All my writing is musing and open discussion as I learn and navigate my experience, and is not making any normative claims - see my approach to writing for more on how I intend to share!

Thinking about Tower Hamlets politics the same way I think about sexuality

Essentialism needs to end!

TW: Islamophobia

“Certainty is the enemy of discovery [or curiosity… or exploration…or something]”

- One of my friends (I can’t remember who (if it was you remind me!), nor whether they said exactly this, nor whether it was their thought or they were quoting something they’d seen somewhere. But it’s a good one!

I’m currently spending the summer back in Tower Hamlets. Whilst here, I’m (finally) getting around to engaging more in the local politics of the borough, which is extremely unique and rich as far as local British politics goes.

I’ve been specifically spending some time trying to understand the history of the Aspire Party, Tower Hamlets First, and the mayor Lutfur Rahman. For those that don’t know, Aspire is an independent, local, democratic socialist party led by Lutfur Rahman, and currently holds a majority in the council. The party was founded in 2018 after Tower Hamlets First, also led by Lutfur, was dissolved following a court ruling around corrupt practices within the party. Most elected members of Aspire are former Labour members, with strong tensions between the parties. There is a lot of complicated and very inflamed discussion and opinions on these issues, which I won’t go into detail on here.

What I will reference is the High Court ruling which led to the dissolution of THF, Lutfur’s 2014 mayoral election victory being voided, and him being banned from office for five years and struck off the roll of solicitors. This document is extremely controversial, seen as both ‘honest politics’ and overtly racist¹.

Whilst I won’t go into a full analysis of the ruling (short answer: hidden amongst everything there are some fair concerns around local political practice), I agree the ruling makes racist and Islamophobic statements. A large factor influencing my conclusion is recognising some problematic rhetoric within the ruling which perfectly highlights lessons I’ve learned around essentialism and dehumanisation - lessons learned from, amongst other places, Emily Nagoski’s ‘Come As You Are’, a non-fiction exploration of women’s sexuality.

I’ve been meaning to write about these lessons for a while, and this exploration of local politics has provided the perfect grounding for doing so. Who knew the two would pair together so well!

Come As You Are

Come As You Are is a fantastic book, one I find holding lessons for anyone around sex and sexuality.

One of the key messages of the book is - every version of sexuality is normal. There is no specific ‘way’ people should experience and practice their sexuality - there will be variation between every single person, and no one way is more natural than another. As long as we are not unwillingly harming others by practicing our sexuality, we should be able to practice it in whatever way it arises within us.

This is an incredibly empowering message (hence the power of the book!), and to illustrate this point she makes reference to differences between men’s and women’s sexualities². She highlights that all bodies are ‘made of the same parts, organized differently’³ (another example of normalising all bodies and experiences), and goes on to elaborate (I quote at length for clarity):

While we can see obvious group differences when we look at populations…there’s at least as much variability within those groups as there is between those groups.

I can illustrate with a non-sex example. The average height of adult women is five feet four and the average height of adult men is five feet ten, a six-inch difference between the two groups’ averages. But height varies more within each group than between groups. If you measured the heights of a thousand random people - five hundred men and five hundred women - you’d find that nearly all the women would be between five feet and five feet eight - an eight inch difference between the group - and nearly all the men would be between five feet four and six feet four - a twelve inch difference. Notice three things: There’s more difference within each group (eight or twelve inches) than between the groups (six inches); there are four inches overlap between the groups; and one to two hundred people among the thousand would be outside even these wide ranges!

The same goes for sex. Within each group we find a wide range of diversity - and I don’t just mean anatomically. I mean in sexual orientation, sexual preferences, gender identity and expression, sexual functioning… We also find overlap between the two groups, and we find folks who vary wildly from the “average” while still being perfectly normal and healthy.⁴

This framing immediately made something click for me. When it comes to population measures, you may be able to discern general differences when comparing averages of entire populations (e.g. male people are on average taller than female people). However, this tells you nothing about any one individual in the population. Any individual could sit anywhere within the distribution - given the height of any female person you come across, there will somewhere be a male person who is shorter, and vice versa⁵.

This, I realised, applies to any population statistic - it is only a tool to provide general information about how the population measured skews. No doubt this can be helpful and has its place (if I find out a local population skews heavily towards being Arsenal fans, I would think twice before opening a Tottenham merch shop), but it tells you nothing about any specific individual within the population (there may be at least one Tottenham fan in the local population). Even if 99% of a certain population ‘fits into’ category X, there is 1% who doesn’t. To find out information about any specific individual, there is only one sure-fire way to know where they stand - meet them, connect with them, find out who they are and what they believe in.

Exploring this lesson further

Some assertions

I’m going to start this section by making some assertions. The first, which I think we would all agree with, is:

1. Every human is unique

In that, there is always going to be something differentiating me, you and everyone else, from everyone else. The classic ‘are we connected or alone’ question comes to mind here!

Off the back of this assertion, I make one people may question a bit more - let me know in the comments what you think!

2. Every human is ultimately uncategorisable

What I mean by this is, however much one tries to categorise me, my humanity will still sit ultimately somewhere outside that categorisation/those categorisations. For instance, a category which could be applied to me is: I am British. Does this explain my humanity? No, we need more. I am a British half-Indian? Enough? Not yet!

How about a 29-year-old queer British half-Indian with long hair and a dodgy beard who sometimes writes when inspiration strikes, believes in anarchism but can’t quite figure out what to do with it? Closer, but it’s still not me in entirety.

What about theoretically coming up with a finite, comprehensive list of categories explaining every aspect of my personality, being, history, relationships…? I argue this is impossible because a) if we can’t conceptualise what this list would be, it probably doesn’t exist, b) even if this is possible and it becomes true for right now, it will immediately change as I am a constantly changing being, and c) spiritually, do I believe all I am is the coming together of all the categories that can be applied to me?

Perhaps you can deduce my opinions on the limitations of AI for understanding the world (my experience is more than the billion parameters used to define my experience), and why I don’t believe in the whole mind-is-a-computer thing. Ultimately, there is a spiritual argument here: there is something that makes us human which goes beyond what we can measure and categorise. The soul, consciousness, God, whatever you call it, one of the deepest aspects of humanity sits within its immeasurability. This thing cannot be adequately categorised - and we shouldn’t try to.

Understanding essentialism

If we take the two assertions above as true, we can arrive at a simple conclusion - if the thing making people human is unique and inherently uncategorisable, any attempt to comprehensively categorise a person strips them of their humanity. Anyone we comprehensively categorise, we dehumanise.

Comprehensive categorisation is pretty much how I understand essentialism. Essentialism (as defined by Google definitions), is:

A belief that things have a set of characteristics which make them what they are, and that the task of science and philosophy is their discovery and expression; the doctrine that essence is prior to existence.

For instance, applying essentialism to a chair entails asking: what are the defining characteristics (the essence) of a chair? How can we find them out? And a belief in essentialism is that we can ultimately discover these characteristics, and therefore express the essence of what a chair is - regardless of whether a chair actually exists in material reality or not.

I ultimately think this kind of discourse, in an objective truth-seeking sense, is futile and dangerous. Nevertheless, I would be sympathetic to the pragmatic case of having a shared agreement about the essence of some things.

Where it becomes especially problematic, however, is when applied to people.

When applied to people, it is (according to the same Google definition):

The view that categories of people, such as women and men, or heterosexuals and gay people, or members of ethnic groups, have intrinsically different and characteristic natures or dispositions.

Essentialism of people, as is hopefully clear by now, is a bad thing. If we essentialise a person, or a group of people, we suggest for the person, or every person in the group, something in their nature is known, definable, categorisable and shared throughout the group. As we have discussed above, when we do so, we dehumanise them. It feels important to note the difference between essentialism and self-labelling - self-labelling (for instance, I am queer) can be a helpful way to communicate and understand one’s experience. Essentialism runs deeper, and is not self-applied - I am describing something about who you fundamentally are, above and beyond what you communicate yourself.

The humanising and non-essentialising approach can be generalised from the Come As You Are thoughts above. Let’s think back to the lesson - all sexualities are normal, and no one expression of sexuality is ‘better’ or ‘more natural’ than another. Generalising this, we can say everyone is normal - we all have this same unique, immeasurable humanity - and no one expression of humanity is ‘better’ or ‘more natural’ than another. What’s more, even if we create defined categories of people, there will always be people blurring those category definitions - and this doesn’t make them any less human. This lesson applies to any facet of an individual - personality, characteristics, interests, beliefs… there is no one way we should be, and instead we should be honouring the inherent beauty and uniqueness of everyone, however it materialises.

Exploring essentialism

If it is the case that essentialism of people is bad, why then do we do it, and see it, so often?

I think a lot of the explanation lies in the cultural legacy of colonialism. For colonisation to be successful, the colonising powers need to be able to exert control over colonised peoples and lands, and justify their actions through some claim to moral authority. The primary way to do so - to gain control of the unknown and feel you fully and justifiably own it - is to create finite, categorisable systems, define and measure things within them, and determine what to do with these newly categorised things based on how they measure up.

When it comes to people, as colonisers we can wedge their infinite humanity into predefined categories of who they are, how they behave, what they value, what they believe… From here, rather than humbly learning alternative ways of living amongst equally human people, we instead can create measures for what is good and not within the systems we are enforcing, and state with faux certainty that some ways of being are better than others. This can only happen if we have rejected, or avoid, the inherent unknowability sitting at the core of all of us. And when this happens, it is inevitably those practicing alternative ways of being than the one we are enforcing who end up being marginalised. If you are unwilling to buy into the colonial way of thinking and being, you don’t just fairly think differently to me - you’re now wrong. And when the system is dominating enough, you can be punished, and killed.

This thinking and approach, I feel, has been culturally handed down to us and internalised. The colonial approach has taught us to feel a need to control, and to fear lack of control. When it comes to people, this idea of control feels central.

Focusing on the uniqueness of everyone is inherently messy and humbling. If I don’t know who and how someone ultimately is, I have to do a lot of open and curiosity-driven work to understand them. A lifetime is not enough time to fully understand even one person, even yourself. The uncategorisable humanity of one person is an infinite sea, and the only way to explore it is to connect with that particular person - and there will always be more to discover.

This is kind of scary, and shows how little understanding and control I have over another! Far easier, then, to ignore all that, categorise the person in a way I understand, and feel like I have regained control - to essentialise others rather than humanise them.

An example for me is how we think about evil. Is it situational, or are some people inherently evil? I firmly believe it is the former (I won’t go into detail here, I have more thoughts directly on this I want to write up), but a question is - which leaves us more in the unknown? That there are factors at play we might not yet realise which would help us understand how particular evils arise? Or that the only thing we need to consider is the inherent, essential evil of the person, no further questions? Which one would be more tempting to default to?

This is what I understand is meant by ‘the spiritual graveyard of the West’ - the West is built on colonisation, on removing complexity and unknowability for control, and this only succeeds in part when we essentialise groups of people, and thus sever ourselves from our innermost humanity!

Applying these thoughts to Tower Hamlets

TW: This is the section that covers explicit instances of Islamophobia

Thinking about essentialism in this way helped me understand some of the racist arguments within the court ruling.

One of the main examples can be found in section 562⁶, which starts with the following:

Though it is true to say that the world has moved on considerably since 1892, there is little real difference between the attitudes of the faithful Roman Catholics of County Meath at that time and the attitudes of the faithful Muslims of Tower Hamlets.

There are approximately 310,000 residents in Tower Hamlets, of which approximately 40% are Muslim. This means there are around 124,000 Muslims living in Tower Hamlets. Based on this study suggesting 77% of British Muslims are actively practicing (what I imagine falls under the definition of ‘faithful’ above) this suggests there are around 95,500 ‘faithful Muslims’ in Tower Hamlets.

The insinuation being referred to above is the ‘faithful Muslims of Tower Hamlets’ will just defer their decision about who to vote for to their religious leaders (comparing it to 1892 when Catholic priests advocated for specific candidates in local elections in County Meath in Ireland). This is obviously intended to be derogatory, implying the Muslim population of Tower Hamlets is stuck in the past.

To suggest one court can correctly categorise how 95,500 people behave is, of course, really ridiculous. We can apply the lessons from Come As You Are Here- there is more variability within the group than between groups, and every difference within each group is normal. It may sound obvious to say, but I guarantee you the following are true:

1. There is at least one practicing Muslim in Tower Hamlets who doesn’t defer their election decisions to their religious leader
2. There is at least one non-Muslim Tower Hamlets voter who does defer their election decision to their religious leader
3. There is at least one voter in Tower Hamlets who defers their election decision to some perceived authority in a way comparable to deferring their decision to a religious leader

And many more normal and fair subdivisions. And so this statement immediately becomes untrue. The only way we can truly believe the statement of the court is to believe there is a homogenous characteristic applicable to all practicing Muslims in Tower Hamlets, without finding out from each one of them directly. That is, if we essentialise all of the practicing Tower Hamlets Muslim population as behaving in a certain, definable way when it comes to election decisions. And here, we are judging this particular way as bad. Sounds familiarly colonial to me!

If we claim we can define their behaviour so easily, we can form all sorts of conclusions that suit our own ends. Who cares if each one of those 95,500 people are inherently complex, human people, for whom we could only form strong foundations for what they believe by talking to them on a personal level? It’s much easier to gain control by stripping them of this inherent humanity, this complexity, and use the forcibly-created homogenous mass to justify your own political stance - one believing there is something essentially inferior about this particular population and how they make their decisions and live their life.

And if everyone around you is doing, or comfortable with doing, the same thing, then you can include this kind of statement in a High Court Ruling and get away with it.

In a true own goal, the ruling itself includes the Oxford English Dictionary definition of racism in section 380, which states racism is, amongst other things (and notice the ties to essentialism):

…a belief that the members of different racial or ethnic groups possess specific characteristics, abilities, or qualities, which can be compared and evaluated.

By its own definition, this ruling is making a racist statement - in this case, an Islamophobic one - by making sweeping categorical statements about the entirety of the Tower Hamlets Muslim population. And then goes on to claim there is no racism happening within the local political sphere of Tower Hamlets. It’s cognitive dissonance to the extreme!

And if you think it is just an isolated occurrence, I leave the following section (section 159) for you to consider with the above essentialist lens::

The second thing we get from the Irish cases is that the question of spiritual influence cannot be divorced from a consideration of the target audience. Time and again in the Irish cases it was stressed that the Catholic voters were men of simple faith, usually much less well educated than the clergy who were influencing them, and men whose natural instinct would be to obey the orders of their priests (even more their bishops). This principle still holds good. In carrying out the assessment a distinction must be made between a sophisticated, highly educated and politically literate community and a community which is traditional, respectful of authority and, possibly, not fully integrated with the other communities living in the same area. As with undue influence in the civil law sphere, it is the character of the person sought to be influenced that is key to whether influence has been applied.

This is a court ruling and not a Daily Telegraph opinion piece, if you can believe it!!

What this all means

The lessons from Come As You Are, when elaborated as above, have really helped me notice all the places and ways essentialism happens (for instance, High Court rulings), and exactly why it is so bad. Any situation in which someone communicates some characteristic inherently, essentially applies to a person, or a group of people, is in some way dehumanising them.

I guess this is now something I am more aware of, and apply more care towards when I am formulating my thoughts. Am I talking about instances of behaviour, patterns of behaviour, containable, finite things which are only incomplete aspects of the people they are associated with? Or am I guilty of absorbing the whole of someone, or some people’s, personhood(s) within my statements? How can I make sure I use language that does the former, and hold others accountable for doing the same?

There is additionally something sad and limiting about this - if we feel like we already understand everything about who we both are, how do we learn from each other? How do we grow and change? From the quote at the beginning, how do we explore and discover? Being open to not knowing and understanding is the only way to move forwards!

It is also worth saying I still believe there is a significant use for social statistics - there is no doubt situations where looking at patterns across populations and demographics can help inform, and are necessary for, decision making⁷. My issue comes from then taking these patterns and applying them top-down and de facto to people, rather than discovering whether they truly apply to people by engaging with them.

When it comes to connecting with others, it feels critical to approach all individuals as who they are - normal people who may or may not reflect the norms of people with their identity. Muslims in Tower Hamlets are not all the same, and my sexuality will always be uniquely different to everyone else.

And now some questions for the comments - where have you come across problematic essentialism? How has your understanding of essentialism changed over time? I’d love to hear your thoughts!