ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the context in which, and the process by which, this organisation actively tried to establish a political constituency based on British Muslim identification. In Britain, Muslims have come to the publics attention with their opposition to The Satanic Verses, the war in the Gulf, the controversy over the Muslim Parliament and the demand for state-aided Muslim schools. These political manifestations have been symptomatic of a deeper process, the imagining of British Muslim identification. The chapter explores the link between culture, identity and political action, past orthodoxies, both the left and the right, saw culture and identity as fixed qualities unmeditated by time or context. The neo-conservative combination of social authoritarianism with race, national identity and patriotism leads them to redefine biological racism to one based on culture and being British. Through the provisions of legislation and through local initiatives in implementing multi-cultural, antiracist and equal opportunites policies, secular identifications were recognised and institutionalised.
