12.09.2001
Comprehensive critique needed
Comrade Ian Donovan?s contribution to the debate on multiculturalism is welcome. As the comrade intimates in his article, it is indeed true that our response to the post-empire changes in bourgeois ideology - the embrace of anti-racism and the advocacy of cultural identity politics in place of class politics - along with our critique of the left?s general and dogmatic refusal to square up to the new forms of domination, does represent ?work in progress?.
Unfortunately, instead of taking our process of clarification forward, comrade Donovan seems determined to stick to the certainties of the past. The result is consistent, but more than useless, in that he refuses to confront the fact that the left merely constitutes itself as a ginger protest group tailing the liberal bourgeoisie, in particular the local government bureaucracy. What is actually needed, of course, is independent working class politics.
Taken as a whole, comrade Donovan?s polemic, rather than proving his case, does the opposite. Some of his theses, especially his attempts to explain the nature of the revolts by British-Asian youth in the north of England, show precisely the danger of shying away from a comprehensive critique of multiculturalism.
A fear of falling foul of the left?s unthinking, unchanging dogma is, as we will see, a significant underlying factor in comrade Donovan?s line of reasoning. He also worries that we might be misunderstood. Yet the best method of avoiding misunderstanding is clarity. We must try to grasp things in their movement and to call things by their proper names. Comrade Donovan furnishes us with his own Janus-like definition of multiculturalism which, while in many ways corresponding with our call for democratic assimilation outlined in Weekly Worker articles, at the same time clings to the notion that the term ?multiculturalism? is essentially unprob-lematic.
He does not, thankfully, fall into the trap of equating multiculturalism with anti-racism. They are not two different terms for the same set of ideas.
The anti-racist consensus is built around a rejection of racism. It is now part of the dominant nationalist ideology that seeks to cohere all United Kingdom subjects behind the state. It is now so broad that even the Iain Duncan Smith/Daily Telegraph wing of the Conservative Party accepts it - note the expulsion of Edgar Griffin et al from the IDS campaign.
In contrast, the multiculturalism of the liberal/Blairite wing of the bourgeoisie is hotly disputed. It involves, as comrade Donovan recognises, a new stage, or new means of securing the domination of the ruled by the rulers. According to the website of the home office?s racial equality unit, multiculturalism aims to create ?one nation?, where ?every colour is a good colour? and ?racial diversity is celebrated? (my emphasis). As comrade Donovan correctly points out, it can be said to approximate in a very rough way to cultural-national autonomy - at least when this celebration of difference is extended, as it is, to fixing every UK subject into their appropriate ?ethnic? box: ie, Bengali, Sikh, West Indian, African, Jewish, Chinese, Somali, White, English, Scottish, etc. Therefore it not only entails ?respect for difference?, as comrade Philip Ferguson from New Zealand states, but also its active promotion as a positive virtue (Letters Weekly Worker September 6).
It is this promotion of difference that ultimately constitutes the reactionary core of multiculturalism. Communists do not celebrate national cultures, nor seek to maintain or perpetuate differences. We highlight what workers have in common and fight to generalise all that is advanced in world culture. Assimilation from below is not something to be feared - because it might see the end of this language or that ethnic group - but promoted. There are, as comrade Donovan recognises, those dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries who fear for their entirely imaginary 1,000 years of uninterrupted Britishness: warm beer, village greens, the monarchy, the Church of England. That, incidentally, is why multiculturalism is often opposed by the Conservative right. They would prefer old-fashioned ?British (Simon Schama) values? to be accepted by everyone - and implanted into the brain of every school student, black or white.
Throughout his polemic comrade Donovan carefully avoids the fact that the Blairite definition is the dominant one in society. When Telegraph leader-writers attack multiculturalism they are not attacking the left, but Blairism. A crucial element of comrade Donovan?s argument is that the left has a fundamentally different conception.
For comrade Donovan Blair?s multiculturalism is ?badly equated by us with the conceptions held by the far left?. In contrast to Blair?s cultural-national autonomy, ?for many on the genuine left, ?multiculturalism? is a synonym for tolerance, and the creation of a multi-polar, varied but essentially open and united culture?. This ?constitutes the melding of the progressive elements of all cultures into one, variegated culture - a position that corresponds with the historic interests of the working class, being the cultural framework in which a generalised (not just episodic) class unity becomes possible.?
We will refrain from criticising the misplaced notion that all cultures can be melded into one, albeit variegated, culture under class society. The logic is clear. In the name of fighting for toleration and a multi-polar and variegated culture, the left should do battle with the Tory right and the BNP lunatic fringe. The problem is that in so doing it constitutes itself as the left consciousness of Blairism and of the local government bureaucracy. Comrade Donovan might object, but, in his own words, only after his multi-polar but single culture has been achieved can a ?generalised? class unity become ?possible?.
There is another string to comrade Donovan?s polemic. As we have said, to attack multiculturalism is to invite confusion. People will think that we favour separatism or even some sort of national division of Britain and its people. Yet no one who had aquainted themselves with the arguments of the Weekly Worker could possibly make such a mistake - unless they were a complete fool.
Comrade Donovan?s desire not to offend the ?genuine left?, in particular our allies in the SWP, is no doubt well intentioned; but then again, as the proverb has it, the road to hell ? His main concern, though, is not to attack Blairism and its ideology, which, he admits, ?taken to its logical conclusion leads to a new kind of segregation? . No, despite lambasting the use of the term ?divisive multiculturalism?, comrade Donovan has another, for him, far more important target - Red Action and Anti-Fascist Action.
Comrade Donovan makes some correct criticisms of Red Action in that it does have a very worrying tendency to tail backward sections of the class. Indeed the comrade himself makes some criticisms of both RA and Afa that have in essence already been made in the pages of this paper. RA has a distinct national Bolshevik tint to its politics. But, and this is the point, Red Action too stands in militant opposition to multiculturalism and official - ie, bourgeois - anti-racism.
Comrade Donovan has convinced himself that criticism of multiculturalism almost by definition only comes from the right. This, for him, is especially so with Red Action. Everything is seen and understood, or not understood, through his anti-Red Action distorting glasses.
So when discussing the revolts in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley comrade Donovan comes truly unstuck. He talks of two groups that we are apparently in danger of alienating: ?leftist multiculturalists? and ?politically conscious non-whites? - many of whom had taken to the streets ? first against the NF ?non-demonstration?, then against racist louts and finally against the police and the hated symbols of local power.
Motivations, incidentally, are obviously complex, but undoubtedly one undercurrent was an implicit rebellion against multiculturalism. When minorities want not separate rights or to have their differences celebrated, but equality, that brings them into conflict not only with the hard right, but the forces of multicultural liberalism too.
Interestingly, in saying that people will be ?repelled? by our attacks on ?divisive multiculturalism?, the comrade seems to believe that things are fixed, that arguments have no effect. They do, comrade Donovan, if they reflect reality. And our critique of multiculturalism does just that.
The new generation of British-Asian youth have an identity distinct from that of their parents. They speak English, dress in brands and want to assert their rights as equals. Many young people - black-British and Asian-British - are impatient with the whole ideology of multiculturalism. They reject the fixed categories which multiculturalism tries to shoehorn them into. Equally germane, British society not only changes its migrants, but is itself subject to radical change under their influence. Cuisine, music, the language itself have undergone profound change since the stuffy and oppressively conventional 1950s - good.
Here is the other side of the coin. Comrade Donovan objects when I wrote: ?The SWP?s acceptance of the state?s ?institutional racism? leads to fundamental mistakes and a soft underbelly when it comes to tackling the negative consequences of multiculturalism - not least white working class alienation. In the face of [Sir Herman Ouseley?s report on ?race relations? in Bradford], the SWP is disarmed. Rather than focus on the divisive effects of the multicultural project on working class communities, the SWP implies that the state?s anti-racism does not go far enough or is being deliberately sabotaged.?
Comrade Donovan retorts: ?This clearly implies that the SWP?s propaganda is partly to blame for provoking ?white working class alienation? - for being too militant in their denunciation of state ?racism?.? It does nothing of the sort. It takes the comrades to task for their failure to grasp the nature of the state?s redefined ideology and points out the obvious negative consequences, not least in terms of their inability to oppose it. The SWP is not being ?too militant?: it is firing in the wrong direction.
Precisely because the SWP dogmatically insists that the state is ?institutionally racist? it cannot counter the multiculturalist ideology underlying something like the Ouseley report.
The same goes for comrade Donovan. He writes: ?The ?white working class alienation? being talked about here [is hardly] a product of Blair?s multicultural project, but rather of the concerted efforts in terms of propaganda by the cops to promote a paranoia among whites in pursuit of their own caste interests.?
Personally I find comrade Donovan?s description of police opposition (bordering on rebellion) to Blairite anti-racism and Macpherson to be overstated, but his stuff about white paranoia, is just plain silly. The police hardly control the means of propaganda. Nor are the police responsible for the racialisation of politics (for the cause of that we need to look no further than multiculturalism). No doubt there are numerous ?unreconstructed followers of the late James Anderton? in their ranks. Equally, senior officers are being promoted or appointed precisely because they are regarded as being in tune with official multiculturalist policy.
Interestingly, the comrade argues that police ?manipulation of ?crime? statistics? - which is apparently responsible for the alienation of the white working class - is a ?perversion? of the Macpherson report. The police were wrongly reporting, for example, alleged offences committed against white victims by Asian youth as being racially motivated. However, this would hardly constitute a ?perversion? of the Macpherson recommendations, which define a racist incident as one ?which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person? (my emphasis). For leftist apologists for the state?s multiculturalism Macpherson is something of a holy text - a sort of token of its positive intent. In reality it racialises social relations.
But for comrade Donovan this police ?manipulation? ?illustrates how nothing, not even the holiest policies and pronouncements of the incumbent government, are immune to being mangled for other purposes? (my emphasis). Use of the words ?perversion? and ?mangled? unmistakably suggests that the original intent was progressive. It was not.
The ?celebration of difference? makes race or ethnicity the primary dividing factor in society. The anti-racism of Blairism/liberalism and the local government bureaucracy turns into its own opposite. A new form of racism.
Robert Grace