http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/03/03/a-problematic-defence-of-britishness/ Sat, 07 May 2011 16:36:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/03/03/a-problematic-defence-of-britishness/comment-page-1/#comment-8 sara wajid Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:10:49 +0000 http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/03/03/a-problematic-defence-of-britishness/#comment-8 Dodgy. Couldn't understand why M Mirza was blaming multi-culturalist policies at local gov level for the rise of extreme politica Islamic identity. Just doesn't add up - those policies are far too recent and took a relatively superficial hold on the culture, far too superficial to affect identity so deeply. I went to school with Omar Sheikh, now jailed for killing of daniel pearl, and if anything 'over-radicalised' him - it was probably naked 1980s essex racism not a surfeit of multi-culturalism encouraging him to think of himself as Muslimfirst and British second. Some good points in it about the broader context of the drift of Brit identity but these anti-mc policy bits were plain wrong-headed. Bit dangerous. Dodgy. Couldn’t understand why M Mirza was blaming multi-culturalist policies at local gov level for the rise of extreme politica Islamic identity. Just doesn’t add up – those policies are far too recent and took a relatively superficial hold on the culture, far too superficial to affect identity so deeply. I went to school with Omar Sheikh, now jailed for killing of daniel pearl, and if anything ‘over-radicalised’ him – it was probably naked 1980s essex racism not a surfeit of multi-culturalism encouraging him to think of himself as Muslimfirst and British second. Some good points in it about the broader context of the drift of Brit identity but these anti-mc policy bits were plain wrong-headed. Bit dangerous.

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