Multicultural Britain

What should multicultural Britain look like? Conservative Councillor Imran Khan gives his view.

A great multicultural society should offer genuine democratic citizenship for all the communities residing in it, regardless of colour and religion. Democratic citizenship may be an old idea but it’s one of the best we have.

In David Cameron’s Munich speech, he commented that we need a new ‘generous vision of citizenship’ if we are to challenge the disenfranchisement of Muslim communities. He argues that Britain has failed to provide a vision of society that encourages agency and belonging to all, especially Muslims.

According to Cameron, ‘the reason so many young Muslims are drawn to extremism comes down to a question of identity’.

This is made worse he says by a weakened collective identity where potential terrorists find it hard to identify with fellow compatriots and become explosive – quite often literally – with anti-British rage.

State multiculturalism, so the argument goes, fosters segregated communities that incubate terrorism which are then tolerated by wider society. It is certainly true that British society is suffering a malaise of apathy, isolation and even extremism from within all communities.

The English Defence League and extremists on all sides threaten us with violence in the hope of setting one community upon another. Factor in commentators like Melanie Phillips and Douglas Murray and you could not hope for a better recipe for social unrest.

Democratic citizenship is certainly a value system that all of us can aspire too. If we can achieve it, perhaps this might just provide us with the collective identity that Cameron hopes will glue us all together.

People surely feel less of a need to blow up fellow citizens when they are genuinely a part of the same political process. It seems to have helped in Northern Ireland, why not here? For Black and Asian people to truly be said to be a part of the political process, we must have political representation in parliament and at the local level.

Clearly, we are massively under-represented in parliament and in local councils. Democratic citizenship is not just about party politics. The fact that Black applicants have less than a one in 100 chance of being recruited to Britain's Civil Service fast track is a case in point. Another great way of contributing to Britain is yet again blocked through the prejudice which limits our aspiration.

All parties need to wake up to the need for including everyone in their work, regardless of colour and religion, and to take the next step from recognising we have a problem to actually doing something about it. It is often said that Muslim communities need to speak up against extremism whenever we encounter it.

Well, it’s a pretty extreme attitude that discriminates against someone because of the colour of their skin. The fact is Black and Asian communities do have the aspiration to apply for political office and political jobs of all kinds. It is also a fact that we are seldom chosen to serve our country, find it difficult to get jobs in the civil service, and face discrimination within the private sector. 

Crucial to democratic citizenship is the need to educate the prejudiced and to stop extreme attitudes from taking root. This is something that the Education Secretary, Michael Gove should consider in his review of the National Curriculum.

In fact, the curriculum review provides a great opportunity for Gove and his team to ensure that all schools, free or otherwise, inculcate in our young people values that are universally recognisable as conducive to the public good.

I have even heard of MPs suggesting that we bring in swearing allegiance to the union flag. That is one Americanism too far. However, freedom, equality and respect are all very British principles and international ones too. UNICEF is leading in this area through their Rights Respecting Schools programme.

UNICEF works with schools across the UK to put the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the centre of how a school develops policies, practice and ethos. A rights-respecting school teaches children about their rights, but also explains rights and respect in all of the school’s relationships such as between teachers and pupils, between adults, and between pupils.

The universal values based on the United Nations CRC can act as a guide to life. UNICEF’s research showed that many of those who took part in the programme thought that the values taught to them were important, positive and helped in their understanding of the wider world.

Since we are reviewing the national curriculum, how about making sure this time we put young people first? Michael Gove should emphasise in any review and new development of a curriculum, Britain’s role in fostering international human rights and how important human rights are to being British.

Any revised understanding of being British, whether in schools or society more broadly must focus on principles that will bind us together. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has already been ratified by all countries, which means we all agree to its principles and are committed to children’s’ rights.

Let’s bring the CRC to more of our schools and reap the rewards of respect and tolerance that it brings.

Imran Khan is a Conservative Councillor in Surrey and has a Master’s degree in Citizenship Studies. You can follow him on Twitter.

Main picture: Book cover - Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society, Second Edition (Multicultural Education Series) by James A. Banks.