Multiculturalism and Britishness: Provocations, Hostilities and Advances

Abstract

This volume is a retrospective consideration of the British scene in relation to the issues of minority–majority relations, integration and British identity. I would like to think about ‘then-and-now’ with reference to a major national report, an aspect of which, ‘rethinking the national story’, shall be the main focus of this chapter. I would like to start, however, with a brief personal retrospective on this theme, to highlight how things have changed around me and some of my work and contribution. I started thinking seriously about racial equality in 1987. In that year, having hung on for a number of years in the hope of an academic career in political philosophy, I accepted the reality that such jobs were not available and started an administrative post as an equal opportunities officer in a London borough.¹ While trying to formulate a suitable policy for the borough’s workforce, I especially felt the challenge of the politics of ‘Black Sections’ that were raging in the Labour Party, especially in London (Shukra 1998). Over the next few years I began to write short pieces in my spare time, trying to give expression to an alternative understanding of ethnic diversity in Britain to that of Black Sections, which saw things in terms of a black–white antagonistic dualism (Modood 1988, 1994). Much has changed in relation to Britishness since those essays were published as a collection, Not Easy Being British: Colour, Culture and Citizenship (Modood 1992).