ABSTRACT
John Patten, home minister responsible for race relations, intervened publicly in the Rushdie affair first by writing an open letter addressed to “leaders and representatives” of Britain’s Muslim community. The very concept of “being British,” as presented by Patten and reaffirmed by liberal opinion in post-Rushdie Britain, is political. The Rushdie affair has helped to promote a new political discourse on “Britishness.” The unclarity of the notion of “multiculturalism” lies precisely in the question of its compatibility with that project after the arrival of nonwhite immigrants from what was once the empire into a self-proclaimed liberal society. Multicultural education has subsequently attracted nonwhite critics who see in it a compensatory model based on the conception of immigrants as inherently limited and thus as a special problem for “white society.” In the provision of social services, the notion of multiculturalism has had a trajectory comparable to that in education.
