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Revisiting the UK Muslim diasporic public sphere at a time of terror: from local (benign) invisible spaces to seditious conspiratorial spaces and the ‘failure of multiculturalism’ discourse

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19438190902719609

1943-8192

Pnina Werbner,

Diaspora, migration, transnational identity

Abstract Public exposés of hidden spaces where diasporic Muslims allegedly enunciate extreme anti‐Western rhetoric or plot sedition, highlight an ironic shift from a time, analysed in my earlier work, when the Pakistani diasporic public sphere in Britain was invisible and local while nevertheless being regarded as relatively benign: a space of expressive rhetoric, ceremonial celebration and local power struggles. Suicide bombings on the London underground and revelations of aborted conspiracies have led to a national media debate in which Muslim 'community' leaders for the first time have come to be active participants. They respond to accusations by politicians and journalists that multicultural tolerance has 'failed' in Britain, and that national Muslim organisations are the prime cause of this alleged failure. Addressing this 'failure of multiculturalism' discourse, the paper questions, first, whether talk of multiculturalism in the UK is really about 'culture' at all? Second, the paper explores why Muslim integration into Britain – the so‐called success or failure of multiculturalism – has come to be 'tested' by Muslim national leaders' willingness to attend Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations. The public dialogue reflecting on these issues in the mainstream and ethnic press, the paper proposes, highlights a signal development in the history of the UK Muslim diasporic public sphere: from being hidden and local to being highly visible and national, responsive to British politicians, investigative journalists and the wider British public. Keywords: diasporic public spheremulticulturalismBritish South AsiansBritish MuslimsIslamic terrorIslamophobiamedia representationsHolocaust Memorial Day Notes 1. Versions of this paper were presented at Lancaster University, the University of Western Sydney and the Pakistan Workshop. I would like to thank the participants in these forums for their comments. I am also particularly grateful to Khachig Tölölyan for his acute and extremely helpful comments on an original draft of the paper. 2. The paper was presented at a conference on 'European Islam, Societies and State' in Turin, Italy, sponsored by the Agnelli Foundation. 3. Arjun Appadurai (1996 Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at large: cultural dimensions in globalization, Minneapotis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar]) also uses this term. My paper was originally submitted to Public Culture. 4. Mawdudi's many books have been extremely influential in fundamentalist circles, even beyond Pakistan. 5. A heterodox sect in Pakistan whose leader claimed to be a true Prophet, profaning the idea that Muhammad was the last Prophet of Islam. 6. According to an article in the Asia Times, under the supervision of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence services, a JI member apparently commanded the al‐Badr facility in Khost Province, Afghanistan, where he commanded an international cohort of Arab jihadis, including the founders of Hamas. He later abandoned the JI and threw his fortune in with another Islamist group, opposed by the Taliban, who later took over the facility (Shahzad 2004 Shahzad, S.S. 2004. Cracking open Pakistan's jihadi core. Asia Times Online, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH12Df03.html [Google Scholar]). 7. Bhatt castigates the Left as well as the Government for joining forces in the Stop the War Coalition with conservative nationalist religious groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, represented in the UK by the Muslim Association of Britain (on this see also Birt 2005 Birt, J. 2005. "Lobbying and marching: British Muslims and the State". In Muslim Britain: communities under pressure, Edited by: Abbas, T. London: Zed Books. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). A different view would be, however, that the creation of channels for effective legal public protest was important in order to deflect young British Muslims from attempting to take the law into their own hands. I attended the largest million strong demonstration in London, arriving in one of the coaches from Manchester. What struck me most saliently was the absence of organised groups marching in solidary separateness, and the mingling of young Asians and Muslims as individuals with Guardian‐reading CND types. 8. Initially, mosques were seen by outsiders as the main Muslim public forum, but as this paper demonstrates, there were many other Muslim spaces of debate which surfaced over time. 9. Philip Lewis (2007 Lewis, P. 2007. Young, British and Muslim, London: Continuum. [Google Scholar], p. 34) reports that the no less a luminary than the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia advised a British Muslim that Jews and Christians were kuffar who would be cursed, and go to hell. 10. A revisit by Channel 4 Dispatches of this earlier programme in September 2008, 'Undercover Mosque: the Return', found equally damning lectures inspired by Wahhabbi teaching at the Regent Park Central Mosque women's teaching circle. This too led to sharp responses in the Muslim press. 11. Most recently, in August 2008, the European Court of Human Rights stayed Abu Hamza's extradition to the United States. 12. The pressure group Liberty condemned the publicity surrounding this police round‐up of suspects in a plot to behead a British Muslim soldier, expressing its 'grave concern' that journalists were briefed by Home Office advisors in advance of the raid (no byline, The Muslim Weekly, 30 June 2006, p. 2; see also Portillo 2007 Portillo, M. 2007. Britain isn't a police state, but it's close to being a liar state. The Sunday Times, : 19 [Google Scholar], p. 19). On Islamic bookshops see also Lewis (2007 Lewis, P. 2007. Young, British and Muslim, London: Continuum. [Google Scholar], p. 133). 13. Bagguley and Hussain describe this as a 'wholesale rejection of the discourse of multiculturalism' (2008 Bagguley, P. and Hussain, Y. 2008. Riotous citizens: ethnic conflict in multicultural Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate. [Google Scholar], p. 159). Their focus is primarily on the local level and accusations that local communities are refusing to integrate into British society. Hence the political call was for 'community cohesion'. 14. The amended British Nationality Act, 2005 requiring persons seeking naturalisation to have a minimal knowledge of English may be classed as a 'multicultural' law perhaps. 15. The blasphemy law, part of common precedent law, is reserved for Anglicans only. This was an issue highlighted by the Rushdie affair, when Muslims demanded equal protection before the law. Despite talk of abolishing it, the law was never abolished. 16. On the demand for 'responsibilisation' see Michael (2006 Michael, L. . Securing civic relations in the multicultural city. Paper presented at the Conference on 'Citizenship, Security and Democracy'. September1–32006, Istanbul, Turkey. [Google Scholar]). 17. It seems extremely unlikely that Mawdudi and the Jamaati Islami supported the British and Allied war effort. Nasr (1994 Nasr, S.V.R. 1994. The vanguard of the Islamic revolution: the Jami'at‐i Islami of Pakistan, London: I.B. Taurus. [Google Scholar]) makes no mention of Mawdudi's views on this matter. Mawdudi opposed Muslims being part of an army under the control of a non‐Muslim power. When he founded the Jama'at in 1941, its constitution clearly stated that pure Muslims must boycott the institutions of a non‐Islamic polity, including the army and legislature. For Mawdudi, the westernised leadership of the Muslim League's vision of a Muslim state was against Islam (personal communication from Irfan Ahmad, ISIM, Leiden). The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was sympathetic to the Nazis. 18. The Report makes fascinating reading. Like the BBC Panorama site, it cites key passages from the writings in English of Mawdudi, Qutb and Qaradawi, to prove the incompatibility between their ideologies and those of liberal democracy, and associates their rigid advocacy of a Sharia‐based Islamic state and, in the case of Qaradawi, endorsement of Palestinian suicide bombers, death sentence for homosexuals and other extremist views, with the MCB and other Muslim organisations who 'promulgate the teachings of Maudoodi and Qutb' (the MCB praised Qaradawi as a moderate). See in particular Neville‐Jones (2007 Neville‐Jones, P. 2007. Uniting the country: interim report on national cohesion. [Google Scholar], pp. 7–8). In contradistinction, Muhammad Ali Jinnah is quoted as a beacon of democracy and liberal values (p. 10). Its comments on the need to promote a moderate democratic vision of Islam are thoughtful (pp. 12–13). 19. Apparently, an Armenian attempt to be included was rejected. 20. In 2007, he was appointed Minister for International Development in Gordon Brown's first government.