The Politics of Integration

Law, Race and Literature in Post-War Britain and France

Chloe Gill-Khan

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317139713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

After almost seven decades, Britain and France, nations with divergent political cultures and heirs to contrasting philosophies of 'integration', have proclaimed the failure to integrate their post-war ethnic minorities: at this present time, the 'Muslim'. The 'argument' of this book, therefore, is a question: despite the legal, political and social commitments that emerged from the events of the Holocaust, why do both nations continue to govern minorities on the sites of the law and race?

Through comparative readings of British Asian and Franco-Maghrebian literatures, the author examines the contours and patterns of British and French post-war governance and racism over four decades. Departing from prevailing theories in postcolonial studies that situate post-war racism within the narrative of colonialism or the politics of the nation-state, The Politics of Integration shows how we must re-appraise the inter-war histories of minorities if we are to ask more meaningful questions about the present.

We are invited to take stock of how well theorization of post-war ethnic populations and their politics have served us in terms of asking: what does history tell us, and how and where do we - Europe and its minorities - go from here? As such, the book will appeal to scholars in multiple disciplines in the humanities and social sciences such as history, philosophy, literature, cultural and postcolonial studies.

Part I

Anchors

1 Anchoring the self

States of ‘crisis’: race, law and governance in post-war Britain and France

Imagine a world without institutions […] where borders between countries seem to have dissolved, leaving a single, endless landscape over which people travel in search of communities that no longer exist. There are no governments anymore, on either a national scale or even a local one […] there are no railways or motor vehicles, no telephones or telegrams, no post office, no communication at all except what is passed through word of mouth […] there is no food […] law and order are virtually non-existent, because there is no police force and no judiciary […] there is no shame. There is no morality. There is only survival.

(Lowe, 2012: xiii)

It is hard for us to imagine that this setting as described by Lowe was indeed the scenario in large parts of Europe in 1944 and 1945. That Europe managed to pull itself out of this mire, and go on to become prosperous, united and peaceful, ‘seems nothing short of a miracle’: ‘the decades since 1945 have been hailed as the single longest period of international peace in Europe since the time of the Roman Empire’ (Lowe, 2012: xiv). Fast forward to a point in time less than a century later: multiple economies have collapsed, Britain has voted to leave the European Union, and the idea of a united continent is uncertain. If much of the supra-national legal architecture of post-war Europe was enacted in order to protect refugees, minorities and the stateless against the action, or inaction, of their own nations, recent decades have witnessed a clear shift to the right, where the accent has moved from victims back to heroic ideologies. The rise of extreme right-wing politics within mainstream political institutions and discourse across European states has sealed the demise of the ‘multicultural’ era (for the ‘multicultural era’ read: tolerance of ethnic minorities), with all that implies for the future of Europe.¹ To give a few examples, the recent and persistent calls from Islamophobic cultures to outlaw halal methods of slaughter, echoing the Nazi ban on kosher meat; greater police powers, legislation that enables the monitoring of children for ‘signs’ of terrorism, the stripping of citizenship, repatriation of citizens and disproportionate incarceration rates of European Muslims define the current political landscape. The massacre of seventy-seven people at the hands of Anders Behring Breivik in 2011 in Norway, ranked as the most peaceful nation in the world, exemplifies the interfaces between pan-European fascist ideologies, anti-immigration agendas, anti-liberalism and Islamophobia.

How do we think through this turn in post-war and in particular, post-9/11 European politics, and where does it sit in the dominant narrative of victories and triumphs over Nazism, given how familiar questions of race, origin and belonging have, once again, become banal? Indeed, popular discourse and state policies would like to have us believe that after almost seven decades, Muslim ethnic minorities (the children of post-war migrants from the colonies) have ended up radicalized, segregated and unable to ‘integrate’, whatever the latter can be made to mean.² From this perspective, it would appear that Europe’s short-lived ‘multicultural’ experiment has failed; a verdict that has unleashed a series of catastrophic ideologies across Europe.³ At the same time, singular focus on the rise of fascism (that often fulfils ideological wars) obscures how governing ethnic minorities from multiple ethnicities/cultures/religions, and how dealing with the ‘crisis’ of their integration has been at the heart of post-war liberal European governance and acceptable state policies since the 1970s, particularly in Britain and France. Britain and France continue to present interesting grounds for comparison in view of the fact that both nations claim to be hosting contrasting national political cultures and to have failed to integrate their ethnic populations, in particular Muslims at this point in time.

In view of Europe’s recent histories of war, totalitarianism and the fate of the minorities that shaped its post-war identities, legislature, institutions and cultures, how have we arrived again at this present juncture? Is humankind prone to forgetting, or, as dominant discourse would lead us to believe, are some of the measures highlighted above the result of a real war of civilizations or ideologies between the West and Islam and Muslims? Research has evidenced methodically planned media industry drives to promote Islamophobia, and questioned the framing – and motivations – of the ‘crisis’ of Muslims and Islam (Lean, 2012).⁴ On a structural level, it has been argued that the monitoring and infiltration of Muslim communities in Britain and the United States in particular has filled the void in networks of surveillance left after the fall of communism (which also succeeded in dismantling Black activism), reinstalling totalitarian methods of governance (Kundnani, 2014). Scholars have also examined the long histories of racism in Western societies from theoretical and conceptual perspectives, placing the question of race and racism at the centre of Western thought stretching back to classical Greece.⁵ At the same time, who, what and where is the ‘Muslim’, the subject of present racism in Europe? Is the ‘Muslim’ the rich/middle-class professional? Or perhaps the White convert/ revert to Islam? Where does the ‘Muslim’ live and how can s/he be policed?

Perhaps we need to ask different questions. Despite, or as well as, the outlawing of racism following events in Europe (placing aside for a moment how colonial brutalities were the norm for centuries), the interfaces between race, law and governance continued to structure the legal, political and economic architecture of post-war Britain and France towards their diasporic citizens.⁶ To see this double bind of the law as instituting, enabling and protecting against racism merely as a series of contradictions would be a misdiagnosis of the processes of racism, in which unevenness is a crucial factor. In a continent that appears united in its stance towards Muslims – a stance that has given rise to singular narratives of the West versus Islam since the beginning of time from both camps – it is difficult to imagine how, until the last decade, major European nations such as Britain, France and Germany held contrasting and divergent perspectives towards the governance of their ethnic minorities. Attributing their gradual convergence to the supposed threat posed from Muslims and Islam does not suffice to explain how, since the 1970s, diasporic citizens (of multiple ethnicities and religions) have been subject to racism and to racialized discourse, policies and legislation. Indeed, the vicissitudes in the discourse of integration are evident in the race-culture-religion matrix, where religion becomes the latest fault line of conflict, giving rise to ever expanding terminologies to articulate the shifts in sites of racism rather than seeing them as part of the same histories.⁷

It is the persistence of this language of integration that interests me, and in particular, how the West-Muslims/Islam narrative threatens to render redundant critical engagement with post-war histories of integration over seven decades, leaving us vulnerable to hasty readings, interpretations and solutions. The emergence of Islamophobia in critical theories, for example, arguing for a disassociation from anti-Semitism in its theorization, situates itself within an entirely different narrative that privileges the West versus Islam framework in making sense of present formations. Such recourse to genealogies that trace the past in the present and as the present hosts multiple methodological dangers in terms of articulating the post-9/11 turn. Furthermore, evidence for this narrative is tenuous, given how the categories of ‘British Muslim’ and ‘French Muslim’ emerged very recently, directing us to no clear, fixed or consistent agendas. The dominance of political, discourse and race theorists in the field of Islamophobia has entrenched an interpretation of the Foucauldian method that structures the world, a priori, as discourse. The dangers of this perspective abound, evident in how ‘high theories’ are applied to subject matter that perpetuate dominant schools of critical thought, rather than questioning whether our theories are helping or; not for hindering us.

At the present time of writing this book, the election of Donald Trump and the enactment of his pledges have invited comparisons to 1930s Europe, and to the conditions that led to the Holocaust. Yet as mentioned above, racist policies have been part and parcel of liberal post-war European governance; recourse to the past only serves to strengthen the idea that present formations have to be defended from the threat that Trump personifies. The more difficult question is: has Europe’s post-war liberal era tried hard enough to offer a truly different way of doing things? Such perspectives, and the West-Muslims/Islam narrative, risk perpetuating the idea of a cosmic struggle across historical time, in which context-specific economic, political and social formations are elided. In the French context, for example, Ethan B. Katz (2015: 4) asks how it has come to be the case that relationships between ‘Jewish’ and ‘Muslim’ individuals and groups are reduced to ‘Jewish-Muslim relations’ and linked to transnational webs of ethno-religious solidarities and conflict.⁸ Such narratives erase the state’s role in the creation and execution of divisive categories, as well as how relationships are worked out in relation to a whole host of context-specific factors such as state policies, economic interests, ideological concerns and so on.⁹ Singular narratives of this sort have resulted in the creation of self-serving national fantasies where it is now the French state that protects Jews from Muslim anti-Semitism, when it can be argued that the single biggest ideological threat facing France is from its escalating right-wing movements.

Working through these histories, therefore, is more urgent than ever, given the strengthening of fascism, xenophobia, anti-immigration and anti-refugee agendas and Islamophobia within mainstream European politics. In revisiting the trajectories of integration and their legal, political and social dimensions, the research undertakes a comparative approach, considering British and French integration ‘models’ since their emergence in the 1970s. The very idea of ‘models’ has implied a consistent set of values; for example, the British developed the multicultural approach because of their long tradition of tolerance, and so on. Yet there has never been a clear or fixed idea about what to do with the ‘race’ question in post-war Britain and France, and therefore the concept of ‘models’ is questioned as a framework for understanding post-war governance. Indeed, the fact that Britain and France claim that their political cultures are rooted in contrasting philosophical approaches towards the other, and yet, following 9/11, both proclaimed the failure of their models to integrate their diasporic Muslim populations, presents scope for thinking through how the post-Second World War era was conceptualized, popularized and accepted as a rupture from its recent past that enables the articulation of present fascism and racism as a ‘return’. Perhaps we need to ask: did fascism and racism ever ‘leave’ Europe?

Enduring comparisons: Britain and France

Over four decades, despite insisting on their contrasting political cultures, British multicultural and French Republican integration discourse, in the form of state rhetoric, policies, legislation and civic practices has excluded from the nation certain diasporic citizens coming from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, rendering their supposed racial/ ethnic/ cultural/ religious differences incompatible with national values and requiring rigorous integration as a rite of passage to their becoming citizens. How can one articulate the fact that both nations, heirs to contrasting legislative cultures, racialize the other heritages of their ethnic minorities? If race relations and multiculturalism represent cultural pluralism, how is it that racism, the celebration of multiculturalism (Hesse, 2000), and now its rejection, thrive alongside one another? Furthermore, if France represents the individual, universal Republican tradition of citizenship, how does one interpret the state’s constant ethnicization of certain minorities, where sociological research suggests that the citizens express no such desire for separation?

For decades, British multiculturalism and French Republican universal citizenship set two contrasting examples of governing non-White citizens for other European countries (Triandafyllidou, Modood and Zapata-Barrero, 2006: 1). British multiculturalism exemplifies the differentialist approach, where the state recognizes collective rights as an important element in fostering greater integration of ethnic minorities (ibid.: 2). Furthermore, race is central to the British state’s legislative architecture. The state recognizes racial differences as the basis for discrimination in its various facets (direct and indirect). In contrast, French Republican universal citizenship is a centralized model of integration based on civic rights where the state does not recognize group identities or intermediaries between the individual and the state itself, such as race, religion and gender. This aspect of French Republican universal citizenship has formed the basis for the state’s refusal to initiate anti-racist legislation to combat violent and institutional racism directed towards certain ethnic minorities (Bleich, 2003: 14). However, after four decades of instituting multiculturalism and Republican universal citizenship, Britain and France appeared to abandon their traditional approaches. Following decades of fears about ‘ghettoization’, ‘balkanization’ and ‘communitarianism’ (citing the British Anglo-Saxon and American models), France attempted to implement anti-discrimination policies associated with British multiculturalism even though such analogies were disavowed (Simon and Sala Pala, 2010: 92). In 2005, France set up an independent board similar to the British Commission for Racial Equality to fight against discrimination (Bertossi, 2007: 3). In 2006, the state adopted the Equal Opportunities Law, with Franco-Maghrebian Azouz Begag serving as minister from 2005–2007, but its power to tackle racism remains questionable (Hargreaves, 2007: 190–191).¹⁰ The state has also established ‘communitarian’ organizations such as the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (CFCM, set up in 2003) to integrate Muslim citizens: this approach has been critiqued for enforcing a Muslim category of self-identification to which, for the most part, Muslim ethnic minorities do not feel strongly attached: see Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse (2006: 135–162).¹¹

In Britain, following 9/11 and the 2001 ‘race riots’ in the British northern cities of Burnley, Bradford and Oldham, it was stated that certain citizens of ex-colonial migrant heritages, in particular British Pakistani Muslims, were living ‘parallel lives’ and did not want to integrate into British values (Bertossi, 2007: 2). Coupled with hostile public reactions to the London bombings on 7 July 2005 (7/7), this historical juncture marked the ‘beginning of the end of official multiculturalism’ (Bagguley and Hussain, 2008: ix). Unlike the riots in 1980s Britain that precipitated a wealth of anti-racist legal measures, the 2001 disturbances and the 7/7 London bombings led the state to reject outright multicultural principles, enforcing the idea of ‘community cohesion’, which is more reminiscent of the failed assimilation policies of the 1950s and 1960s (Bagguley and Hussain, 2008: 161). This has translated into more civic legislature surrounding integration and citizenship, such as the UK citizenship test, and greater emphasis on the English language and shared values (ibid.: 169–70). In 2004, the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality concluded that British multiculturalism fosters separateness and division and called for an active and common citizenship (Bertossi, 2007: 2.). The fact that two of the most experienced multi-ethnic nations believe that their respective strategies are no longer adequate to integrate certain sections of their non-White citizens suggests that both nations view the previous decades of integration as successful, and that it is the Muslim citizens who need special legislative measures to integrate them, demonstrating the state of exception that was part and parcel of the initial emergence of integration discourse and of subsequent state architecture.

I quest...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series editor’s preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART I: Anchors
• PART II: Justice
• PART III: Love
• PART IV: The self
• PART V: Departure
• Index