Ziauddin Sardar was born in Pakistan, 1951 and grew up in Hackney East London. He is described on his own website as a London-based Muslim scholar, critic, futurist (?), journalist and a prolific writer. He is presently a columnist on The New Statesman, has made programmes for both Channel 4 and the BBC and has also published over 40 books, the latest of which I’ve just finished, "Balti Britain".
His ambitious stated target was to capture the 'vibrancy and mind-boggling diversity of the British Asian experience'. The book doesn’t achieve this- there is too much of a concentration on British Muslims and specifically on those Muslims whose background originates from the northern end of the Indian subcontinent to qualify as an authentic study of the wider generic group. "Vibrancy" would be also far too positive a word to describe a book which, at times, is a rather dark and inward looking analysis of developments within those parts of UK society towards the end of the last decade. Stylewise, it reads as a rather disjointed work, moving from the autobiographical to the anecdotal to the social scientist to the activist, sometimes within the space of a few sentences.
Despite those flaws, I found it a compelling book, one which has made me look at widely varying topics such as what constitutes the Britishness” of many of my fellow citizens, “arranged” marriages and in particular, “multiculturalism” as practised in the UK, in a different light. Sardar, like Trevor Phillips a couple of years ago, has very deep reservations about where state-sponsored, official Multi-Culturalism has taken us. His argument is that it has actually encouraged separatism and disaffection, with the dividing of the UK society into a whole myriad of different cultural, racial and ethnic groups that are quite content and indeed thrive on building and defending their own space, rather than interacting with the wider whole. He quotes Lord Bhikhu Parekh’s challenging definition of what multi-culturalism should be:
“I would define it as the belief that no culture is perfect or represents the best life, and that it can therefore benefit from a critical dialogue with other cultures”.
Sardar’s tentative agreement, however, is somewhat tempered by the fact that he can also see the advantages of the tight “community” spirit and self-help ethos that has developed in places like Stepney and the various northern mill towns- places to where very often entire villages decamped en-masse from rural Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Punjab region of India in the 1960s and 70s. Those two advantages, (the alleged existence in the pre-war UK, ironically, many on the racist Right often hark back to) has meant that the self-enclosed “communities” have had no need nor incentive to engage in “critical dialogue” with the wider whole. Sardar, at least, also realises the inherent dangers of this situation but offers up no coherent solution.
As I said in the second paragraph, to have fully justified the title of the book, the author really should have widened his range and given us much more about those British Asians with a non-Muslim, non-subcontinent background. Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile read for not only balti aficionados (the first chapter will have you drooling!), but also anyone interested in learning more about what goes on behind what is, unfortunately for too many of us, the impenetrable curtain of Muslim Britain.
"Balti Britain" is available for £6.99 at the Unionist Lite Bookstore.
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