Tolerance: Circles of Inclusion and Exclusion

This chapter on the concept and practice of tolerance makes use of the legal case Begum together with three other cases from the same period: X v Y, Playfoot and Watkins-Singh. The chapter analyses the debates about the cases in two broadsheets: The Guardian and The Telegraph. The cases all concerned the rights of schoolgirls in state schools to wear particular kinds of religious clothing and symbols: two different versions of the hijab, a Christian purity ring, and a Sikh bangle. Examining the way tolerance and difference and identity are articulated across the debates about the four cases, I show how lines of inclusion and exclusion are articulated, existing side by side and competing within the same representational space of British multiculturalism.