Muslims and Multiculturalism

Post-immigration multiculturalism is challenged by the presence of Muslims and Islam like no other group or religion. The controversial relationship between multiculturalism and Muslims may be traced back to the fact that both Canada's pioneering policy of state multiculturalism and the first wave of liberal multiculturalists in the 1990s left religion peripheral. This was until 9/11, which many commentators declared killed multiculturalism. Even now, of all identity groups, Muslims seem to be the only one that Canadians consider problematic (especially, but not only, in Quebec), while there are significant populist political parties in Europe, some in government, that make opposition to ‘Islamicisation’ central to their politics. This chapter will consider why multiculturalism has a problem with Muslims and how one group of scholars, the ‘Bristol school of multiculturalism’, makes the inclusion of Muslims not just central to the problem-definition but to the goal of contemporary multiculturalism.