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Racism & Fascism - new material (52)

01 September 2005

Why Muslims reject British values, A. Sivanandan. Observer 16.10.05. This article takes as its starting point government ministers' arguments since the 7 July bombings that Muslims have failed to integrate into society - it is an argument that follows the "road to assimilation rather than integration." Exploring the ahistorical "culturalist" explanations of racism proffered under Thatcher, Sivanandan reminds us that: "...the racism that needs to be contested is not personal prejudice, which has no authority behind it, but institutionalised racism, woven over centuries of colonialism and slavery into the structures of society and government." He counters Blair's "segregation theory" explanation for 7 July by pointing out that while racial segregation impacted on the generation of the bombers parents the men themselves were integrated and explicit about the causes for their actions: the illegal invasion and destruction of Iraq. The consequences of Blair's myopia, a blindness that refuses to acknowledge "his complicity in the destruction of Iraq and its part in the terrorist cause", are authoritarian measures, such as the introduction of four sets of anti-terrorist measures in five years. As Sivanandan says: "When our rulers ask us old colonials, new refugees, desperate asylum seekers - the sub homines - to live up to British values, they are not referring to the values that they themselves exhibit, but those of the Enlightenment which they have betrayed. We, the sub-homines, in our struggle for basic, human rights, not only uphold basic human values but challenge Britain to return to them."

Achieving the history of a social movement, Anandi Ramamurthy and Asian Youth Movement: here to stay, here to fight, A Sivanandan. Red Pepper supplement Issue 121, June 2005.

The Integration debate, Liz Fekete. European Race Bulletin no 52 (Summer 2005). The latest edition of the bulletin has features on "'Speech crime' and deportation", "Immigration, integration and the politics of fear" and "Developments within extreme-Right and anti-immigration parties". There is also a Table of Deportation Cases.