The problem of identity politics
That however, is as far as I want to go in supporting Modood’s argument – for I too take a robustly liberal line in the face of multiculturalism as a policy agenda. There is an important sense in which multiculturalism is indeed the problem, which both its advocates (like Bhikhu Parekh, Iris Marion Young and Tariq Modood himself) and its critics (like Trevor Phillips, David Blunkett and David Goodhart) fail to recognise.
Both groups are wedded to an idea of identity politics. This sees the recognition of identities as central to equal concern and respect in the public sphere. It leads Tariq Modood to argue for collective recognition and representation as a condition for the equal integration of diverse cultural groups in modern British society. It matters as much, in this view, that a person’s identity is equally valued as that he or she does not suffer from economic and material inequality. Indeed, the influence of the work of the Canadian political theorist Will Kymlicka might suggest that cultural and identity politics has displaced the earlier politics of economic and social inequality.
But Modood’s opponents too, in seeking a more solidaristic sense of British national identity, buy into the same dubious political rhetoric. Their argument is that if only one identity can be replaced with another then bombers will no longer emerge from within the society.
The quest for a new national identity can be seen in initiatives taken by the former home secretary David Blunkett, and by ideas fostered by Bernard Crick and (in his now infamous Prospect article of February 2004) David Goodhart. These figures accept the multiculturalists’ basic premises about the centrality of identity; the difference is that multiculturalists accept multiple sources of identity whilst “solidarists” seek a unitary identity.
This latter perspective is bolstered by reference to the American political scientist Robert Putnam’s work on social capital. He argues that social capital, evident in levels of civic engagement, declines in the face of diversity. So to stop bombers, more social capital and therefore less multiculturalism is needed. Modood, by contrast, argues that to avoid bombers the need is for more recognition of diverse identities, to retain social capital within ethnic or religious groups.
Both sides are trapped in a dead-end of identity politics, because both see the alternative as an unattainable liberal neutrality. Both are too hasty in rejecting the possibility of a political liberalism, which actually underpins whatever is valuable in either position.
A liberal alternative
The solidarists’ view that a robust sense of Britishness is a condition of social solidarity is overstated. The Putnam thesis is superficially attractive but does not withstand critical scrutiny. As for the claim by Goodhart and others that diversity undercuts social solidarity, the evidence is at best inconclusive. Militant liberals such as Wolf and Kepel, meanwhile, overstate the case for assimilation or French-style republican secularism. Where does that leave multiculturalism?
Modood, Parekh and Young suggest that group identities are primary to our sense of self-worth. This is undoubtedly true in part, but it does not generate a workable politics as Modood’s political conclusions suggest. Once groups are accepted as authoritative entities in the public realm then the problem of voice and representation is merely displaced. British experience shows that it is far from clear who can legitimately speak for British Muslims and what identity goes with being a Muslim in Britain. Cultures are sites of diversity and contest as a much as of identity, so giving them rights or recognition is deeply problematic, even if it were desirable.
But why are cultures valuable at all? In the end, multiculturalists cannot avoid the claim that cultures are valuable because their bearers value them. It is the bearers and not the culture that should be given equal concern and respect. But this raises the question of how equality should be pursued. It is not obvious that giving political authority, or even social authority, to a minority within a group is the only way to achieve the goal of equal treatment, as many such cultures will not be egalitarian or even humanistic in the appropriate sense.
Even on Modood’s own terms it is not obvious that group recognition is the only way forward. Perhaps a better option would be to consider eradicating group privileges such as public funding for all religious schools, and not about how many Sikh or Islamic comprehensives are needed.
This might seem to fall into the trap of militant secularism that Modood opposes, but secularism should not be dismissed without care. There are two very different ways of viewing secularism. First, it can be seen as part of a militant republicanism that rejects religion as a source of superstition and oppression. If this were the dominant public philosophy, then equality and impartiality would be imposed from above – so much for liberal tolerance.
