Ghost of a flea

"On a basic level, we didn't know who we were. People need a sense of feeling part of a group – but who was our group?" They were lost in liberalism, beached between two unreachable identities – their parents', and their country's. They knew nothing of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or the other places they were constantly told to "go home" to by racists.

Yet they felt equally shut out of British or democratic identity. From the right, there was the brutal nativist cry of "Go back where you came from!" But from the left, there was its mirror-image: a gooey multicultural sense that immigrants didn't want liberal democratic values and should be exempted from them. Again and again, they described how at school they were treated as "the funny foreign child", and told to "explain their customs" to the class. It patronised them into alienation.

"Nobody ever said – you're equal to us, you're one of us, and we'll hold you to the same standards," says Husain. "Nobody had the courage to stand up for liberal democracy without qualms. When people like us at [Newham] College were holding events against women and against gay people, where were our college principals and teachers, challenging us?"

America has never been pro-assimilation when it comes to cultural traditions, but Europe, perhaps in part because of her colonial history, has. Consequently we have a problem where the 'rights' of cultural groups are upheld to the disadvantage of individuals within those groups. So what we've ended up with is a Europe where polygamy is illegal, but some men, because of their cultural heritage, still manage to keep house with a variety of 'wives'.

We have a Europe that espouses universalist ideals of human dignity, yet there are areas where women can be 'legally' subjected to violence within marriage. A Europe where people who write books, draw pictures or make films that 'cause offence' can be justifiable targets of abuse, violence, and worse.

As I understand it, auto-immune diseases are caused when the immune system which protects the body turns upon itself, mistaking friendly organisms for foes and vice versa.

One might say that just such an affliction now assails the British and American intelligentsia — with some British Jews themselves amongst the worst affected.

"What the Turks believe today is what the Germans and British believe tomorrow. It is because of the mass movement of people between countries.

"These things can no longer be thought of as occurring in other countries. In London, where I work, there are increasingly quite large numbers of highly intelligent 16, 17 and 18-year-olds doing Advanced Level biology who do not accept evolution. That's either because they come from a fundamentalist Christian background or from Muslim backgrounds."