(This is an archived extract from the book Patterns of Power: Edition 2)
People in each of the major religions have purposely stirred up feeling against people of other religions by using abusive language. Divisive and abusive language is often excused as exercising freedom of speech but it can polarise society; it is very easy, and very damaging.
Ethnicity may help to describe a person’s cultural background but, as with any other label, it is not in itself a reason for approval or disapproval of a person’s behaviour. By adopting the language of multiculturalism, as Anne Phillips remarked:
“Culture is now widely employed in a discourse that denies human agency, defining individuals through their culture, and treating culture as the explanation for virtually everything they say or do.” [1]
A cultural label can subsequently be misapplied. After the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in London on 22 May 2013, by two men who were described as 'Muslims', there was an anti-Muslim backlash which affected people who had nothing to do with terrorism or that murder.[2] The criminal behaviour of two men was used to demonise all Muslims.
Melanie Phillips, in another example, refers to arguments on behalf of the Palestinians as anti-Semitic, and refers to the dangers of "mass immigration, multiculturalism and the onslaught mounted by secular nihilists against the country's Judeo-Christian values".[3] Her language indicates a desire to polarise British society rather than to seek a peaceful pluralist coexistence for all. She dismissed the British government's attempt to consult with Muslims in the following terms:
"A committee set up to advise Tony Blair how to combat Muslim extremism turned out to be stuffed with Muslim extremists, who promptly declared that the causes of Muslim terrorism were deprivation, discrimination and Islamophobia.”
….the British establishment is "transfixed by the artificial division it has erected between those who actively espouse violence and those who do not."[4]
She didn't explain why she disagreed with the arguments put forward by the committee; instead she chose words that would discredit the advisers, by referring to them as "extremists", and implied that there is little difference between one Muslim and another – despite the existence of such groups as the Ahmadiyya Muslims who explicitly condemn terrorism.[5] The crudity of attaching a single label to all Muslims has the effect of clouding the issue,[6] and she compounds the divisive effect of her words by blaming the problem on religion (without acknowledging that terrorism is specifically un-Islamic):
“The problem lies in a refusal to acknowledge that Islamist extremism is rooted in religion. Instead, ministers and security officials prefer to think of it as a protest movement against grievances such as Iraq or Palestine.” [7]
Melanie Phillips is not alone in trying to promote “Judeo-Christian values”,[8] which is a term that fails to acknowledge the commonality between all three Abrahamic religions. As Kenan Malik pointed out, there are striking similarities between her arguments and those of radical Islamists:
“Both insist that we are in a religious world war between the forces of good and evil. Both believe that only religion can help restrain decadent behaviour and establish a proper moral framework. Both abhor the growth of secular humanism.” [9]
She has been praised for drawing attention to the problems of Islamist radicalisation,[10] but her presentation of it as a clash of cultures draws attention away from the real issues.
It is acceptable to most people, and it can be regarded as constructive, to criticise other people’s bad behaviour but it is divisive (and counter-productive) to aim the criticism at belief systems in the manner illustrated by the above examples. The imposition of an identity from outside a group, corresponding to labels applied by journalists for example, has the effect of increasing group solidarity: members’ loyalty increases in proportion to the perceived external threats, as pointed out earlier (4.4.5.1). Journalists, and others who proclaim their own views, have a moral duty to aim criticism carefully at specific behaviour of identified individuals. If a critic carelessly uses broader labels which unjustly spread the criticism across all the members of an ethnic group, the effect is to create resentment and increase the risk of ethnic conflict.
© PatternsofPower.org, 2014
[1] Anne Phillips commented on the over-emphasis on culture, in her book Multiculturalism without Culture, p.9. The Introduction was available in May 2014 at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8418.pdf.
[2] On 25 May 2013, the BBC reported that "there has been a large increase in anti-Muslim incidents since the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich. The report, entitled Woolwich murder sparks anti-Muslim backlash, was available in March 2014 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22664835.
[3] Melanie Phillips, in her book Londonistan, wrote that "the fight against Israel is not fundamentally about land. It is about hatred of the Jews". This excerpt appeared in an interview that appeared in The Guardian on 16 June 2006, which was available in May 2014 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/jun/16/media.politicsphilosophyandsociety.
[4] Melanie Phillips’s article The Londonistan mindset was published by the New York Post, 4 June 2006. A copy was available in May 2014 at http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hottopics/msg072023381900.html.
[5] The web-site for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, which claims tens of millions of followers, was available in May 2014 at http://www.alislam.org/. The Ahmadis “categorically reject terrorism in any form”.
[6] This point were made by Anne Phillips, in an article entitled Divided on culture, that was published in the RSA Journal, October 2007:
“Cultures have been represented — by supporters and critics of multiculturalism alike — as more distinct from one another and less marked by internal contestation than is ever the case.”
“It is, I believe, one of the ironies of the multicultural project that, in the name of equality and mutual respect between peoples, it has encouraged us to view people and cultures as more systematically different from one another than they are. It has contributed to forms of cultural stereotyping that now feed the backlash against multiculturalism.”
Her book, Multiculturalism without Culture, was published in 2007. Its Introduction was available in May 2014 at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8418.pdf.
[7] Melanie Phillips, The Londonistan mindset, as above.
[8] David Kupelian’s book, The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom, uses the words "evil" and “corruption” to describe views (including multiculturalism) that he believes to be inconsistent with Judeo-Christian values.
[9] Kenan Malik reviewed Melanie Phillips’s book Londonistan in the Independent, 28 July 2006; the review was available in May 2014 at http://www.kenanmalik.com/reviews/phillips_londonistan.html.
[10] A New York Post Review of Londonistan, originally published on June 2006, was available in May 2014 at http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/Londonistan.html, where it was quoted in full by its author, Tom Gross. He also drew attention to other adverse reactions printed in some of the British press.