Who are you fighting for? Amir Khan, multiculturalism and community cohesion

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Who are you fighting for? Amir Khan,
multiculturalism and community cohesion

• Daniel Burdsey
• University of Brighton

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Boxing, Boltonand beyond

• Amir Khanwho?!
• Athens 2004 a tale of the unexpected
• From zero to hero post-Olympic profile
• Its amazing what has happened in Bolton. I
  think that the youths of Bolton, especially the
  Indian and Pakistani boys, they seem to have a
  hero type of person, you know, like they can sort
  of relate to Amir Khan Zabir Khan, Secretary
  of the Medina mosque, Bolton
• A subversion of (post-)colonial corporeal
  stereotypes?
• Representations reflect dominant discourses
  around multiculturalism, citizenship and
  community cohesion

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Context for the study

• Sport represents a particularly useful site for
  exploring the changing nature of patterns of
  prejudice in societies around the world. It is
  an arena in which the complex interplay between
  ethnicity, race, nation, culture and identity
  in different social environments is most publicly
  articulated (Ansari 2004 209)
• The multicultural question (Hall 2001)
• New Labour and multiculturalist nationalism
  (Fortier 2005)
• 9/11 to 7/7 Islamophobia and media portrayals of
  British Muslims

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Thinking outside the box(ing)

• Citizenship / community cohesion discourses and
  cultural racism 1) normative model of national
  identity 2) pathological representations of
  young British Muslim men
• Subversion of Englishness/Britishness
  whiteness
• The Tebbit test to Amirs boxing test
• Khan, Khans Army, hybridity and diaspora
• Erroneous extrapolation to denial of racism
• Membership of national club (Carrington 2000)
  is extremely is conditional (see also Gilroy
  1993, Mercer 1994 on Bruno)

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Identity and representation

• All of a sudden people could see somebody who
  really was from a different religion and a
  different area of the country, who really lived
  like the rest of us and spoke like the rest of
  us, and conducted himself in an exemplary way
  Paul King, boxing development manager, Liverpool
  City Council
• When you look at him on the television, you see
  Pakistan, but when he opens his mouth you hear
  Bolton and thats good enough for us. We have
  claimed him. Hes definitely ours OAP, Bolton

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Representations of Khan

• There is a refreshing joy about the Bolton
  Pakistani proud to wear the British vest Sue
  Mossop, Daily Telegraph
• He is rightly proud to be Asian, but hes also
  so clearly British in his sense of identity and
  that can do nothing but good John Lawson,
  Headmaster, Smithills school, Bolton

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Citizenship, integration, community cohesion

• A meaningful concept of citizenship needs
  establishing and championing which
  recognisesthe contribution of all cultures to
  this Nations development throughout its history,
  but establishes a clear primary loyalty to this
  Nation (Home Office 2001 para. 5.1.15)
• Alterity is acceptable because it can be
  marginalised by his Britishness
• Khan and David Blunketts norms of
  acceptability (Ann Cryer)
• Re- and de-racialisation (Fortier 2005)

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British Muslim identities and masculinities

• Dominant images of young British Muslim men
• Khan as a role model Bobby Friction, Iqbal
  Sacranie
• The acceptable face of British Islam
• New Labours diversity management (Gilroy 2005)
  / Denis MacShane
• Blair-Bush doctrine on war against terror
• Boxing, (white) father figures and escaping the
  ghetto (Wacquant 1992)
• Hyperactivity and discipline of the gym

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Conclusions

• The assumption is that if the visual referent
  changes, we change, consequently satisfying the
  disenfranchised communities who will feel greater
  pride in being part of the national community by
  virtue of seeing fellow members of their
  communities within the representational field
  (Fortier 2005 573)
• French football
• Racial abuse of Khan Glasgow, Liverpool
• Hypocrisy London 2012 and attacks on municipal
  multiculturalism
• What would happen if Khan exercised some
  oppositional agency?

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Conclusions

• Sociologically we need to avoid the twin dangers
  of the sentimental conservatives, who believe
  that the mere fact of white fans singing the
  names of black athletes demonstrates the end of
  racism, as much as we do against those
  pessimistic commentators who dismiss any shifts
  within the realm of popular culture as merely
  ideological (Carrington 2004 3)
• Multiculturalist nationalism?