UK riots: The sinister rise of 'white race-ism'
The recent violent disorder in the UK by far-right mobs has been widely deplored. However, there has been a worrying response by conservative and liberal commentators alike to suggest that there needs to be some reckoning with the underlying causes.
These have been variously identified as a failure of multiculturalism leading to some communities failing to integrate, the distress of "left-behind" white working-class communities and legitimate concerns over immigration.
This is very like blaming the victim. The violence was directed at the homes and businesses of Muslims and at places of worship, as well as at hotels hosting refugees and asylum seekers (widely represented as being Muslim young men).
Can it be true that concerns over immigration and multiculturalism have been ignored or suppressed?
The claim that Muslims lead self-segregated lives has in fact been a feature of mainstream public debate for decades, while the need to accommodate white working-class concerns has also been articulated on both sides of the political divide.
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Meanwhile, the issue of immigration has shifted from being a concern with current levels of immigration to hostility toward longstanding minority communities and fellow citizens.
Moreover, the claim that multiculturalism has failed does not stand up to scrutiny.
This is because no political party has ever even embraced multiculturalism. The term first came into usage in UK politics following the publication of the Parekh Report in 2000. This argued for a plural approach to cultural diversity where different groups, with different histories, had an equal right to define what it was to be British within a common commitment to civic norms.
It was rejected by the then Labour government and has been rejected by subsequent governments, with David Cameron declaring in 2011 that "state-supported multiculturalism had failed".
'Race-ism'
What is it that is being described as multiculturalism and as having failed?
We can get a handle on it through the thinking of right-wing academics such as Matt Goodwin and Eric Kaufmann, as well as prominent commentators such as Douglas Murray.
On the BBC’s Moral Maze in the wake of the recent disorder, Goodwin distinguished between British (or English) ethnicity and British citizenship. Ethnic minorities were rightly regarded as citizens, but they could not be British in terms of ethnicity, he argued.
The purpose of Goodwin’s distinction is to defend what I call "race-ism", specifically "white race-ism", or what Kaufmann calls "white self-interest". Both propose that ethnic minorities have organised through their ethnic identities and in pursuit of their group self-interest, but that the same opportunity has been denied to the white majority and, especially, the white working class.
The villain of the piece is held to be multiculturalism, which has supported ethnic minority race-ism, but pathologised white race-ism.
This is the essence of what they criticise as "wokeness" on the part of liberal elites who argue in support of the former but deny expression to the latter.
This is nonsense.
There is a deep flaw in the distinction between ethnicity and citizenship. It is true that different minorities (and not only ethnic minorities) have organised collectively to pursue their interests. But this has been in the name of equal rights and equal treatment; that is, their rights as citizens. They have not sought to deny the equal rights of others.
Precisely because these claims are grounded in the remedy of injustices and inequalities, they can gain the support of others and be expressed in government interventions.
'Majority values'
Theresa May began her premiership in July 2016 committed to "fighting burning injustices". These included racialised injustices confronted by black people, but also gender injustices and disadvantages faced by white working-class boys.
She allowed that there was a two-tier justice system, but not in the way that the right-wing is now arguing - “If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white,” she said.
In contrast, Goodwin and his fellow travellers seem to believe that "whiteness" is diminished by equality with others. This is presented as a "loss of the familiar" associated with demographic change.
“In recent years," Goodwin wrote, "this sense of loss has also been greatly exacerbated not only by rates of mass immigration that are unprecedented in our history and the collapse of our national borders, but also by a visibly failing model of multiculturalism that allows people from minorities to preserve and promote their distinctive identity, culture, behaviours and ways of life, while berating or suppressing people from the majority group when they try to do the same.”
Goodwin and his fellow travellers seem to believe that 'whiteness' is diminished by equality with others. This is presented as a 'loss of the familiar' associated with demographic change
He suggested that “fears about majority decline and demographic change are not only held by the majority but are shared by people from minority groups, too, who often feel just as attached to the majority group’s traditions, culture, values and ways of life, and feel just as anxious, bewildered and worried when this is in decline or under threat”.
What could the attachment of minority groups to the "majority group’s traditions, culture" etc mean, unless it is a commitment to plurality? But this recognition is being denied for minority ways of life that are "unfamiliar" to the majority.
What are the "majority values" that Goodwin is endorsing?
They can’t be the "fundamental British values" that are now taught in all English schools as part of the Prevent duty - commitments to democracy, the rule of law, liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those different faiths and beliefs.
Paradoxically, despite being described as "British", for Goodwin they are values that express equal citizenship and are what contributes to the "woke" suppression of white race-ism.
Shameful
There is something else going on.
Why have some white professionals taken up the mantle of a white working class? They do so in the name of "culture", but it seems that it is their professional self-interest in maintaining advantaged positions in academia and the media that is challenged by equal participation.
It is a dominance and advantage that is potentially displaced by the educational achievements of ethnic minorities.
Just as white men experienced the increased participation of women in public life as a new voice they had to accommodate, so the increased participation of ethnic minorities is experienced as further possible displacement.
They have no difficulty speaking in various venues, but their voice is no longer the dominant voice, so they feel cancelled!
There is something shameful in this spectacle. The far-right riots were racist and Islamophobic, and racism is disapproved of by the British majority.
White race-ism is something different and more sinister. It attacks multiculturalism and equality. It pathologises ethnic minority communities and deplores violent disorder, while suggesting that it reflects legitimate concerns.
But we must also note that white race-ists "other" a white working class on whom they project their own idea of a white race identity.
This projection is false, but its purpose is to serve a white professional self-interest.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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