British post-riot reports framed Muslim communities as self-segregating parallel lives

Evidence

Following the inquiries into civil unrest that occurred in some northern towns home to both small and large numbers of British Muslims at the turn of the millennium, a series of reports characterized these communities as self-segregating, adopting isolationist practices and generally leading ‘parallel lives’. The Ouseley report (2001) perhaps pioneered an approach found in other official post-riot accounts (cf. Cantle 2001, Ritchie 2001), in which Muslim settlement patterns were initially likened to those of ‘colonists’ (Wainwright 2001, cf. Meer and Modood 2009). It was a period in which ‘community cohesion’ approaches became salient, and their objectives were deemed to furnish commentators with the licence – not always supported by the specific substance of each report – to critique Muslim distinctiveness in particular (Meer 2006). When distilled, these criticisms would orbit around the claims that Muslims in Britain had less favourable views of – and therefore attachment to – Britain, and that they preferred to cluster together in selfsegregating communities. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 443

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘parallel lives’ and community cohesion policy literature from Meer and Modood; also fuels the contested-definition debate this text is staked in. — connects to: Muslim population growth in Britain matched expected demography yet the press framed it alarmingly. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 209; Post-2001 riot reports characterized British Muslims as self-segregating colonists — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 438; Anti-Muslim hate crime creates parallel lives by preventing cross-community engagement — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 368 (+2 more)
• SHARE: The ‘colonists’ framing of Muslim settlement patterns in the Ouseley report is a striking detail for anyone studying UK race policy.

Related

• Post-2001 riot reports characterized British Muslims as self-segregating colonists (similarity 0.93)
• British Muslims are less residentially segregated than other religious groups. (similarity 0.82)
• Official UK integration strategy framed Muslims as a threat to national cohesion (similarity 0.81)
• British ‘ethnic minority’ communities are internally diverse and not segregated ghettos (similarity 0.79)
• UK integration discourse framed Muslims as demographic threats to national existence (similarity 0.79)
• UK integration policy redefined Muslim integration as an antidote to extremism (similarity 0.79)
• Anti-Muslim hate crime creates parallel lives by preventing cross-community engagement (similarity 0.79)
• Islamophobia is one of several challenges British Muslims confront. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Post-2001 riot reports characterized British Muslims as self-segregating colonists #corroborates (0.90) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 438
• Anti-Muslim hate crime creates parallel lives by preventing cross-community engagement #qualifies (0.75) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 368
• British Muslims are less residentially segregated than other religious groups. #contradicts (0.75) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 462
• British Muslims are a diverse minority diaspora, not a monolith #complicates (0.72) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 535