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Immanuel Kant Believed in Zombies: Multiculturalism and Spirituality in the Postcolonial City

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Multiple Faiths in Postcolonial Cities

Part of the book series: Postcolonialism and Religions ((PCR))

Abstract

Whilst ethnic and religious diversity in the postcolonial city is now normative rather than exotic, difference is increasingly demonised and presented as a threat to social cohesion. Multiculturalism, once a vibrant concept, has largely been appropriated by the political right as a synonym for ethnic and religious segregation. Against this backdrop we have witnessed the re-invention of the divisive politics of Empire on the streets of the postcolonial British city and at the despatch box in the House of Commons, which carries echoes of Samuel Huntington’s orientalist ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis. In the face of this demonising of difference this chapter will argue that the political and academic debate that surrounds multiculturalism no longer reflects the dynamic plurality of the contemporary postcolonial city. It has become a zombie discourse that fails to reflect social reality. The chapter will draw on these debates to offer a contextual theological reflection on a re-imagined vision of catholicity, the biblical injunction to ‘welcome the stranger,’ theologies of the ‘common good’ and a Christology of Jesus the Palestinian outsider. It will be suggested that a re-engagement with these theological themes alongside the forging of a liberative model of education can provide us with the tools to build a liberative postcolonial spirituality capable of defeating the zombie discourse of diversity that continues to impoverish life in the postcolonial city.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [1781], trans. Kemp Smith (Norman, NY: St. Martins, 1965), A 51/B 75.

  2. 2.

    John Slater and George Ritzer, ‘Interview with Ulrich Beck’ in Journal of Consumer Culture (2001) 1:2, 261–277.

  3. 3.

    Steven Vertovec, ‘Super-Diversity and Its Implications’, Ethnic and Racial Studies (2007) 30:6, 1024–1054.

  4. 4.

    Steve Bruce, God Is Dead: Secularization in the West (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 3.

  5. 5.

    Graham Ward and Michael Hoelzl, The New Visibility of Religion: Studies in Religion and Cultural Hermeneutics (London: Continuum, 2008).

  6. 6.

    Paul Gilroy, After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 109.

  7. 7.

    Paul Gilroy, Against Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 84.

  8. 8.

    Web sites http://www.npr.org/2017/01/31/512439121/trumps-executive-order-on-immigration-annotated; https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-order-muslims/514844/#exec%20order; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/01/26/constitutional-problems-with-trumps-executive-order-on-sanctuary-cities/?utm_term=.6475c26b6a69 and http://www.npr.org/2017/01/31/512439121/trumps-executive-order-on-immigration-annotated all accessed 2 February 2017.

  9. 9.

    Samuel Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilisations’ in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993) 72:3, 22–49.

  10. 10.

    Anne Salmond. ‘Self and Other in Contemporary Anthropology’ in Richard Fardon (Ed.) Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1995), 23–48.

  11. 11.

    Ziauddin Sardar, Orientalism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), vii and Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 2003 edition), xxii.

  12. 12.

    Carl Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 3ff.

  13. 13.

    Chiara Bottici, ‘Towards a Philosophy of Political Myth’ in IRIS—European Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate, III April 2011, Firenze University Press, 41.

  14. 14.

    Huntington, op. cit., 22.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 25.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., 35.

  17. 17.

    Gilroy, 2004, op. cit., 120.

  18. 18.

    Web site http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-36633388 accessed 2 February 2017.

  19. 19.

    Robert Beckford, Dread and Pentecostal: A Political Theology for the Black Church in Britain (London: SPCK, 2000), 68–79.

  20. 20.

    Michael N. Jagessar and Anthony G. Reddie, ed. Black Theology in Britain: A Reader (London: Equinox, 2007), 10.

  21. 21.

    Beckford, Dread and Pentecostal, 150–151.

  22. 22.

    Robert Beckford, God and the Gangs (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2004), 21.

  23. 23.

    Andrew Davey, Urban Christianity and Global Order (London: SPCK, 2001), 4.

  24. 24.

    Leonie Sandercock, Towards Cosmopolis (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), 76.

  25. 25.

    Steven Vertovec, ‘Super-Diversity and Its Implications’, Ethnic and Racial Studies (2007) 30:6, 1024–1054.

  26. 26.

    Ted Cantle, Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team (London: Home Office, 2001).

  27. 27.

    Vertovec, op. cit., 1026.

  28. 28.

    Web site http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/first-plural-towns-and-city-outside-london-revealed accessed 2 February 2017.

  29. 29.

    Kenneth Leech, Race: Changing Society and the Churches (London: SPCK, 2005), 109.

  30. 30.

    Robert Schreiter, New Catholicity: Between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 15.

  31. 31.

    Christopher Richard Baker, The Hybrid Church in the City: Third Space Thinking (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 146.

  32. 32.

    Schreiter, op. cit., 59.

  33. 33.

    Gilroy, 2004, op. cit., 29 and Nasar Meer & Tariq Modood, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Integrationism: Is British Multiculturalism a ‘Zombie Category’?’ Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power (2014) 21:6, 658–674, 660–661.

  34. 34.

    Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).

  35. 35.

    Schreiter, op. cit., 95.

  36. 36.

    Web sites http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37640982; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/08/dubs-scheme-lone-child-refugees-uk-closed-down?CMP=share_btn_tw and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-refugee-ban-executive-order-muslim-majority-countries-syrians-un-united-nations-a7550576.html all accessed 10 February 2017.

  37. 37.

    New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), Hebrews 13:2.

  38. 38.

    Luke Bretherton, Christianity and Contemporary Politics (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 211.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 360.

  40. 40.

    Elsa Tamez, Bible of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982), 73. See also Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History (London: SCM Press, 1983), 131–143.

  41. 41.

    Chris Shannahan, Voices from the Borderland (London: Equinox, 2010), 225 and 227.

  42. 42.

    Anthony G. Reddie, Working Against the Grain: Re-imaging Black Theology in the 21st Century (London: Equinox, 2008), 148.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 156.

  44. 44.

    Laurie Green, Urban Ministry and the Kingdom of God (London: SPCK, 2003), 85.

  45. 45.

    Robert Beckford, Jesus Is Dread (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1998).

  46. 46.

    Kenneth Leech, 2005. op. cit., 9.

  47. 47.

    Beckford, 2004, op. cit. God and the Gangs, 76.

  48. 48.

    Anne F. Showstack, Antonio Gramsci: An Introduction to His Thought (London: Pluto Press, 1970), 129–204.

  49. 49.

    Martin Luther King Jr. ‘Out of the Long Night’ in The Gospel Messenger (Elgin; Illinois: The Church of the Brethren, 8 February 1958), 14, column 1.

  50. 50.

    Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity: The Information Age…Economy, Society and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010), 360.

  51. 51.

    Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), 1–21.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., 19.

  53. 53.

    Chris Shannahan. A Theology of Community Organizing—Power to the People (London/New York: Routledge, 2014).

  54. 54.

    Schreiter, 1985, op. cit., 18.

  55. 55.

    Stephen Pattison, Pastoral Care and Liberation Theology (London: SPCK, 1997), 34.

  56. 56.

    Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971), 12.

  57. 57.

    Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 551.

  58. 58.

    Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (London: Vintage Press, 1994), 13.

  59. 59.

    Gustavo Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in History (London: SCM Press, 1983), 103.

  60. 60.

    Gramsci, 1971, op. cit., 418.

  61. 61.

    Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Cultural Action for Freedom (Harmondsworth: Penguin Education, 1972).

  62. 62.

    Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Indignation (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004), 66.

  63. 63.

    Web sites http://iqra.ca/2017/jews-to-form-ring-of-peace-around-toronto-mosque-on-friday/; http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-imam-magid/index.html; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/02/10/franklin-graham-said-immigration-is-not-a-bible-issue-heres-what-the-bible-says/?tid=ss_fb-bottom&utm_term=.120aa9ff2abd; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/12/moral-duty-british-government-help-refugee-children?CMP=share_btn_tw; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-child-refugees-death-archbishop-canterbury-dubs-accusations-a7574246.html and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/02/08/conservative-evangelicals-join-letter-denouncing-trumps-order-on-refugees/?utm_term=.201c819242a0 all accessed 16 February 2017.

  64. 64.

    Web site http://fprforum.coventry.ac.uk/ accessed 15 February 2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Chris Shannahan

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  1. Chris Shannahan
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Chester, Chester, UK

    Jonathan Dunn

  2. Mara Foundation, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Heleen Joziasse

  3. Lincoln Theological Institute University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Raj Bharat Patta

  4. Postcolonial Networks, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Joseph Duggan

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Shannahan, C. (2019). Immanuel Kant Believed in Zombies: Multiculturalism and Spirituality in the Postcolonial City. In: Dunn, J., Joziasse, H., Patta, R., Duggan, J. (eds) Multiple Faiths in Postcolonial Cities. Postcolonialism and Religions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17144-5_8

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