Foreword by Robin Richardson

164 pages
234 x 156mm
September 2010

'We cannot assume that being 'Muslim' means the same to all. Even with those for whom a muslim identity is in many contexts not just a background, it does not follow that it is the religious dimension that is most prominent... For some, being Muslim is a matter of community membership and heritage; for others it is a few simple precepts about self; compassion, justice and the afterlife; for others it is a worldwide movement armed with a counter ideology to modernity, and so on...' - Tariq Modood, 2010

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw dramatic shifts in race relations in Britain. It was the time of the fracturing of a political ‘black’ identity; of ethnic minority assertions to be British and about remaking what it is to be British; of the manifestation of the social mobility of Indians and, above all, the emergence of Muslim identity politics in the Rushdie Affair. These issues were the subject of Tariq Modood’s Not Easy Being British. One of the first books to note these developments and analyse their implications, Not Easy became an underground classic.

In this new collection, Modood returns to some of these topics, considering especially the growth of Muslim political assertiveness and the reactions to it in the context of rethinking multiculturalism and Britishness. Modood’s reflections and bold interventions in controversies - which characterise his work and have made him a renowned intellectual commentator on Muslim politics and multiculturalism - could not be more relevant to our fraught and fearful times.

This is an invaluable book for students of culture, society and politics in higher and further education and at A-level, and for everyone whose professional work is affected by issues of pluralism and the place of religion in society. It will also interest the general reader.