Extracts from Shenaz Bunglawala and Muhammad Aziz’s article published by the Centre for English Identity and Politics, University of Southampton:
[. . .] A defining trait of the Bristol School of Multiculturalism is its emphasis on the need for a ‘moderate secularism’ [. . .] as a governing principle for multicultural citizenship in diverse societies [. . .]
These are thus two ways in which Muslims have been disadvantaged when it comes to the ‘affirmation of identity’. The first is the secular bias that prevails in British politics even, or especially, on the left which is claimed to be more congenial to the politics of difference. In this regard, Muslims have had to struggle to assert their right to have religion recognised as a site of difference separate to race and analogous to race, gender and sexual orientation. The second is in relation to claims of ‘moderate secularism’ as a prerequisite to accommodate minority religions, which leaves Muslims in the precarious position of fighting to preserve moderate secularism even as they struggle to carve out their niche within it. If the condition is a requirement for any degree of accommodation, Muslims are left in the position of pushing for ‘moderate’ secularism to prevail even when they are disadvantaged under it relative to other religions (either in terms of praxis or problematisation of Islam specifically). As British society grows more secular with each passing decade, as evidenced in the decennial census, will ‘moderate’ secularism survive into the future? [. . .]
While the Bristol School advances the cause of religion as a site of difference, we would argue that the ontological and epistemological limitations of multiculturalism remain. Thus, one of the authors here has described his starting point as one of ‘integralisation or integralism’ by which he means ‘a new model characterised by “integ’ation with integrity” on all sides, which would commence with all parties starting from their own terms and respectfully negotiating with those of others towards proactively contributing to and buying into new [national] narratives focused on “the common good” – the process allowing in particular, from the British Muslim perspective, frank dialogical exchanges on liberty of values and their manifestations (whether arising from religious sources or otherwise), equality of accommodation of those manifestations in the public space, and multiple identities,
allegiances and loyalties, including theo-political ones, without pre-existing frameworks of domination and expectations of uniformity and conformity towards a particular preconceived
vision of fraternity’ [. . .]It is in this vein that we introduce ‘multiplexity’ as a complimentary theory for diversity management, drawing on an Islamic intellectual heritage that contends with both the ontological and epistemological biases inherent in multiculturalism, whilst proposing a model for social cohesion built on a culture of rights (adamiyyah or universal rights) and pluralism (futuwwah or altruistic ethics). Futuwwah (which literally means chivalry) or altruistic ethics underlies the ‘benign’ aspect of pluralism under multiplexity. It contrasts liberalism’s focus on individual rights, and the isolating effects of anomie in a society of ‘unencumbered selves’, with multiplexity’s embrace of pluralism with its proper regard for others, hence ‘altruistic.