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Herd mentality

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Surely, for the person who discovers a definitive solution to the problem of cultural integration faced by immigrants to a new country, global recognition, and perhaps even a Nobel Peace Prize, would await. I put it to Ziauddin Sardar, author, academic and journalist that, like the fantasy science of alchemy, finding a single solution to complex issues is just that: pure fantasy.

Pakistan-born Sardar has spent the best part of his 57 years searching for answers to such questions and has written more than 40 books exploring cultural identity and its place in a modern pluralistic society. So I ask: has he found a solution?

'A number of things need to be done. First we need to see people as individuals and not as monolithic herds,' he says. 'At the same time, and this is the tricky bit, we need to see individuals as part of the collective, group, family, tribe, or nation, so that the individual doesn't exist in isolation; he or she exists in a web of relationships. So we need to see the individual, and we need to see the web of relationships, and that's the trick to finding the answer to your six million-dollar question.'

Sardar continually passes a fat cigar between lips and right hand as he searches for answers to questions. Its heavy smell sits in stark contrast to the heady aroma of spice that hits you as you walk through the door of his home in suburban north London. Sitting in his converted loft office at the top of the semi-detached house he shares with his wife and three children, he reflects on his experiences as a young Muslim man growing up in the intolerant Britain of the 1960s. Arguably, the experience gives him an excellent perspective from which to comment on the minds of racist young men today.

Sardar was brought up in Hackney, north London, after arriving with his family as economic migrants in 1959. He remembers seeing snow for the first time, experiencing cold like never before and reading 'To Let' signs in windows with the addendum: 'No Coloured Need Apply'. At school the textbook versions of India's 'discovery' by Europeans and the country's 'mutiny' against its white rulers sat uncomfortably with the stories told by relatives who had grown up under colonialism and the East India Company. Making matters worse was having to run the gauntlet through the group of skinheads that would gather at the school gates everyday to shout 'Pakis Out!' and indulge in their favourite pastime of 'Paki bashing' - Paki, the abbreviation of Pakistani, being the term adopted by racists for any person of Asian descent.

Referring to newspaper headlines this morning on the conviction of a 16-year-old schoolboy for terrorism offences, Sardar says: 'He has become a terrorist because part of his identity comes from certain ideas about what it means to be a Muslim. If he was black, he might be trying to form some sense of identity by belonging to a street gang, or if he was white he might be joining a far right political party. This question of identity needs to be answered. You cannot ignore it because most of the problems in society, from gangs to terrorism and crime among youths to binge drinking, these are all problems about personal angst, problems of 'I am not what I ought to be'. And since you don't know what you ought to be, it makes it all the more difficult.'

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