Abstract
After the 9/11 attacks in the United States and the 7/7 bombings in the United Kingdom were conducted in the name of Islam, opportunists in many Western countries built political capital by promoting nationalist, nativist, xenophobic, and exclusivist Christian views. However, these opportunists were simply building on the pre-9/11 difficulties that had been facing multiculturalism. These include the 1980s and 1990s nationalistic identity politics rooted in the marginalization of minority communities and the stigmatization of their cultures. These pre-9/11 difficulties also include anxieties connected to Orientalist views of Islam and Muslims that commonly inform Western historical narratives. Yet, even some groups noted for celebrating cultural difference and emphasizing inclusivity have found themselves stigmatizing Muslims. Muslims are stigmatized for not fully rejecting social mores that are deemed irrational by Western leftists, especially with regard to gender roles. So, conservative opportunists on the right and liberals on the left have been discursively pushing Muslims beyond the protections of multiculturalism, and as a result, sometimes even the law. As Modood notes in Multiculturalism, prominent Western politicians have declared multiculturalism to be dead.
So, in this book, Modood clarifies the Muslim impasse reached by liberal societies in Europe, North America, and Australia. While Modood discusses racial/ethnic and gender issues to a limited extent, his primary focus is today’s failure to articulate viable models for coexisting with all, including the Muslims, in the West. Rather than emphasizing social respect for different cultures as primary though, Modood focuses on the rights of fellow citizens as key to moving forward.
Today’s multicultural problems are driven not just by xenophobic nativism/nationalism and exclusivist Christianity but also by secularism. Over the past few years, secularism has been increasingly envisioned as restricting religious groups, but especially Muslims. These are exacerbated by the demographic fact that many Western cities have very large Muslim populations. Even some small towns are starting to notice a growing Muslim presence.
In the 20th century, Western liberal societies converged on multiculturalism as a model for managing the demographic realities of racial/ethnic and gender diversity with their matching social activism. As Modood illustrates, they settled on a multicultural model that emphasized cultural respect and individual rights. It often ignored group rights, though it allowed for some voluntary segregation. In practice, though, the voluntary segregation generated resistance. Modood argues that this was the result of a failure to build robust national identities as multicultural societies. As Muslim minorities in countries like Britain, France, and Germany became more assertive about their right to live in Muslim community, these weaknesses in multiculturalism were revealed.
Modood shines brightest when he asserts the conceptual distinction between models of multiculturalism. There is a model of multiculturalism which is individualistic and post-modernist. He notes that this is what multiculturalism has come to mean for most people, and he calls it cosmopolitan multiculturalism. In this approach, we find individuals embracing quite distinct beliefs and cultural preferences, but still living together and within fairly conventional moral boundaries. While he does not disparage it, this form of multiculturalism only allows for individual rights to be respected.
However, there is also a more collectivist model of multiculturalism which Modood calls communitarian multiculturalism. Not only among Muslims, but among many minority groups one finds a desire to go beyond individual rights, and beyond existing norms of accommodating difference. There are sub-groups which desire to define their larger group’s orthodoxy in different ways and often to more fully manifest their beliefs through family and community practices. Thus, he calls for a communitarian multiculturalism that will accommodate group rights and that will also acknowledge intra-group diversity as legitimate. Here, for example, he would allow legalistic, mystic, culturally inclined, Twelver Shi’ite, Sevener Shi’te, and Fiver Shi’ite groups of Muslims (and more) to all be recognized as part of the larger Muslim family. Yet, each Muslim sub-group would be able to work out its own unique accommodations with public institutions and with other groups in society, based on each group’s vision of Islamic orthodoxy. Their distinctions would be upheld within a pluralism of orthodoxies. One might say that this is what Jewish people already have where Ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements are all socially recognized as Jewish groups. Modood calls on such groups to coexist with one another, and for them to actively negotiate how groups beyond the faith family will acknowledge each of their particularities through public policy, social engagement, and interfaith work.
He also insightfully reveals that, even as Western politicians are proclaiming the death of multiculturalism, they continue to build multicultural institutions and relationships. For example, he cites former French president Sarkozy’s creation of the Conseil Francais du Cult Musulman in 2003. The group was created to be a consultative body for the French government on matters of Muslim worship and ritual. The Islamkonferenz is a parallel group in Germany. The United Kingdom actually dismissed the single group that had been representing Muslims and now talks to several different Muslim groups. While Modood acknowledges that such activities are primarily top-down efforts by political elites to control Muslim citizens and residents, these actions are a form of multiculturalism in action. They represent state acknowledgement of Muslim groups, and even of the Muslim groups’ distinctions, to a certain degree. Modood suggests that there be less top-down efforts and more recognition of grassroots Muslim movements, but he ultimately accepts existing government policies as part of multiculturalism.
To compliment these activities, Modood calls on social elites in the West to participate in the reformulation of robust national identities. Groups that are currently omitted from, or marginalized in, the national identity and narrative must be brought into the core. Muslims are a key group here. He laments the weakening of, say, British national identity that seemed to have come with the 1990s. Instead, he envisions a robustly multiculturalist national identity as the way to facilitate cohesion at the national level, while still providing recognition of minority community rights.
The book dwells more on clarifying models of multiculturalism than it does on discerning the most effective strategies for making communitarian multiculturalism a reality. The need to discuss strategies cannot be overstated. Most Western Muslims now live in societies where significant segments of influential elites focus on controlling or eliminating a perceived Muslim threat. Yet, these societies are actually multidimensional as described by Ahmed (2009). Using the example of America, he argues that there are three historically grounded identities. The most important American identity for today is the pluralist identity, which has been explicitly articulated in terms of religious pluralism for centuries. However, the less flexible primordial American identity and the very dangerous predator American identity are currently ascendant across a broad spectrum of American society. Each European country has its own set of identities, but most have some kind of identity that values pluralism. The segments of each country which value pluralist identities must be empowered. That will require political strategizing.
Also, Modood emphasizes a need to distinguish ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ in such phenomena as secularism and Islam. However, a group lacking the power to have their definitions accepted has to deal with how more powerful groups choose to define words. His idea of a moderate Muslim is wildly different from the one held by, say, the National Governors Association here in America. This is a group dominated by people whose political base leans towards xenophobic nativism and/or exclusivist Christian views. Yet, the group has a lot of political clout in US politics. Muslims in the West currently lack local and national political clout, and there is an urgent need for intellectuals to help formulate strategies for accumulating it through coalition politics.
In short, Modood’s book is needed to help clarify a multicultural vision that will better serve Westerner’s needs. However, other books are needed to suggest detailed strategies for bringing about this vision. Finally, a third set of books is needed to clarify how the successfully integrated Western Muslims will reconcile their chosen nation’s role in neo-colonialism. Daulatzai’s (2012) resurrection of figures like Malcolm X/El Hajj Malik Shabazz and Muhammad Ali as representatives of a Muslim internationalist view posits an important challenge for Western multiculturalists. People in Western countries may figure out how to peacefully coexist, but the West still faces problematic relationships with many countries around the world. Western Muslims must also have a vision for global social justice and their contribution to it.