britishness’, customarily thought of as the property of the right (and far right), can be made progressive – that there is something in ‘Britishness’ (that ‘imaginary container of belonging expressing an anxious demand for social conformity’ [Pitcher 2009: 67]) that can be made ‘ours’. Yet, as we saw earlier, ‘Britishness’ can now be made to look inclusive of tolerance and diversity by the very people who also demonise Muslims and push for ever tighter immigration restrictions. For multiculturalists to meet this half way (by embracing national identity) can only tie minorities to the very order that uses racism to marginalise and exclude them.

Harnessing multiculturalism to the flag can only weaken and destroy the anti-racist content of multiculturalism. A similar critique, about the absorption of multiculturalism into the existing structures of society, has been made by Sivanandan (1990) and his co-thinkers at the Institute of Race Relations.

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