Introduction

The constantly repeated message is that multiculturalism has ‘failed’. According to politicians and pundits, it has allowed ‘tolerance of diversity to harden into the effective isolation of communities, in which some people think separate values ought to apply‘(Phillips 2005); it has not succeeded in instilling belief in ‘freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality’ (Cameron 2011c); and the consequences are social fracturing in which Islamist terrorism can grow or, more recently, inner-city rioting can erupt.

The racism, implied or explicit, towards Muslims that anti-multiculturalism has given voice to has now been joined by a new enemy: young working class people (Jones 2011). This should alert us to a larger context: the attack on multiculturalism is not restricted to attacks on a particular ethnic and cultural minority. The venom aimed at a ‘feral underclass’, the new dispossessed on inner-city estates, is inseparable from the project that sees disciplining those on the receiving end of austerity (whatever their cultural background) into acceptance of neoliberalism as the only way in which society can be run. It is not just minorities that are affected (through discrimination or racism, including racist immigration controls). The mass of ordinary working people must be made to accept that there is no alternative and that their anger and resentment must be directed, where possible, at ‘outsiders’ for taking the limited resources that would (apparently) otherwise go to them. The defence of multiculturalism therefore has to involve more than defending cultural plurality. The broader struggle to resist racism has also to challenge the ‘naturalness’ of neoliberal economic policy.