. While the older anti-discrimination and equal opportunities agenda was still given a nod in the post-riot reports of 2001, the targeting of funding of Black and Minority Ethnic groups, and the recognition of cultural difference, were now deemed to have encouraged segregation or even “self-segregation”. In particular, the ethnic leadership –mainly Muslim leaders in cities like Bradford- were accused of using the support of local authorities to impose traditional, illiberal values in their communities.
Community cohesion became an omnipresent guideline in a wide array of policies, from education to housing, youth work, social care, and all types of community partnerships. Essentially, this meant a new emphasis on a “common vision” for all communities and the “strong and positive relationships” between “people from different backgrounds”. It implied the rejection of ethnic minority cultures as potentially separatist and “self-segregating”, unable or unwilling to share the values of the majority. After 7/7, the mood hardened, with Blair and his key ministers delivering a series of speeches enjoining Muslims to embrace British values and to accept their “duty to integrate”, as one of the Prime Minister’s speeches was entitled.
However, despite the anti-multiculturalism rhetoric deployed since 2001 by the Blair, Brown and now Cameron-Clegg governments, it seems that multiculturalism still forms the basis of British policies towards diversity governance, as the divisions inherent to multiculturalism have not been fundamentally challenged. It can be even argued that some of the most questionable cohesion or indeed anti-terror measures (such as the much criticised “Prevent Violent Extremism” programme, which though staunchly criticised by the Coalition, has been replaced by a set of relatively comparable measures dubbed “ PREVENT 2”) rest on the existing divisions and tacitly encourage particularist agendas. One has therefore witnessed the bizarre and somewhat paradoxical emergence of a securitized form of multiculturalism.
