[lbo-talk] multiculturalism? really?

Alan Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Sat Feb 5 15:30:21 PST 2011


On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 4:49 PM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:


> On 2/5/2011 4:03 PM, Alan Rudy wrote:
>
>> Are you accepting his argument that Muslims aren't integrated into British
>> society? Which ones?
>>
>


> ...SNIP...
>
> Given the rest of his policies, I can't imagine a situation where
>> Cameron's
>> government is likely to generate anything other than a cut in support for
>> the institutions the government has made representative of minority
>> groups,
>> can you?
>>
>
> You might be right. But that would be a commentary on David Cameron's
> policies, not on British multiculturalism. I'd be interested to hear
> thoughts from people in the UK.
>
> SA
>
>
In addition to what Rob Hoveman says... it is really important that it is Cameron saying this and even if it is true that British Muslims feel less British than other European Muslims feel associated with their countries of residence/citizenship... the question is now what are they feelings by why are the feelings. If there is that level of variability across Europe, then it isn't a Muslim thing, its a British thing. Given what Bhaskar and Rob have presented here, the attitudes of English Muslims and the contradictions of what the British call multicultural policy are far less important than whether or not Cameron's neoliberal policy alternatives are going to exacerbate the situation.

Just because Geroge Bush - and other people not like him - talked about Islamic radicalism doesn't mean I have to have any appreciation of what Bush had to say about it, does it? The Progressive Sociologist List just had an exchange about Daniel Bell where someone argued that because Bell identified the prospect of corporate-university-government collaborations in the then-emerging information economy that he was therefore worth reading for such kinds of insights... of course, Bell completely missed the history of these kinds of collaborations in the past, making the situation he anticipated far from indicative of something new and he completely misinterpreted the meaning of such collaborations in the name of promoting a neoliberal policy agenda, making him far from worth reading when there were other infinitely richer sources of information and anticipation at the time.



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