Muslims in Scotland : integrationism,state racism and the ‘Scottish dream’

Abstract

Historically, Scotland has sustained a remarkable level of avoidance in regards to discussions of race and racism, and analysis of Islamophobia in Scotland has been very limited. A recent book (one of only a few) which takes the Scottish Muslim community as its focus is Stefano Bonino’s Muslims in Scotland: the making of community in a post-9/11 world. But, the author argues, it obscures institutional racism and leads to dangerous conclusions. By relying on a number of assumptions and misunderstandings about ‘integration’, racism and ‘Scottishness’, Bonino ignores structural factors of institutional racism. The author sets Muslims in Scotland against more trenchant critiques of Scottish racism, arguing its conclusions are symptomatic of wider framed narratives that circulate within Scotland, situating the book in a broader discussion of questions relating to the reality of racism and anti-racism in Scotland.

Keywords

contact theory institutional racism integrationism Islamophobia Scottish nationalism Stefano Bonino

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References

Bonino

, Muslims in Scotland: the making of community in a post-9/11 world (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017).

See Kundnani

, The End of Tolerance: racism in 21st century Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2007), particularly Chapter 8: ‘Integrationism: the politics of anti-Muslim racism’.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 189.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 156.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 80.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 79.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 191.

Maan

, The New Scots: the story of Asians in Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1992), p. 205.

Maan , The New Scots, p. 205.

10.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, pp. 190–91.

11.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 191. The comparison of Islamophobia with ‘Anglophobia’ was originally made in A. Hussain and W. Miller, Multicultural Nationalism: Islamophobia, Anglophobia and devolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

12.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 104.

13.

See Liinpää

, ‘Nationalism and Scotland’s imperial past’, in Davidson

et al ., eds, No Problem Here: understanding racism in Scotland (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2018), pp. 14–31.

14.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 161.

15.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 192.

16.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 5.

17.

See Davidson

Liinpaa

McBride

, eds, No Problem Here: understanding racism in Scotland (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2018) for a wide-ranging discussion and critique of this myth.

18.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 48.

19.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 106.

20.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, p. 77.

21.

Bonino , Muslims in Scotland, pp. 118–19.

22.

Davidson et al ., eds, No Problem Here.

23.

Davidson et al ., eds, No Problem Here, p. 10.