Multiculturalism
Tariq Modood
How it can contribute to depolarising the current political polarisation
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78 | IPPR Progressive Review | Volume 30(2)
W
e are all aware that we live in societies with heightened diversity and that aspects of that
are being used divisively. So a response is that we need to bring people together by
making some kind of deal amongst ourselves, or with the state – some kind of social
contract. Social contract thinking – originating in the religious divisions of the 17th
century – usually emerges when trust is breaking down and society is becoming a jungle (famously
for Hobbes, “nasty, brutish and short”). Yet the remedy, a contract between self-interested
individuals (or between groups), may pacify but it is not enough to make people care for each other.
We need something stronger than transactional thinking to deal with the stresses and strains of
diversity, and to tackle the rampant polarisation we are seeing today. We need respect and belonging,
a sense of the public or national good, not just contracts. I believe that multiculturalism has a
contribution to make here. This may sound preposterous – for some people, multiculturalism is the
problem! Well, yes, if you think that multiculturalism is all about singular identities, separatism,
the privileging of minorities, racial binaries, unprovoked militancy, fundamentalism, ethnic
absolutism, anti-nationalism and so on. But that is a caricature. I know of no multiculturalist
theorist – as opposed to liberal globalist, aka a cosmopolitan – who has advocated any of these
things. In any case, let me offer you a different vision of multiculturalism.
“We need respect and belonging, a sense of the public or national
good, not just contracts”
‘MULTICULTURALISM: A CIVIC IDEA’
The subtitle of my 2007 book, Multiculturalism, was A civic idea.1 My argument was that
multiculturalism was derived from a political ethics of citizenship that includes but goes beyond
rights, representation, rule of law and so on, namely not just a liberal citizenship. All modes of
integration should be analysed in terms of their interpretation of the triad of liberty, equality and
fraternity/solidarity.
Multiculturalism is specifically concerned with the right to a subgroup identity and that subgroup
identity is treated in an equal citizenship way. This means symbolic recognition but also institutional
accommodation and the remaking of the whole, namely of the citizenship identity itself. This leads
to a second feature, namely the recognition of the subgroup identity as part of or at least consistent
with full membership, a form of inclusion that allows all citizens to have a sense of belonging to their
national citizenship; sometimes expressed as fraternity or solidarity. Minorities, especially
marginalised or oppressed minorities, have this right to group identity recognition because the
majorities do; or, if you like, all subgroups, including the majority, have this right.
1 Modood T (2007) Multiculturalism: A civic idea, Polity Press
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Summer 2023 | 79
If, as I believe, multiculturalism is trying to provide minorities with what majorities have or seek to
have, namely their own national or cultural identities folded into their citizenship, I also have come
to appreciate that parts of majorities have become identity-anxious and multiculturalists should be
sensitive to this, though it complicates the multicultural framework.
Indeed, multiculturalist subgroup identity recognition and solidarity/fraternity are not one-way, with
some groups just givers only, and others just recipients. Rather, all groups are givers and recipients of
recognition. Multicultural citizenship must be based on dialogical, not just unidirectional,
recognition. This means that multiculturalism is not just about majority recognition of minorities
but also the mutual recognition of all subgroups of citizens and their right to belong to the body of
citizens.
“Multicultural citizenship must be based on dialogical, not just
unidirectional, recognition”
Yet, this inclusion of the majority does not contradict how I have previously conceived minority–
majority relations. What I said earlier about minorities in relation to the majority can be summarised
in terms of two ‘protectionist’ statements and two positive statements.2
1. There should be protection from and challenging of racism, cultural racism and Islamophobia,
including in dominant or majority culture in relation to laws, structures and ‘representation’ (not
protection from the majority culture per se).
2. There should be no insistence on assimilation but nor should there be any hindrance against
uncoercive social processes of assimilation or self-chosen assimilation; different modes of
integration should be equally welcomed.
3. There should be multicultural accommodation of minorities within shared public institutions (for
example, schools).
4. Minorities should be able to make claims on national culture and identity in their own ways; this
remaking of national identity is part of multicultural citizenship and should be welcomed and
encouraged by the majority (rethinking ‘British’ so that it is not just white or Christian/secular).
So, while multiculturalists may need to think more about ‘the majority’, it is not the case that
existing theories are negative about majority culture per se or even that multiculturalism is about
protecting minorities from majority culture.
MULTICULTURAL NATIONALISM
No state, including liberal democracies, is culturally neutral – all states support a certain language or
languages, a religious calendar in respect of national holidays, the teaching of religion in schools, the
funding of faith schools, certain arts, sports and leisure activities and so on. Naturally enough, this
language, religion, arts or sport will be that of the majority population. This is true even if no malign
domination is at work. Hence, it is important to distinguish when the institutional domination of
the majority culture is or is not present – and, moreover, when it has or may legitimately have
normative value.
For example, the English language has a de facto dominant position in Britain that is manifested in so
many ways. Yet, one can also recognise that the position of English is of normative value, given the
meaning that it has historically and today for the people of Britain. This normative primacy can be
explained without having to bring in any domination concepts such as whiteness, or at the very least,
2 Modood T (2014) Multiculturalism, interculturalisms and the majority. Journal of Moral Education, 43(3), 302-315.
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80 | IPPR Progressive Review | Volume 30(2)
without reducing it to questions of whiteness. For multiculturalism, however, it is a matter of extending
this valued condition – of creating a society based on one’s cultural identity – to include minorities.
At a minimum, the predominance that the cultural majority enjoys in shaping the national culture,
symbols and institutions should not be exercised in a non-minority accommodating way. The
distinctive goal of multicultural nationalism, as I have come in recent years to call my position, is
to allow people to hold, adapt, hyphenate, fuse and create identities important to them in the
context of their being not just unique individuals but also members of sociocultural, ethno-racial
and ethno-religious groups, as well as national co-citizens. National co-citizens care about their
country, which is not just another place on the map or workplace opportunity – it is where they
belong, it is their country.
“National co-citizens care about their country”
On this version of multiculturalism, people can have group identities and attachments to specific
countries – they are not just individuals looking for good deals or places to live. But of course,
their country – Britain – may not allow all its citizens to feel British, to be accepted as British;
some may be treated as foreigners, or as being of the wrong colour, as second-class citizens.
Multiculturalism is about changing that – it is, among other things, about ‘rethinking the
national story’. This was the most important – yet the most misunderstood – message of the
report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain in 2000.3 Chaired by Lord
Bhikhu Parekh, it argued that the post-immigration challenge was not simply eliminating racial
discrimination or alleviating racial disadvantage, important as these were to an equality strategy.
Rather, the deeper challenge was to find inspiring visions of Britain, which showed us from
where we came and where we were going, how history had brought us together, and what we
could make of our shared future. No one was to be rejected as culturally alien and not
sufficiently British because of their ethnicity or religion but rather we had to reimagine Britain,
so that, for example, Muslims could see that Islam was part of Britain; and equally important, so
that non-Muslims, especially secularists and Christians, could see that Muslims were part of the
new, evolving Britishness.
“Multiculturalism is about changing that – it is, among other
things, about ‘rethinking the national story’”
Note one important implication of my approach for the character of how to normatively approach
the idea of a national culture. The general liberal and civic nationalist approach is to say that
diversity requires a ‘thinning’ of the national culture so that minorities may feel included and do
not feel that a thick majoritarian culture is imposed on them. Yet my own is an additive approach
to national culture, including the place of Muslims. It does not, for example, require
disestablishing the national church (such as the Church of England) but bringing other faiths like
Islam and Judaism into a relationship with it. Nor does it require taking religious instruction and
worship out of state schools (it should be available on a voluntary basis, for those religious groups
who want it, knowing that not all groups will want it) in addition to religious education as
a straightforward school subject, thus ensuring that commonality and diversity are both
accommodated. These are two brief examples of not a thinning of the presence of religion in the
constitution or state ceremonies or of religion in state schools, they are a pluralistic thickening, an
addition to and remaking of the national public culture.
3 Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (2000) The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, Profile Books
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Summer 2023 | 81
DEPOLARISATION
So, how can multiculturalism, as I have described it and which I advocate, respond to the
polarisation which I have said we should aim to overcome? Even if multiculturalism is one of
the poles and part of the dynamic resulting in the majoritarian backlash pole, it can be adapted to be
part of the solution. Depolarisation involves being able to reach out toward the other pole, and
multiculturalism can do this; indeed, it can do so better than most other alternatives. I suggest that
multiculturalism can make three positive contributions to depolarisation.
Immigration
Multiculturalism is a national identity remaking project, which may in some circumstances lead to
legitimate concerns about the identity effects of immigration, including its effects on existing citizens
and minority groups. Multiculturalists are not and have not been against a reasonable and non-
discriminatory immigration policy. Multiculturalism has to engage with migration at three levels:
1. identifying and opposing negative/racist/othering discourses, actions and policies against migrants,
no less than against citizens (while recognising that some citizenship-constituting rights and
opportunities, such as permanent residence or access to full welfare benefits, will not be available
to migrants)
2. protecting and promoting the policies, forms of governance and understandings that constitute
the core of post-immigration multiculturalism, in particular, accommodation and civic
recognition of minority ethnic citizens and accommodation of ethno-religious groups
3. protecting and promoting the multicultural nation-building project.
An aspect of the last of these is to check and reduce, over time, intolerances within minority groups
themselves such as the racism that some people from Eastern Europe have brought to Britain.
Yet, insofar as anxiety about the pace and accumulative scale of immigration is a source of
majoritarian anxiety, it is something that multiculturalists can sympathetically address. They may, for
example, be able to find some level of practical agreement or at least show those who tend to oppose
multiculturalism that differences on immigration should not be a ground for their opposition to the
concept as a whole, and that some of their concerns are shared by minority co-citizens and
multiculturalists.
Identity anxiety
There has been a rise of majority anxiety in parts of the West. In some cases, perhaps even in many
cases, majoritarian opposition to public recognition and institutional accommodation of minority
cultures and identities will have mixed motives, and the mixture may include xenophobia,
Islamophobia, racial prejudice and so on. The concern in question, however, is not reducible to
these; it can and does exist without racism, and so has to be considered in its own right: it may be
accepted even where the racism has to be opposed. To see the point clearly, let us consider a real case
in which racism plays no part. A very good example of how a majority can feel discomforted, even
alienated, by a changing conception of national identity and public culture is, as pointed out to me
by Professor of Politics, David Boucher, a South Walian, that of the Anglophone Welsh majority
(most of whom are not English–Welsh bilingual, given that only about a fifth of the Welsh
population speak Welsh), when confronted with the addition of Welsh signage and Welsh at public
ceremonies when previously only English was present; and when it might be suggested that Welsh
speakers are somehow more Welsh than the national majority and Wales comes to be reimagined in
that way.
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82 | IPPR Progressive Review | Volume 30(2)
“There has been a rise of majority anxiety in parts of the West”
Moreover, while it is known that the media, especially the tabloid press, can exacerbate public
anxieties in deplorable ways through sensationalist coverage, that does not mean that the anxieties do
not have to be addressed. Some perceptions about the scale and effects of multiculturalist recognition
are likely to be mistaken and so, while they cannot be regarded as self-validating, they also cannot be
ignored. The situation is similar to when we take perceptions of racial discrimination as an indication
but not proof that discrimination is taking place; an indication that there may be a problem that
should not be dismissed but requires investigation and discussion.
The point I want to make here is that multiculturalism understands identity anxiety; it is built on
appreciating why minorities can experience identity anxieties and so this appreciation can be
extended to majority identities. Majoritarianism that seeks to privatise or individualise minority
identities while demanding public assimilation is problematic, but this does not mean that
multiculturalism cannot see the narratives of the historically evolved and evolving majority as central
in the national identity. Similarly, the project to multiculturalise national identities can recognise the
composite nature of majorities. Given that project’s sensitivity to the normative and political
importance of identities and to the plural nature of identities, it is well placed to appreciate why
majorities can come to feel anxious about identity change and that this anxiety has to be taken into
account in working for inclusive national identities.
“multiculturalism understands identity anxiety”
National identity
As should be clear from the above, multiculturalism is built on national citizenship and national
identity, though this has to be an inclusive national identity, which recognises minority identities
and offers both institutional accommodation to minority ethno-religious needs and remakes the
public space and the symbols of national identity so that all can have a sense of belonging. Such
multicultural nationalism unites the concerns of some of those currently sympathetic to majoritarian
nationalism and those who are pro-diversity and minority accommodationist. A brilliant recent
example is the Coronation of King Charles, which combined weird and wonderful ancient rituals, an
Anglican church service that for the first time included women bishops and black Christians,
including a Gospel Choir, but also involved both Lords and religious leaders from the key minority
faiths. Besides the traditional oath to maintain the Church of England as an established church, the
Archbishop of Canterbury asked the King to “seek to foster an environment in which people of all
faiths and beliefs may live freely”.
If we take these three contributions together, we have a serious basis for depolarisation, for bringing
together enough people from each pole to create a majority consensus on diversity. Even if a focus on
identity, both in terms of recognition and in terms of fostering commonality and societal unity, is
not sufficient for depolarisation, it is a necessary dimension that political theorists who frame things
in terms of social-contract liberalism miss, and thereby miss both what needs to be addressed and
what is needed to secure liberal among other values. Nor do socialists, human rights champions,
cosmopolitans or localists give minority identities and national belonging the same centrality as is
conferred by multiculturalism. Multicultural nationalism therefore may represent the political idea
and tendency most likely to offer a feasible alternative rallying point to monocultural nationalism,
the form that diversity scepticism will continue to take unless sympathetic bridges from the pro-
diversity camp can offer an alternative to some currently inclined towards scepticism.
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Summer 2023 | 83
Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, University of Bristol and a
Fellow of the British Academy. He served on the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic
Britain, the National Equality Panel, and the Commission on Religion and Belief in British
Public Life. His website is tariqmodood.com
© 2023 The Author. IPPR Progressive Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Public Policy Research.
