Religion
Much debate about cultural diversity is really about the relationship of religion and
politics – that is, of the consequences of the existence of conflicting belief systems,
including secular ones, within a political territory. As such, multiculturalism as an
ideology may have its roots in the much older debate over religious toleration,
discussed in Chapter 8. Later in this chapter we will challenge that claim, but there
is no doubt that in popular debate the place of Muslims and the role of Islam in
Western society has become linked to a critique of multiculturalism, and so it is
important to make a few brief remarks about religion.
Religion is a highly complex phenomenon. Eric Sharpe identifies four ‘modes’ of
religion, that is, ways in which human beings are religious: (a) the existentialmode,
in which the focus is on faith; (b) the intellectualmode, which gives priority to
beliefs, in the sense of those statements to which a person gives conscious assent;
(c) the institutionalmode, at the centre of which are authoritative organisations
that maintain and transmit doctrines; (d) the ethicalmode, which stresses the
behavioural relationships between members of a religious community, and those
outside it (Sharpe, 1983: 91–107). What differentiates religions and sects is the
centrality of one mode relative to another.
When considering the relationship of religion and politics in contemporary society
it is important to keep in mind the dominant mode of a particular religion or sect,
as well as the particular content of its beliefs or practices. There is a popular image
of Islam as a radical, proselytising religion, and yet there is a stream of Islam –
Sufism – which is inward-looking, mystical, and so, relatively unpolitical. Viewing
religion in terms of modes allows us to see both divergences within a particular
religion as well as commonalities across religions. Those commonalities can generate
conflict – as when, for example, two opposed proselytising religions face one another- as well as facilitate reconciliation.
Multiculturalism and Islamic radicalisation
Before discussing various theories of multiculturalism it is worth bringing together
the different concepts – culture, race, religion – discussed above and applying them
to an issue that has generated a huge amount of popular commentary and opinion:
the threat of radical Islam (Islamism), or, more precisely, the process of radicalisation
of young Muslims in the West. By ‘radicalisation’ is meant the development of
attitudes carrying the likelihood of motivating the radicalised person to undertake
actions which will undermine the liberal–democratic order.
A study for the British government identified the following factors as relevant to
explaining radicalisation: (a) the individual’s perception of society’s acceptance of
them; (b) the individual’s perception of equal opportunities; (c) the individual’s sense
of feeling part of society; (d) the extent to which the individual identifies with the
dominant values of society (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/201209191
32719/http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/452628.pdf). It
has been noted that on many measures of integration the four perpetrators of the
7 July 2005 bombings in London were ‘well-integrated’: college educated, employed,340 Part 3 Contemporary ideologies