Attacks on multiculturalism from across the political spectrum reduce the complex history of settlement and interaction in the UK to a simple narrative of excessive British tolerance and increasingly disruptive immigrant communities. The liberal version of this ‘integrationist’ discourse emphasizes the Enlightenment values associated with secularism, individualism, gender equality, sexual freedom and freedom of expression…
This Institute of Race Relations study of the UK government’s Preventing Violent Extremism policy criticized its sole focus on Muslim populations, the embedding of surveillance in community engagement with Muslims, and the background assumptions about the nature of extremism and radicalization. The paper was accompanied by a front-page report in the Guardian newspaper on the surveillance…
As the neoconservative idea of a clash of civilisations is increasingly challenged, a number of liberal writers — Paul Berman, Nick Cohen, Martin Amis, Andrew Anthony, Bernard Henry-Lévy and Christopher Hitchens — are rethinking the ‘war on terror’ as a cold war against Islamism, defined as a totalitarian political movement analogous to fascism or Stalinism.…
It has long been the contention of those on the right of British politics that cultural diversity is a threat to national cohesion and security. However, cultural diversity has been attacked equally vigorously by liberals and by those on the centre left, especially since 2001. The new conventional wisdom is that a national story of…
Through the influence of Project for the New American Century, the structure and thrust of US military power is being fundamentally reshaped, with massive increases in defence spending, the revival of ‘Star Wars’, the projected militarisation of space and constant technological innovation. The aim is ‘full spectrum dominance’ across the globe; one result is Iraq;…
This essay on New Labour, digital media, and network ideologies appeared in The Globalization of Corporate Media Hegemony, edited by Lee Artz and Yahya R. Kamalipour (State University of New York Press, 2003) Over the last five years, so much has been written about the internet and the so-called knowledge economy that it may appear…
This October 2002 paper explored the contemporary trend in which the secular term ‘Asian’ was being displaced in the UK by religiously-coded definitions of identity, a process that was linked to the emergence of new, religious political/social movements and occasionally accompanied by violence between different South Asian communities in Britain. Potential links between Hindu and Sikh nationalist…
Published in October 2001, this paper explores the new common sense racism emerging through media and political discourses of asylum, particularly linked to the policy of dispersing asylum seekers out of London to other parts of England. Focusing on the ways in which an attitude of multicultural tolerance towards some racialised groups, seen as ‘settled’, appeared to…
Published in April 2000, this paper examines press coverage of the publication of the Macpherson inquiry report into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, particularly focusing on the articulation of shifting ideologies of ‘race’, class, and nation. The report was represented in much of the press as an attack on Englishness and as a capitulation…
This paper explores the role of information in processes of globalisation. It is argued the Left should address new political economies in which information is commodified, and the ways in which such trends provide opportunities for imperialism. Available to subscribers on the Race & Class website.