Milly Williamson

UK: the veil and the politics of racism:

The veil has become an image of otherness, of a refusal to integrate and an example of the ‘failings’ of multiculturalism. As such, it has become an important symbol in the homogenisation and demonisation of Muslims in Britain. It is important to situate this ‘debate’ about the veil in the broader context of racism, immigration and imperialism, and neoliberal economic and political transformations. In the post-9/11 and 7/7 climate, public discussions of Muslims in Britain have centred on the twin issues of ‘integration’ and ‘terrorism’, at a time when racism is on the rise and poverty has increased for immigrant communities. How the veil is understood in this ‘debate’ is shaped by this wider context and, above all, by a history of colonialism and imperialism. This article examines the debate on the veil, showing that many garments and practices surrounding veiling are reduced in the British media to a threatening set of symbols of difference and otherness. It is argued that to detach gender issues and Islam from their wider social context leads to regressive, intolerant and overtly racist assumptions.

The British Media, the Veil and the Limits of Freedom

The media in Britain have presented ‘immigration’ as the most significant crisis facing the country; they consistently present migrants, asylum seekers, etc. as a burden on national resources, and increasingly, as a security threat. Muslims in particular have been targeted, and have been presented as an alien ‘other’ who refuse to ‘integrate’ into the British ‘way of life’, and indeed who threaten it. This paper argues that, in this framework, the veil has become an iconic symbol of cultural difference, a sign of the perceived failures of multiculturalism and the ‘problem’ of tolerance. The context that shapes the ‘debate’ on the veil is the neoliberal restructuring of the British economy and welfare state; the consequences of this restructuring and its impact on the quality of public services are explained in cultural terms by reference to the intrusion of an alien culture (Islam). In order to ‘protect’ British ‘culture’, the state relies on the anti-Muslim sentiments whipped up in the media to push through a rash of anti-terror legislation that not only discriminates against the Muslim population of Britain, but curtails the very freedoms that it purports to protect.

Free speech and the market state: Race, media and democracy in new liberal times

Press freedom and free speech have again become central questions in discussions of democracy and power. A whole range of events have called into question the role of the press in the democratic process in today’s combined context of economic crisis and the free reign of market forces. From the publication of the racist cartoons in Denmark, to the Wikileaks witch hunt, to the Leveson inquiry in Britain, the rhetoric of press freedom is revealed as a universalizing concept that masks political and class interest – free expression is not treated universally, but is tied to questions of social, political and economic power. This article argues, however, that it is not the case that liberal democracy has latterly been corrupted or impaired. Instead, the significant limits of liberalism, highlighted by the above instances, stem from the historical conditions which gave rise to it; mass revolution and reaction in the 19th century resulted in constitutional democracies which established the principle of freedom, but not the fact. This article will suggest that from the outset, constitutional democracies were shaped by the class interests of an economic elite. There has been a historic entanglement of emancipation and de-emancipation in liberal thought, and the role of the press in this enterprise has been to use a racially charged definition of freedom and the notion of a threat to ‘our freedoms’ to scapegoat the Muslim population and to justify curbing ‘their’ freedoms.

State, culture and anti-Muslim racism:

In the context of the War on Terror there has been a rise in anti-Muslim racism across Europe which is based on the notion of opposed cultural values. The supposed cultural values of a unified and homogenous ‘West’ are set in opposition to those of an essentialized and homogenous ‘Islam’, and we are told there is a clash of civilizations. There is a long history of situating and justifying racism in relation to cultural difference. In the UK the Thatcher era invoked the idea of ‘cultural difference’ with the rise of a new racism which hid old ideas of Western superiority behind the claim that British culture was being ‘swamped’ by alien cultures. Anti-Muslim racism re-animates these ideas, but today this coincides with a wholesale attack on multiculturalism and the drive to assimilation. The question is – why is anti-Muslim racism anchored in these attacks on multiculturalism? As Gary Younge (2011) has recently pointed out, multiculturalism and racism have long co-existed. He asserts that ‘in this debate there are two types of multiculturalism: one rooted in fact, the other in fiction’. The first is: