Postcard from Birmingham: Paradoxes of the North Sea Triangle

This is my second and last postcard from Birmingham. I have been in the UK for nine days (including two days in London, one in Leicester and one morning in Manchester) mainly to explore possibilities for future research comparing the UK and the Netherlands in terms of Muslim activism and its relation to every day life. The idea is that this builds on my current research on Salafism in the Netherlands, but includes a broader range of Muslims in both countries and does not immediately take their Muslim identity as their primary identity or even single identity, excluding other modes of identity and belonging.

I have spend my time in the UK talking to some colleagues and individual spokespersons of various networks and organizations. But most of my time I have been trying to establish contacts with those Muslims who migrated from the Netherlands to the UK and of course meeting them. Although I have spoken to about 10 people, more than I expected because I did not have that many contacts when I came to the UK, I will certainly try to speak with more men and women the next time I’m here. What I give you now is an impression of the main themes coming up during my conversations with these people. Do not expect too much in terms of reflection and analysis, it is just meant to give you some idea of what came up and the themes that might be explored in further research.

Snapshots from the UK

1. Almost all of the Dutch migrants I have been talking to have been born in the Netherlands. A few of them elsewhere, but also they lived for most of their, young, lives in the Netherlands.
2. They have been living in the UK for 5-7 years, a few of them a little longer (8-10 years).
3. All of them refer to both the UK and the Netherlands as important for who they are now, but also point to a third or fourth identification (sometimes used interchangeably) as Muslim or a particular ethnic group: Somali, Iraqi, Moroccan or otherwise. (This together with the Dutch and English identification, makes up for what I tentatively call the North Sea Triangle).
4. Several of them came voluntarily to the UK but also many came to the UK with their parents. The former group came to the UK expecting that their life as a Muslim would be easier and in some cases that they could easily connect to other people from the same ethnic group (Somali, Egyptian, Moroccan, Iraqi, Dutch). In the case of the latter, these parents moved because most of their relatives were living in the UK and/or because they were unhappy with life in the Netherland, in particular the lack of opportunities the country had to offer and/or because in some cases there were problems in schools. Also among them one can find the motive of having a ‘better religious life’ in the UK.
5. “So tell me what you think about England, except that it is dirty” is probably the question that was asked to me the most. According to almost all the migrants I talked to England is much dirtier than the Netherlands. Certainly some areas in the cities I visited gave rise to a similar experience on my account. The ‘Dutch’ pre-occupation with orderliness and cleanliness is important for them too? This of course can have something to do with the type of neighbourhoods they live in; mostly old, somewhat degraded poor urban areas with bad housing. But there is more to it than that, I think:
6. Life in the Netherlands is better in many ways according to many migrants. It is much better organized, people are blunt but honest (while in the UK they seem to be polite but might be backstabbing you), public services are much better, people are more helpful and the housing is much much better. They seem to be idealizing Dutch society, at least as they remember it.
7. Many of them (regardless of their ethnic background) refer to themselves as Dutch or at least state that they are proud to ‘come from Holland’. Some state that when they refer to themselves as ‘Dutch’ they mean Dutch in ways of doing or acting, not necessarily as an identity, meaning that for them at least there is a difference between both. I would say that there is a difference between overcommunicating and undercommunicating different modes of identity in different situations.
8. Several of them, when together with others from the Netherlands, talk Dutch. Many of the conversations I had were mixed Dutch and English language.
9. Among Somalis people distinguish between those coming from, for example, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.
10. Several of them told me they needed time to get used to English food. They in particular missed the peanut butter, Dutch cheese, liquorice and sliced (!) meat.
11. Some of them go the Netherlands on a regular bases, to meet friends and family and because they ‘like to come back’ every now and then. A few go at least once a year.
12. I have the impression that this (5-10) experience came about after they moved to the UK, but this is something I have to look into more closely.
13. What is better in the UK according to everyone of them is the religious life. Many of their friends here (UK) are Muslim and many live in predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods. According to them being a good Muslim is easier, it is more relaxed and ‘it is more fun here to do things that are not haram’, there are more mosques. In a number cases this also produced a more religious lifestyle once being settled in the UK. A few of them, in the Salafi circles, state that there is much more social control which is very helpful ‘to remain steadfast and consistent’.
14. And here we see a kind of paradox. While many people experience religious life in the UK as more easy going, more embedded in daily life and being treated with less suspicion than in the Netherlands, there are also reports of people returning to the Netherlands from the UK. These appear to be Salafi Muslims who feel they are much more targeted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and much more harassed by the authorities. This clearly needs a follow up.
15. Some of them state that in the UK Muslims and/or migrants are much better protected by anti-discrimination laws. On the one hand this means that people do not dare to discriminate and are very careful on that level (while being more blunt and outspoken in the Netherlands) but on the other hand it means that you are not sure what people actually think, creating the accusation that people are hypocrite (while being honest in the Netherlands).
16. In particular Salafi Muslims seem to perceive their stay in the UK as temporary; they want to move (doing hijra) to an ‘islamic country’ later on. There have been statements by a Salafi shaykhs that moving to in particular Birmingham amounts to doing hijra. This is also controversial however.
17. And another paradox: the former (15) is somewhat inconsistent with this one: there is much more racial discrimination (and people feel more being discriminated against because of their race) than people have experienced in the Netherlands. A few of them however state that also in the Netherlands there is a lot of racism only people hide it better. I think the difference with the UK have a strong ‘race talk’ while the Netherlands has a strong ‘culture talk’ tradition is related to this, somehow. Of course, this leads to another type of discrimination so maybe that is why some say they are more discriminated against because they are black, while not experiencing much discrimination for being Muslim.
18. Whereas the Netherlands is the land of cleanliness and orderliness, the UK is the land of opportunities. According to the people I talked with here everyone gets a chance to make something out of their lives and people are much quicker accepted as part of society than in the Netherlands. Many of them appear to think that they wouldn’t be where they are now (in university for example) when they would have stayed in the Netherlands.
19. In some circles, in particular Salafi, there seems to be a fear that things in the UK will move into the same direction as (what they perceive as) in the Netherlands where people look with fear and suspicion to Muslims and where policy is becoming more and more restrictive for Muslims (who are clearly visible as such).
20. According to some people I talked with (not the migrants from the Netherlands) one of the reasons Muslims feel rather protected still and (migrants) feel religious life is easier in the UK, is because of the strong position Muslims have build up themselves with regard to representation, politics and economy and also (in some cities such at as Leicester) the strong interfaith dialogue.
21. The Dutch migrants see clear fault lines within the native British. They distinguish between higher educated and lower educated and/or ignorant people, the latter sometimes referred to (by the younger men and women) as ‘chavs’. Certainly when referring to ‘chavs’ they very clearly picked up the English class talk among their peers.
22. An interesting note for my salafism research is that in Birmingham, in particular in and around Small Heath there are so many Salafi bookshops, it almost looks as if the label ‘Salafi’ has become a brand. It clearly distinguishes people and organisations from others, and sends very specific messages to the audience.

Note that these are just 22 tentative issues that have come up in mostly informal, exploratory talks. This is by no means exhaustive nor representative or approaching any final conclusion, but just gives an idea of the themes and issues I’m focusing on now and might do in the future. What the list makes clear is that this North Sea Triangle (consisting of a Dutch part, English part and another ethnic or Muslim identity) is highly interesting and complicates much of the discussions on identity, integration and the role and position of Muslims in society and towards wider society. People clearly use different modes of identity, all of them with both positive and negative and often contradictory evaluations. Their often very positive evaluation of Dutch identity or a sense of belonging to Holland appears to have come up once they arrived (or shortly before) in the UK. All of them appreciate the opportunities they have in the UK to develop themselves both in terms of education, career as well as being a person and a Muslim, but research also shows that there is a lot of distrust and people suffer from being targeted as a group. At the same time there are many de-escalation processes at work.

Certainly for Salafi Muslims it is much easier to live here with more mosques, more organizations, living in areas like Small Heath provides some social control as well as protection against agressive anti-Muslim behaviour, but they also find themselves in a situation where there are many more networks than in the Netherlands offering all kinds of Islamic knowledge like the Barelwi, Deobandi, Hizb ut Tahrir and so on. The research on ‘suspect communities‘ makes clear that Muslims as a group are affected in every day life by the counter-terrorism measures, but this may have more negative consequences for a particular group of Salafi Muslims than for other Muslims (speculating here).

All of this means that the puzzle of the relationship between the islam and integration debates on the one hand and daily life of Muslims on the other hand is very complicated and contradictory and as such also the relation with high and low profile modes of Muslim activism. Research on Muslim activism then requires attention to different levels: media, policy-making and every day life and should not start with Muslim identity as a given, but exploring how it relates to the different local and national contexts as well as how it is influenced by and influences other modes of identity and activism.

Thanks to all the people in the UK who were willing to meet (or otherwise communicate) with me, and in particular the people in Small Heath, Birmingham, for their hospitality. Also thanks to all the people who responded on twitter and facebook (in private or public): greatly appreciated and very helpful.