ABSTRACT
A high-profile speech in 2011 by UK Prime Minister David Cameron invoked a now dated idea of citizenship by conflating it with “national identity” and “shared values”, as he criticised “state multiculturalism”. The government line was that this speech set out an approach to zero tolerance of ‘Islamic extremism’. But what it actually did was engage in a particular form of traditionalist disparagement of values seen as alien:
So, when a white person holds objectionable views, racist views for instance, we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious frankly – frankly, even fearful – to stand up to them. The failure, for instance, of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage, the practice where some young girls are bullied and sometimes taken abroad to marry someone when they don’t want to, is a case in point. This hands-off tolerance has only served to reinforce the sense that not enough is shared. And this all leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless. And the search for something to belong to and something to believe in can lead them to this extremist ideology. Now for sure, they don’t turn into terrorists overnight, but what we see – and what we see in so many European countries – is a process of radicalisation.
