Temas sociales

In 2011, the UK Government set out what they view as Fundamental British Values (FBV) identified as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those of different beliefs and faiths. They came under the PREVENT strategy implemented by the coalition between 2010 and 2015, with three distinct objectives: 1) respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat from those who promote it; 2) prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support 3) work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to address. Rather controversial to the definition of British Values was that as of 2014, schools were required to promote and teach them in schools (GOV.CO.UK 2011).

Up until that point schools were only required to respect them but the government implemented stricter guidelines. At the time, a lot of schools, St Aber’s included, believed that this was a response to the Trojan Horse scandal (BBC News 2015). Several schools in Birmingham were put under special measures and their headteachers questioned in response to an alleged plot to control the schools by putting more Muslim people in positions of power at the schools. However, after many inquiries the five teachers who were accused of alleged plotting were allowed to go back to the classroom as the allegations proved false and the government’s case against them was criticised as ‘abuse of justice’ (BBC News 2017; Adams 2017). However, at the time, policies were put in place and Ofsted would start to assess the measures taken by schools to ensure that British Values were part of the curriculum and provide guidelines for better implementation of the strategy.

It was under these circumstances that this study started; trying to unpack how tolerance was acted upon throughout the school and how British Values were embraced and taught across the curriculum.

Pluralism as a contributing factor to the character of Britain, has always occupied a prominent place in the social and political rhetoric. However, the

introduction of FBV as a necessary element of teaching across schools in the UK, showcased dissonance both as to what extent policies can monitor classroom practices and of what constitutes Britishness. Little consensus has been reached on whether FBV can, in reality, contribute to a meaningful co- existence of the various groups in multicultural Britain and as to whether such teachings alienate groups rather than make them feel more British. Teachers, on the one hand, express criticism on how they can position their personal and professional beliefs to accommodate the political discourse of the FBV (Farrell, 2016). On the other hand, they question the socio-political context within which British values are embedded and challenge contentions of what constitutes British in British values (Maylor, 2016).

Although the introduction of FBV in schools as a compulsory element of teaching is relatively new, having only been introduced in 2014, and the consequences of their implementation have not been assessed in-depth, the worries and reservations mentioned above are also expressed by the participants in my study. FBV were discussed as an amorphous boundary of exclusion/inclusion and in/tolerance. The idea of Britishness, despite its porous nature as discussed in the introductory chapter is used by policy makers and politicians as an exclusionary force (Smith 2016), almost forcing people to attach a meaning to it, without the necessary clarifications by those requesting this.

Therefore, it can be argued that the introduction of FBV has allowed for ‘racist nativism’ as defined by Perez Huber et al.:

the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the superiority of the native, who is perceived to be white, over that of the non-native, who is perceived to be people and immigrants of colour and thereby defend the rights of whites, or natives to dominance (2008: 43).

Galindo and Vigil (2006) analysed anti-immigrant discourses and concluded that representations in the media against Latinos in the US, were not always racist in

nature but nativist. In other words, it implies assimilation into the dominant culture and elimination of unfavourable cultural, religious, and/or political ideas related to one’s ethnic background. Therefore, those who are not ‘natives’ are not excluded, as racism would require, but are asked to integrate. This, however, can imply that whiteness and the culture associated with that become dominant and allow for structural advantages to be perpetuated (Smith 2016).

In Britain, extreme expressions of patriotism have largely been associated with fanaticism and linked to far-right protest movements, such as the EDL. Nationalist rhetorics expressed through more mainstream political discourses, such as ‘British jobs for British people’ (Gordon Brown) or ‘muscular multiculturalism’ (David Cameron) (Southphommasane, 2012). However, the pride for the country in the UK does not only rely on ‘an ‘ordinary’ conception of community: that is, ‘a group of people who share a range of values, a way of life, identify with the group and its practices and recognise each other as members of that group’. It also draws on a ‘moralised’ conception of community, in which members have mutual concern for each other’ (ibid.: 25). This moralised perception, which creates the image of a body politic which adhere to the same moral values is where the discussion of British Values can be seen to stem from: the idea that for someone to be a good patriot they need to have the same moral compass as those who claim to ‘love’ the country and belong to it. Therefore, the rights which are given to citizens come with responsibilities and obligations, whereby personal interests and affiliations need to be sacrificed for the common good, for someone to be treated as an equal member of society. The fact that values which were deemed British were introduced in the political rhetoric suggests that there are those who do not abide by such unwritten rules and questions need to be raised about their citizenship and national belonging.

In more recent years, terrorist incidents have maximised ‘security fears attenuated by terrorist attacks carried out by extremists in the name of Islam. These terrorist incidents often suggest that an unbridgeable civilizational divide

exists between the ‘western’ and an alien ‘Islamic’ world. The Muslim migrant is thus constructed as the carrier of antagonistic values’ and is posed as an enemy within (Taras, 2013: 419). Feely & Simon (1992) note how the current penology system and attributing blame is markedly less concerned with moral sensibility, diagnosis or treatment. Instead it focuses on identification of the perpetrators, management of groupings in accordance to what is considered as dangerousness and their exclusion. The role of attributing blame, therefore, becomes a managerial task, which is not looking for solutions, rather with naming the perpetrator. This has led many Muslim leaders to assert their belief that more Muslims will feel victimised as they are being portrayed as the ‘enemy’, while the majority of them might feel part of the national culture.

Although the introduction of FBV was meant to address issues of cohesion on a wider scale, it is primarily Muslim communities which ended up being singled out, an example of this being the alleged ‘Trojan Horse’ claims. The Other was no longer the foreign far-away Other but rather the dangerous enemy within, ‘who must be placed under surveillance and who needs to be assimilated by liberal society’ (Lander 2016: 276). Teachers, who have been teaching in multicultural and multi ethnic classrooms and might have experience of successful integration of the various groups, were now told by Cameron that multiculturalism is not working in its current form and there needs to be a turn to muscular liberalism, as Britain has been too soft and people believe they can do whatever they like (Lander 2016; Cameron 2014). Therefore, teachers have been put at the centre of this national problematic; with Cameron almost implying that they are partly to blame because they have not been teaching integration and respect well enough and they have now somehow become the gatekeepers for both national cohesion and surveillance of attitudes. This is a role which has been condemned by teachers nationwide, as they are being positioned as the ‘discursive subjects of the securitised neoliberal imaginary’ (Lander 2016: 276). Therefore, as Struthers (2016) argues, if there is any way that these values can be used in a way that will unite people, then they need to

be understood under a human rights framework, something which most schools claim they already do.

The study was conducted at the time of the Paris attacks, in November 2015, where more than 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured through a series of coordinated terrorist attacks mainly in the capital of France (bbc.co.uk, 2015). Since the study was concluded, in the summer of 2016, there have been more terrorist incidents even closer to home –Westminster Bridge 22nd _{March 2017, Manchester Arena 22}nd _{May 2017, London Bridge 3}rd _June

2017. The portrayal of the Muslim Other being perceived as responsible for such killings, means that other terrorist incidents such as the murder of Jo Cox MP, in 16th _{June 2016 by a far-right extremist, are not condemned under the terrorist}

label as widely, even though their motivations can be the same. In response to that Amber Rudd, Home Secretary in 2017 has asserted the public that the controversial Prevent strategy to halt radicalisation will be ‘beefed up’ (Ford, 2017), without acknowledging the divisions which might result from it.

Also in 2015, little Alan Kurdi died while his family were trying to flee their war-torn country. A picture of his dead body washed out in a beach in Turkey embodied the refugee crisis and attracted condemnation across the political and social spectrum (Time.com. 2015; Kinglsey, 2016; Fisk, 2016; Mackey, 2015). Questions about humanitarian aid were raised as to why people were more concerned about the incidents in Paris and not with the thousands of people who were dying in Syria and other counties in the region. As the news were dominated by the terrorist attacks in Paris, Mr Simons mentioned the incidence in the History class. Therefore, I decided to ask the pupils what their perspective on the issue was. My main question was why there was such widespread coverage in the news of the Paris attacks, but not of other similar incidents in the Middle East. Matthew replied:

It is more close to home, miss. We are not saying it is not bad what is happening in Syria, but it is not just across the Channel. It feels, you know, I can take the train and be there in a couple

of hours, but I would never go to Syria. It feels they are more like us, we share more things. We speak the same language, we eat the same food, it is more like happening at home.

I pointed out that they did not actually speak the same language, if anything the French refuse to speak English. And the British barely speak any other language. The students laughed but what I perceived they were saying was that people feel closer and more connected with those they feel they share common interests or ideals. Despite the outcry that the values termed by Cameron as British, are not only British but Western, there was still an implication that there were divisions between those with Western and those with other values. What this can showcase is that people like ‘us’ (who look like ‘us’, who dress like ‘us’, who believe in the same liberalism like ‘us’) share these values. This rhetoric creates a divide between the liberal, democracy-loving people, and those who are trying to undermine such values – putting vast numbers of people into this unidentified category, but largely involving non-white others. Therefore, anything outside this spectrum can be seen as too extreme and not Western.